26/10/07 - English Literature - Wordsworth: The Prelude

Wordsworth's Prelude was the great unread of the time. It was a great early document of English Romanticism. Wordsworth lived a long time and wrote and wrote and revised the Prelude, unlike Keats, Shelley and other Romantic poets.

The Prelude is a recuperative piece of poetry, fascinated with childhood (which many Romantics were) as they opened windows of light on perception. When Wordsworth says: "That time is past ... and all its aching joys are now no more", and "Bliss was it in that door to be alive," he refers to the democratic revolution. His work is laden with significant retrospect. He attempts to reconstruct childhood event and experience, sometimes successful in terms of reconstructing child development, but we are too aware that the adult speaker is aware of the reconstructed nature of his work. Wordsworth discovered a creative way to write the historical subject: historical subjectivity. The Prelude could be considered iconic or as an example of the movement and/or progression from childhood into maturity.

In the Prelude is a radical subjectivity discovering how perception is shaped. Also in "Tintern Abbey", "all the mighty world of eye and ear, both what they half crate and half perceive." Memory becomes the ground for cognition; perception is a historical construction. The existential present is always affected by historical experiences. Wordsworth had to find a way to realise his theory, hence his obsessive revison of his work. He based the Prelude on Milton's Paradise Lost, because all the other epics seemed to have been done already. So he chose Milton, an epic of individualism, a single subjective "I". This was a story that no one else had told, until Freud came along with his theories of the unconscious. The first lines of the Prelude echo those of Paradise Lost:

"Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze
That blows from the green fields and from the clouds
And from the sky: it beats against my cheek,
And seems half-conscious of the joy it gives.
O welcome Messenger! O welcome Friend!
A captive greets thee, coming from a house
Of bondage, from yon City's walls set free,
A prison where he hath been long immured.
Now I am free, enfranchis'd and at large,
May fix my habitation where I will.
What dwelling shall receive me? In what Vale
Shall be my harbour? Underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home, and what sweet stream
Shall with its murmur lull me to my rest?
The earth is all before me: with a heart
Joyous, nor scar'd at its own liberty,
I look about, and should the guide I chuse
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again;
Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,
As by miraculous gift 'tis shaken off,
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day
Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life),
Long months of ease and undisturb'd delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn
By road or pathway or through open field,
Or shall a twig or any floating thing
Upon the river, point me out my course?"
[1-32]

Wordsworth articulates that there is a shaping entity out there, constructing a "house of bondage"; echo of Milton. The word "enfranchis'd" had unmistakable political overtones for its association with the right to vote - a right denied to most British people at the time. The last lines of Milton are "The earth is all before me." There is in these lines hope of redemption. Incipient religiosity and spirituality are in us all and we are in it, allowing Wordsworth to detail the development of the "I". He takes the strategy of revival. Keats' "egoistical sublime", like Wordsworth's poetry, is self-questioning and interrogative, and as a result transcended his own experience. There is the sense that we all reach out beyond ourselves. The Prelude is a kind of autobiography (although it has no mention of an illegitimate child or of Wordsworth's affair). Wordsworth 'makes', he does not simply record. The act of writing, although true to events, is also a rewriting.

Wordsworth invented the concept of "spots of time", a crucial determinant of development.

"Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear;
Much favour'd in my birthplace, and no less
In that beloved Vale to which, erelong,
I was transplanted. Well I call to mind
('Twas at an early age, ere I had seen
Nine summers) when upon the mountain slope
The frost and breath of frosty wind had snapp'd
The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy
To wander half the night among the Cliffs
And the smooth Hollows, where the woodcocks ran
Along the open turf. In thought and wish
That time, my shoulder all with springes hung,
I was a fell destroyer. On the heights
Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied
My anxious visitation, hurrying on,
Still hurrying, hurrying onward; moon and stars
Were shining o'er my head; I was alone,
And seem'd to be a trouble to the peace
That was among them. Sometimes it befel
In these night-wanderings, that a strong desire
O'erpower'd my better reason, and the bird
Which was the captive of another's toils
Became my prey; and, when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod.
Nor less in springtime when on southern banks
The shining sun had from his knot of leaves
Decoy'd the primrose flower, and when the Vales
And woods were warm, was I a plunderer then
In the high places, on the lonesome peaks
Where'er, among the mountains and the winds,
The Mother Bird had built her lodge. Though mean
My object, and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung
Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
But ill sustain'd, and almost, as it seem'd,
Suspended by the blast which blew amain,
Shouldering the naked crag; Oh! at that time,
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Blow through my ears! the sky seem'd not a sky
Of earth, and with what motion mov'd the clouds!"
[305-350]

With the words "natural growth", "soul" and "fostering", which means parents but also encouragement, Wordsworth moves into the realm of symbolic birth and development from the natural. The idea of aesthetics is evoked in the line "beautiful and the sublime." The lovely and attractive is juxtaposed with a terrifying notion of nature. Wordsworth naturalises classical theory of the beautiful. Wordsworth's sublime is taken directly from nature and planted within us. Wordsworth has a guilty conscience after raiding the birds' nest which is manifested in natural sounds and subjectivity. The child's experience of stealing eggs is followed by a different lexis of reflecting upon the significance of the "spot of time" just related.

One of Wordsworth's most famous "spots of time" is the boat stealing episode. A moral sense is henceforward instilled in him after he has stolen the boat. A fantasy adventure turns into a horror adventure, causing the boy's moral horizon to widen.

"One evening (surely I was led by her)
I went alone into a Shepherd's Boat,
A Skiff that to a Willow tree was tied
Within a rocky Cave, its usual home.
'Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a Vale
Wherein I was a Stranger, thither come
A School-boy Traveller, at the Holidays.
Forth rambled from the Village Inn alone
No sooner had I sight of this small Skiff,
Discover'd thus by unexpected chance,
Than I unloos'd her tether and embark'd.
The moon was up, the Lake was shining clear
Among the hoary mountains; from the Shore
I push'd, and struck the oars and struck again
In cadence, and my little Boat mov'd on
Even like a Man who walks with stately step
Though bent on speed. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure; not without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my Boat move on,
Leaving behind her still on either side
Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. A rocky Steep uprose
Above the Cavern of the Willow tree
And now, as suited one who proudly row'd
With his best skill, I fix'd a steady view
Upon the top of that same craggy ridge,
The bound of the horizon, for behind
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin Pinnace; lustily
I dipp'd my oars into the silent Lake,
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my Boat
Went heaving through the water, like a Swan;
When from behind that craggy Steep, till then
The bound of the horizon, a huge Cliff,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Uprear'd its head. I struck, and struck again,
And, growing still in stature, the huge Cliff
Rose up between me and the stars, and still,
With measur'd motion, like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling hands I turn'd,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the Cavern of the Willow tree.
There, in her mooring-place, I left my Bark,
And, through the meadows homeward went, with grave
And serious thoughts; and after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Work'd with a dim and undetermin'd sense
Of unknown modes of being; in my thoughts
There was a darkness, call it solitude,
Or blank desertion, no familiar shapes
Of hourly objects, images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty Forms that do not live
Like living men mov'd slowly through the mind
By day and were the trouble of my dreams."
[372-489]

Wordsworth gives nature a capital "N", signifying the idea of Mother Nature and fostering, as above. Fantasy themes are explored - elves, moon shining, water droplets. The band of the horizon represents boundaries both physical and moral. Then the language turns to that of terror. As he rows, the boy sees something appearing above the cliff, a trick of perspective where as he rows further away, the things seems to get bigger. He becomes afraid and feels guilty for 'stealing' the boat. The incident itself is rewritten from motion, to "struck and struck" again. The boy does not know what he has learnt, but the adult does and meditates on it. The boy has learned conscience.

In the skating episode, the child Wordsworth is skating on a lake with his friends. It is about the passage of time, which is in itself a difficult concept.

"And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight blaz'd,
I heeded not the summons:---happy time
It was, indeed, for all of us; to me
It was a time of rapture: clear and loud
The village clock toll'd six; I wheel'd about,
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse,
That cares not for his home.---All shod with steel,
We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chace
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din,
Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud,
The leafless trees, and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the image of a star
That gleam'd upon the ice: and oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks, on either side,
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion; then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopp'd short, yet still the solitary Cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had roll'd
With visible motion her diurnal round;
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep."
[452-489]

Wordsworth uses animal imagery in all the episodes of the Prelude, e.g. "untired horse", "swan." The line "alien sound of melancholy" reflects the reality that echoes die. Wordsworth uses open vowels to catch the dying cadence of the last words in each line, like an echo. The boy does not know he is learning about time and transience, but the adult does. "All was tranquil as a dreamless sleep" refers to the dying of day, and other images also signal this: the church clock, the sun setting, images of circles like the boy spinning in circles on his skates, to signify the harmonious movement of the universe.

In terms of the poem Wordsworth enacts nature as a formative shaper of conscience.

Book 6 is about the turmoil in France. Wordsworth is in church and England declares war on France. The greater infanticism (England) declares war on an insipient republic (France). Wordsworth holds onto his republicanism, but his personal opinions make him a traitor in the light of the war.

"Such was my then belief, that there was one,
And only one solicitude for all;
And now the strength of Britain was put forth
In league with the confederated Host,
Not in my single self alone I found,
But in the minds of all ingenuous Youth,
Change and subversion from this hour. No shock
Given to my moral nature had I known
Down to that very moment; neither lapse
Nor turn of sentiment that might be nam'd
A revolution, save at this one time,
All else was progress on the self-same path
On which with a diversity of pace
I had been travelling; this a stride at once
Into another region. True it is,
'Twas not conceal'd with what ungracious eyes
Our native Rulers from the very first
Had look'd upon regenerated France
Nor had I doubted that this day would come.
But in such contemplation I had thought
Of general interests only, beyond this
Had [never] once foretasted the event.
Now had I other business for I felt
The ravage of this most unnatural strife
In my own heart; there lay it like a weight
At enmity with all the tenderest springs
Of my enjoyments. I, who with the breeze
Had play'd, a green leaf on the blessed tree
Of my beloved country; nor had wish'd
For happier fortune than to wither there,
Now from my pleasant station was cut off,
And toss'd about in whirlwinds. I rejoiced,
Yea, afterwards, truth most painful to record!
Exulted in the triumph of my soul
When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown,
Left without glory on the Field, or driven,
Brave hearts, to shameful flight. It was a grief,
Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that,
A conflict of sensations without name,
Of which he only who may love the sight
Of a Village Steeple as I do can judge
When in the Congregation, bending all
To their great Father, prayers were offer'd up,
Or praises for our Country's Victories,
And 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance,
I only, like an uninvited Guest
Whom no one own'd sate silent, shall I add,
Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come?"
[228-275]

Wordsworth looks back on his younger radical self and calls it "ingenuous". He uses Miltonian language such as "uninvited guest" - signifying Satan in Paradise - to express his republicanism. He is true to his earlier memories.