TJNOTES
TJNOTES
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PRELUDE &
OZYMANDIAS
TJNOTES
How is a loss of power explored in ‘The Prelude: Stealing the Boat’ and one other poem?
In The Prelude and Ozymandias, both Wordsworth and Shelley explore a decline in and
eventual loss of power. Both poems belong to the romantic period, and therefore share
similarities in the way that power is presented to the reader, but also contrast in the way
that decline in power is explored. The subject’s reaction to the realisation that man is
poems.
TJNOTES
insignificant alone in the grand scheme of nature is presented entirely differently in both
In the prelude, the boy takes the boat in ‘an act of stealth And troubled pleasure’ this
emphasises the juxtaposition of emotions experienced by the boy, the noun ‘stealth’ implies
a furtive, premeditated idea which sits uncomfortably with the oxymoron ‘troubled
TJNOTES
pleasure’ the adjectival troubled alongside the abstract noun pleasures explores the
confused and undermined expression of Wordsworth’s interaction with nature. This
contrasts with the words of arrogance carved into the pedestal, about the now deceased
and forgotten emperor Ozymandias ‘my name is Ozymandias, King of kings’ Shelley’s biblical
allusion within this line mimics the religious lexicon allowing himself to appear as a god on
earth.
TJNOTES
The romantic ideal of examining ‘The Sublime’ (nature, society, the individual, abstract
ideologies, that are verging on the incomprehensible/magnificent/awesome) is debated in
both Shelley’s and Wordsworth’s poems, however the contrast comes as Wordsworth is
humbled by the enormity of nature, whereas Shelley is exploding the abstract idea of power
whilst introducing an argument for the permanence of art. The Prelude is written in blank
verse; this natural free flowing exploration of Wordsworth’s complex relationship with
TJNOTES
nature is conversational with the reader allowing an engagement and insight into the
presumed power and then paradoxical decline into guilt and disturbance. The enjambment
encourages, through a lack of pauses, a continuity of form to occur in the ideas throughout
the poem signifying an unrelenting shift into the disturbance of feeling and the rhythmic
movement of the boat through the still waters of the lake. The content of the poem can be
found in the form; the rolling emotions, cascading and changing.
TJNOTES
Shelley uses the sonnet form which is usually assigned to a poem based on love, however by
contravening the usual structural conventions of a sonnet he manages to emphasise the
broken/self-love that Ozymandias has for himself thusly outlining the destructive nature of
oppressive regimes and the seeking of adoration in a religious manner. In The Prelude, once
the boy has encountered the ‘grim shape’ and returned from the lake he experiences a
reflective period, ‘huge and mighty forms, that do not live like living men, moved slowly
TJNOTES
through the mind’ the personification of the forms which move through the speaker’s mind
reinforce the idea that nature is a separate entity, one which is more powerful than man and
with the adverb ‘slowly’ conjures the image of a relentless barrage of pessimism; a
realisation of a coming of age. There is an objectification of ‘the mind’ separating his body
from his consciousness and therefore finding a deity in nature; a collective consciousness.
TJNOTES
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