Summary Extract from The Prelude - W. Wordsworth - Poem + Analysis
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the poem ‘Extract from The Prelude’ by William Wordsworth.
These notes are tailored towards students from Y9 to A-Level (age 13+), including being suitable for collections such as AQA Power and Conflict Poetry.
The analysis includes the following:
The P...
One summer evening (led by her) I found
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cove, its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
Pushed from the shore. It was an act of
stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor 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. But now, like one who
rows,
Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
I dipped 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 horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
, Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the covert of the willow tree;
There in her mooring-place I left my bark, -
And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
VOCABULARY
Stealth - sneaky, secretive behaviour - suggests a thief or cunning
Pinnace - small exploratory boat, driven by oars
Idle / idly - lazy/ lazily, without movement
Unswerving - not moving off course, not moving left or right
Summit - highest point of a mountain
Elfin - elf-like
Stature - can mean the height of a person but it an also mean their reputation,
respectability, importance or status
Craggy - covered in crags, sharp, jagged, rough rock
Desertion - abandonment / being left
Solitude - loneliness/isolation
Mooring-place - a place where you tie up a boat
Bark - boat
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