The Prelude extract Eduqas Anthology: Wordsworth’s Skating scene)
- Why is the poem known as a Romantic poem? What is distinctive about the narrator’s remembrance of the past? Does the past make him happy? Are the poet and the natural world in harmony throughout the poem? Why does the process of remembrance render such events more prominent than others? Does the poet’s memory rely on voluntary memory or can you detect anything less voluntary too?
- If the skating was a repeated event from the poet’s childhood, then how could this remembrance shape his future self? Is the recurrence a necessary part of the joy? Is ‘skating’ a metaphor for the journey of life with its pleasures and perils? How far is the ‘frosty’ setting essential to the experience of the poem? Think about the way the senses are affected by such intense cold and also by the way frost transforms the appearance of the landscape. Does it appear to freeze moments in time too?
- Sensory details dominate the poem and make it memorable through its animation of the past. Find two examples of resonant sensory impressions. Think about their effects and power to animate. Why can memory sustain us throughout our lives?
- What is represented by the reference to the ‘cottage windows’ and how does this reference function in the poem? Is home a sanctuary associated with warmth and light? If so, is it the stability of home that gives him the confidence to pursue his skating adventures, literally and metaphorically?
- The poet ‘heeded not the summons’ of his home. Why is this defiance necessary for the poet’s adventure and pleasure? Is the poet’s independence related to his risk-taking? Does he need to break familial structures and routines in order to develop his sense of autonomy?
- If the poet is also an ‘untir’d horse’ what does the description of himself bring to the poem? What insights do we gain into his state of mind? Is this image something to do with being more tamed at home?
- ‘Into the tumult sent an alien sound.’ If this reference is the only disturbing or anomalous detail in the poem, what is the poet communicating to the reader and why is he doing this? Is the word ‘alien’ essential to the experience of growing up and the development of self? Is the poet even subtly or unconsciously mentioning the inevitability of encroaching mortality in the midst of life?
