GCSE and A-Level Goblin: Wordsworth’s “Prelude” - About the Author
“Most GCSE English students will be tested on how well they understand the context of their poetry anthologies, and if you are taking English with the AQA exam board, you have been suffering with Wordsworth’s “The Prelude - stealing a boat”. I am so sorry, and bearing in mind I live in hell, that really means something.
So, let’s take a look at the factors of Wordsworth’s life and the time in which ”The Prelude” was written, so we can learn the context. Then, in a few months, you can all try to forget he ever wrote it.
Important Author’s Context for “The Prelude”
Grew up in the Lake District - Ole’ Wordsworth grew up in an extremely pretty part of the UK called the Lake District. It’s a rural, idyllic area of natural beauty and the lakes, mountains, and generally breathtaking scenery are obviously present in his GOD AWFUL poem “The Prelude”.
Bad homelife, spent a lot of time outdoors - His father worked away from home for long periods and his mother died when he was 7. He and his siblings were then raised by other family members who he strongly disliked. It’s fair to assume that, compared to his home life, the outdoors represented freedom, beauty, and adventure.
The Prelude was meant to be part 1 of 3! - Wordsworth wanted to make a three-part epic, and the part we know (and most of us detest) would only have been part one of three. He spent many decades working on it and improving it, and was sad that he never completed it before he died. Just think how much worse the GCSEs could have been if he had finished it.
This is a true story - “The Prelude” is actually a true story, which somehow only makes it slightly more irritating. When the young man steals the boat, the exhilaration he feels is not imagined; these are teenaged William’s memories. We can be much more certain in our interpretations based on this fact, as Wordsworth is reporting his lived experiences!
Important Historical Context for “The Prelude”
Romantic Poet - Mr. William Mountains-are-too-big Wordsworth was a romantic poet, which doesn’t mean he gave people he fancied lots of roses, it means he was part of the romantic poetry movement. Romantic poets rejected the industrialisation of the UK, and in particular anything that reduced or blemished the beautiful rural countryside he loved. You can see this sentiment throughout “The Prelude”, maybe he was afraid it would take the part of the world that gave him peace.
The Enlightenment period - Romantic poetry can be seen as a direct reaction to the ‘Enlightenment’, a time in which massive advancements were being made in science and technology. And, culture changed along with it, too. It became much more common to view life from the point of view of rational, scientific experimentation. Romantic poets wanted to use poetry to bring the ‘romance’ of the natural, the supernatural, the soul, and the big questions about where humans fit into the universe (spiritually) back into the public consciousness. Things had got a bit too clinical, and they wanted to add some of the mystery and spice back into life.
Protesting power - Romantic poets got a bit of a reputation for protesting against powerful institutions. Perhaps this was part of not wanting everything to be viewed so scientifically. In this way, at the time, being a romantic poet was a bit like being an 18th-century bad boy; the 1798 version of a cool guy on a motorbike wearing a leather jacket, telling the police that he, “doesn’t believe in organised government” before he speeds off down the road and pulls a wheelie.
Supported the French Revolution - Romantic poets were such rebels that they were actually vocally in support of the French Revolution. They thought it was great… until people started guillotining rich people’s heads off left, right, and centre. Then they thought it had gone a bit far and stopped talking about it.
Summing Up
As much as I, personally, would like to go back in time, wrestle the quill pen out of his hands, and threaten to beat him to death with an angry chicken if he continued to write “The Prelude”, you can see that a certain amount of love, thought, passion, and even politics comes into Wordsworth’s magnum opus (great work of art/literature). As you read it now, you should see the influences of his love of nature, how it made him feel safe, and how it held magical beauty and wonder for him. You can see his distaste for industrialisation, and how he views great features of nature, like mountains, to be far more worthy of human awe (being impressed and a bit scared) than factories and telephone lines. So as much as it pains me, I try to remember that he was a bit more of a poetic bad boy with knuckle tattoos, than a stuffy rich dude who didn’t like progress.
So, yeah, sorry. Now you know more, and have to respect him a tiny bit. At least you can rest assured knowing he currently resides in a disgusting little work cubicle, in the “Hell’s Great!” marketing corporation, on the 7th layer of Hell (and that little reference to Milton’s “Paradise Lost” would have really wound him up as well, because he wanted “The Prelude” to be a literary rival for Milton’s epic… and it did’t).”
