![]() ![]() ![]() He recollects some of his childhood activities, among them river-bathing (he sported like a naked savage) and climbing and robbing of birds' nests while wandering at night. In his indecision, he feels that if he reviews the ideas he formed in childhood and traces their history up until early manhood, he will find whether they have had any lasting truth and permanence. If such views change radically after he has recorded them, his analysis of them will be worthless. He is searching instead for "some philosophic song that cherishes our daily life." He is next assailed by doubts about the maturity of his views. He rejects historical and martial themes, as well as mere anecdotes from his personal history. In assessing his faculties, Wordsworth finds he has the three necessary ingredients for creativity: a vital soul knowledge of the underlying principles of things and a host of painstaking observations of natural phenomena. He mentions in passing the typical moodiness of the poet in likening him to a lover. His wish to create some profound work of art calls for a re-disciplining of his mind, which has recently been dulled by the artificiality of society. He recalls that even then he had intimations of his future greatness. In the delicious quiet, Wordsworth suddenly sees in his mind's eye the cottage of the landlady with whom he stayed as a schoolboy. Feelings of irresponsible freedom and lack of purpose quickly give way to a prevision of an impending period of optimism and creativity. He immediately identifies spiritual freedom with the absence of the encumbrances of civilization. Wordsworth experiences relief in coming back to nature. This material is amalgamated with the poet's adult views of philosophy and art (those views held during the writing and endless revision of The Prelude, roughly from 1799 until 1850). The body of the poem employs flashbacks to describe the development of the poetic mind during youth. The start of Book 1 finds Wordsworth speaking from a mature point of view. It is difficult to fix his age as the poem opens because time constantly shifts backward and forward throughout the narrative. The poet has, by his own account, been too long pent-up in London and only now has managed to return to the beloved Lake District where he spent his childhood and adolescence. Having identified Wordsworth's situation with respect to time by close reading of passages alive with a great range of sounds, one can step back and use this newly gained perspective-along with some applicable concepts from musicology-to find meaning in the poem's confusing overall structure.It is a magnificent autumn day. Because sound is a temporal experience, an exploration of Wordsworth's audible imagery elucidates both his ideal of time and his real-life experience of it. Entering The Prelude by examining the imagery associated with the ear, beginning with the many musical allusions and metaphors enhances one's appreciation of Wordsworth's imagery by opening the door to the rich category of sound. The poet of The Prelude, however, is "now all eye/And now all ear" in the presence of nature, giving equal emphasis to both seeing and hearing, or looking and listening. Sensual imagery has been discussed by many of Wordsworth's critics, but although they might mention "the tyranny of the ear" as closely associated with "the tyranny of the eye," they tend to emphasize visual rather than audible imagery. 1988 Theses Master's Silent Harmony: Music and Time in Wordsworth's Prelude ![]()
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