William Wordsworth's "The Prelude"

“The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind” is an autobiographical poem by William Wordsworth. There are three versions of the poem. “Two-Part Prelude” was the first version of the poem that Wordsworth wrote when he was twenty eight years old in 1798 to 1799. The second version was found and printed by Ernest de Selincourt in 1926. This version is thirteen books long. The third version was published after Wordsworth’s death and is fourteen books long. “The Prelude” was a poem of a lifetime and Wordsworth never gave it a title. He called it “Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge.” Wordsworth planned to write this with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem was unknown to people until after Wordsworth’s death. His wife Mary gave the poem its final name, “The Prelude; or, Growth of a poet’s Mind.” The poem contains fourteen books: "Introduction – Childhood and School-Time," "School- Time (Continued)," "Residence at Cambridge," "Summer Vacation," "Books," "Cambridge and the Alps," "Residence in London," "Retrospect- Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man," "Residence in France," "Residence in France (Continued)," "Residence in France (Concluded)," "Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored," "Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored (Concluded)," and "Conclusion."

In book one Wordsworth is speaking with a mature point of view. He experiences relief with coming back to nature. He feels optimism and creativity and recalls his past. Wordsworth wishes to create some work of art. He finds that he has a vital soul, knowledge of the underlying principles of things, and a host of painstaking observations of natural phenomena. Instead of historical and martial themes, he is looking for some philosophic song. He then doubts the maturity of his views and decides to review them to see how much they have changed. Wordsworth remembers some of his childhood, like river bathing and climbing to rob bird nests at night. Also he sets a tone in a discussion of education by speaking religiously of nature. Wordsworth describes how when he was young he stole a boat and went across Ullswater Lake. He then imagined that a peak beyond the lake came close and threatened him for taking the boat. This brought him to address what he terms the spirit of the universe. He tells more of pastimes he use to do, but he explains that he tried to be outdoors at all times of the year so the nature could educate him.