Knowra The Prelude The Prelude The Prelude is William Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem tracing the development of his mind and poetic imagination. First published after his death in 1850, it exists in several versions.
Autobiographical poetry : Poetry that draws on a poet’s life, memories, and personal experience. Wordsworth turns his own life into the poem’s subject and evidence.
The boat-stealing episode : An episode in The Prelude in which a boy steals a boat and feels pursued by a looming mountain. The boy’s fear marks nature as a power that can unsettle and discipline the mind.
William Wordsworth : An English poet whose works helped shape Romanticism, including Lyrical Ballads and The Prelude. He composed and repeatedly revised the autobiographical poem across much of his life.
The Excursion : Wordsworth’s long philosophical poem, published in 1814 as part of his projected work The Recluse. Unlike The Prelude’s personal history, it develops its concerns through dialogue among characters.
The sublime : An aesthetic experience of overwhelming vastness or power that can exceed ordinary comprehension. The poem repeatedly stages encounters with natural grandeur that unsettle and enlarge the mind.
Romanticism : A movement in art and literature emphasizing imagination, emotion, nature, and individual experience. The poem’s account of imagination and nature is central to English Romanticism.
The skating episode : An episode in The Prelude recalling a boy skating on a frozen lake beneath a winter sky. Sound, motion, and darkness turn childhood play into an imaginative encounter with the sublime.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge : An English poet and critic, known for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and his collaboration with Wordsworth. Wordsworth conceived the poem partly as an account of the mind intended to precede Coleridge’s philosophical work.
The Ruined Cottage : A narrative poem by Wordsworth about a woman’s hardship, later incorporated into The Excursion. Its focus on another person’s suffering contrasts with The Prelude’s account of the poet’s own mind.
Poetic speaker : The voice that speaks within a poem, distinct from the author even when drawing on the author’s life. The Prelude’s autobiographical voice invites debate over how its speaker relates to Wordsworth.
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