Extract From The Prelude edexcel 4-The-Poetry-Anthology

‘Extract from The Prelude’

Your Edexcel GCSE English Literature poetry anthology contains 15 poems, and in your exam you will be given one poem – printed in full – and asked to compare it to another one from the anthology. As this is a “closed book” exam, you will not have access to the second poem, so you will need to know it from memory. Fifteen poems is a lot to revise. However, if you understand these four essential things about each poem, you will be able to produce a top-grade response:

• The meaning of the poem

• The ideas and messages the poet wanted to convey

• How the poet uses poetic methods to convey these ideas and messages

• How the ideas and themes in each poem compare and contrast with the ideas and themes of the other poems in the anthology

Here is a guide to William Wordsworth’s ‘Extract from The Prelude’ (also known as ‘Boat Stealing’), from the Conflict Anthology. It includes the following sections:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an analysis of the poet’s techniques and methods

• Context: an exploration of the poem’s context in relation to its themes

• What to compare it to: suggestions about which poems to compare it to in the exam

The poem is from Edexcel’s poetry anthology (opens in a new tab). 

Overview

In order to answer an essay question on any poem, it is essential that you understand what it is about. This section includes:

• The poem in a nutshell

• An explanation of the poem, section-by-section

• An outline of Wordsworth’s intention and message in each of these sections

‘The Prelude’ in a nutshell

‘The Prelude’ is different from the other poems in the anthology. Instead of being a stand-alone poem, it is an extract from a much longer, autobiographical, epic poem by William Wordsworth. The speaker in the poem is remembering a night when, as a young boy, he stole a boat and rowed out into the middle of a lake. At first, he finds this exciting, but then he becomes frightened by the sight of a huge mountain and rows back to shore. The memory of the mountain stays in his mind for days. 

The overall idea is that Wordsworth feels confident when he takes the boat out to the lake, but his feelings change when he encounters the vast and imposing mountain, as it reminds him of the fragility of human beings compared with the awesome and enduring power of nature. Therefore, the main themes in the poem are the power of nature and the realisation of the speaker’s insignificance compared to nature.

‘The Prelude’ breakdown

Lines 1–16

“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.”

Explanation

• One summer night, the speaker is guided by nature to a rocky bay, where he finds a boat tied to a willow tree

• The speaker unties the boat and steals it

• He knows that he shouldn’t steal the boat, but he enjoys doing it

• The surrounding mountains create echoes of the boy’s movements across the water

• The oars leave circular ripples in the water that glitter in the moonlight, and merge into one in the wake of the boat

• The speaker feels proud of his rowing skills and focuses on the jagged edge of a distant mountain to keep him rowing in a straight line

• The mountain edge is the highest point he can see on the horizon; there is nothing but stars and sky above it

Wordsworth’s intention

• The “her” in the first line is Wordsworth’s way of referring to Nature:

  • Nature is seen as a feminine power – Mother Nature – that creates, sustains and nurtures life

• By personifying nature, Wordsworth is contrasting it with individual human beings:

  • Nature controls the entire planet, making it a far greater power than humanity 

• At the beginning of the poem, the speaker’s relationship with nature is trusting and peaceful

• The poet paints a tranquil and beautiful picture of nature and a young boy’s ability to engage with it

Lines 17–20

“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;”

Explanation

• The speaker describes his little boat as an “elfin pinnace”; to him, it’s like an elf’s boat

• The boy’s enthusiastic and confident rowing makes his boat move fast through the water “like a swan”

Wordsworth’s intention

• These lines reveal the boy’s delight that he can exercise some power over nature

• However, his sense of control is an illusion:

  • Nature is guiding him, so ultimately controls his movements

Lines 21–31

“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;”

Explanation

• The jagged edge of the mountain is the highest thing the boy can see, until he gets closer

• Close up, an even bigger mountain appears behind the edge; it is black and giant:

  • This mountain seems to lift its head up as if it were alive

• As the speaker rows on, the mountain gets bigger and bigger, blocking out the stars

• The mountain seems to want to pursue the speaker, whose terrified trembling makes his oars shake

• The speaker turns the boat around and rows back to the safety of the willow tree

Wordsworth’s intention

• Wordsworth hides the mountain behind the crag like a monster waiting to pounce

• The true, hidden power of nature is revealed by the mountain’s appearance

• At first, nature was encouraging the speaker, but now it seems to be threatening him

• Wordsworth personifies the mountain as a wild creature with a “purpose of its own” 

• This changes the boy’s encounter with nature from calm to unexpectedly frightening

• Wordsworth is revealing that nature is not always a friendly force

• Nature’s power is mysterious:

  • It can be beautiful and enjoyable, but it can also be terrifying

Lines 32–44

“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.”

Explanation

• The speaker ties the boat back up and walks home in a serious mood

• After this experience, the speaker is troubled by thoughts of things he knew nothing about, and he struggles to understand them:

  • These are the “unknown modes of being” in the world

• His thoughts are clouded by a kind of darkness, which feels like being alone or abandoned

• He can no longer imagine nature as simply beautiful and comforting

• Now, he can only think about giant, strange, powerful shapes, which give him nightmares

Wordsworth’s intention

• These lines reveal the effect the experience has on the speaker

• He realises that his previous understanding of nature was mistaken

• He has seen that there are strange and unexpected aspects of nature

• This reinforces the message that nature is something to be feared as well as enjoyed

• This also symbolises a turning point for the boy, as his childhood innocence becomes a more adult reality

• He no longer feels safe in his relationship with nature, which he now sees as unpredictable 

• This change symbolises the transition from childhood to adulthood, as the speaker is never able to see the world through a child’s eyes again

Writer’s methods

Although this section is organised into three separate sections – form, structure and language – it is important to take an integrated approach to AO2. First, focus on the main themes of the poem, then, evaluate how Wordsworth’s language, structure and form contribute to these themes. Think about how and why the poet has made the choices they have in relation to their message and intentions. 

Focusing on the themes, rather than individual poetic techniques, will gain you far more marks. In the following sections, all analysis is arranged by theme, and includes Wordsworth’s intentions behind his choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

It is important to remember that this extract is part of a much longer narrative poem. It has no stanzas, which reminds the reader that this is a single, contained incident from a much longer work. There are some useful comments you can make about why Wordsworth may have used blank verse and iambic pentameter to explore the development of his imagination and spiritual growth in relation to his experience of nature.

Structure

Wordsworth has structured the poem as a single stanza, with no line breaks; this continuity emphasises the overwhelming power of nature, and the mood of the poem changes as it progresses to reflect the change that the speaker experiences within himself.

Language

Wordsworth explores his spiritual journey further through his use of language devices, which emphasise the speaker’s confrontation with the power and supremacy of nature and the conflict between childhood and adulthood.