William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet known for writing about nature and ordinary life. The Prelude was intended as a preface for his longer philosophical work The Recluse, which was never completed. This section of The Prelude describes Wordsworth's involvement with and disillusionment from the French Revolution, as he witnessed it devolve from a war for freedom and equality into one of conquest and corruption.

1. The Prelude
William Wordsworth

2. William Wordsworth
• 1770 – 1850
• Known as the “father”
of Romantic Poetry
• Revolutionized poetry
• Wrote about ordinary
life and nature in
common language
• By the time he was 13
he was an orphan

3. William Wordsworth
• Born and raised in the beautiful Lake District
of England – this beautiful natural
environment became the basis of many of his
poems
• Entered Cambridge University in 1787 and
after graduation he traveled Europe
• Spent time in France where he embraced the
ideals of the French Revolution

4. William Wordsworth
• Fell in love and had an affair with Annette Vallon
• Lack of funds forced his return to England in 1793
• Shortly after England declared war on France and the
Revolution became more bloody and violent and
Wordsworth became very depressed
• His sister Dorothy and fellow poet Coleridge helped
him through it
• In his later years Wordsworth became more
conservative

5. The Prelude
• Prelude – preceding
something else (usually
a longer or more
important work)
• Wordsworth conceived
the poem as preface for
The Recluse

6. The Prelude
• The Recluse was to be his greatest work in
which Wordsworth would discuss his
philosophy
• The Recluse was never finished
• He discusses the creation of “The Poet”
• Autobiographical but not strictly

7. The Prelude
• This section is about his involvement with The French
Revolution
• “meager, stale, forbidding ways/Of custom, law and
statute…” were replaced by “The attraction of a
country in romance”
• “Reason seemed to assert her rights” – personifies
reason (logic, fairness) into a woman an
“enchantress” who seduced the people into
declaring her rights

8. The Prelude
• “The inert/Were roused…They who had fed their childhood
upon dreams…they, too of gentle mood…”
• All the people were swept up in the revolution and the ideals
of freedom
• “Not in Utopia” – they dared to dream of this land of equality
and justice here on earth in their country
• “We find our happiness, or not at all!” – change in tone
• From an idealist positive tone to one of pessimism and doom

9. The Prelude
• “But now become oppressors in their turn…changed a war of
self-defense to one of conquest” – the war that began as a
war of freedom has changed to one of greed and conquest –
speaks to his disillusionment and realization that power
corrupts
• “The scale of liberty[symbolism]. I read her
doom[personification],/With anger vexed, with
disappointment sore,…”- uses these poetic devices to help
the reader visualize and experience the loss of the ideals of
the revolution and the travesty of a people who were used
and lied to

10. The Prelude
• “ To anatomize the frame of social life,/ Yea, the whole body
of society/ Searched to its heart,…”
• He personifies society – he studies the body of it
• “Dragging all precepts…Like culprits to the bar” –
personification – “to the bar” refers to being brought before a
judge
• After analyzing society and making judgments all he is left
with is “Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,/ Yielded up
moral questions in despair.”
• Speaks to his disillusionment, confusion and despair after the
French Revolution