The Prelude Wordsworth

William Wordsworth's The Prelude

William Wordsworth's poem 'The Prelude' is a fascinating work, both as an autobiography and as a fragment of historical evidence from the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years. This volume gathers together 13 essays on 'The Prelude', and is useful as a companion for students and general readers of Wordsworth's greatest poem.

The Prelude

First published in July 1850, shortly after Wordsworth's death, The Prelude was the culmination of over fifty years of creative work. The great Romantic poem of human consciousness, it takes as its theme 'the growth of a poet's mind': leading the reader back to Wordsworth's formative moments of childhood and youth, and detailing his experiences as a radical undergraduate in France at the time of the Revolution. Initially inspired by Coleridge's exhortation that Wordsworth write a work upon the French Revolution, The Prelude has ultimately become one of the finest examples of poetic autobiography ever written; a fascinating examination of the self that also presents a comprehensive view of the poet's own creative vision.

The prelude