This book is the first to present Wordsworth's greatest poem in all three of its separate forms. It reprints, on facing pages, the version of The Prelude that was completed in 1805, together with the much-revised work published after the poet's death in 1850. In addition the editors include the two-part version of the poem, composed 1798-99. Each of these poems has its distinctive qualities and values; to read them together provides an incomparable chance to observe a great poet composing and recomposing, through a long life, his major work.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
A beautiful epic, with an English Romantic spin:
It is interesting that Wordsworth should never have published his most impressive poem. Norton calls it the "most original long poem since Milton's Paradise Lost," and it certainly deserves to be ranked alongside the master of the English epic. This poem was not published until after Wordsworth's death in 1850, and there are several versions of it (which are included in this book). The 1798-1799 version is very short, but the 1805 is expanded and includes many epic devices which Wordsworth borrowed from... more info
five stars:
This book articulates a vision of the world and of the emotions it inspires in a cerebral, yet densely imaged poem. Wordsworth did not want the poem published for fears that it was too self-absorbed; adressing earlier reviews that have made this complaint, it is true that the poem is self absorbed in that it presents the vision of the world from an individual perspective...as all poems do. I find Eliot's use of quotations and footnotes drawing on his banks of memory and reading to be far more self-absorbed... more info
Wordsworth: Poet of Anxiety:
I entirely disagree with the prevailing reviews on The Prelude. We have no other secular poem about the futile search for meaning in a meaningless world so fine as the Prelude: it is the Paradise Lost of those who search or long for a fleeting significance. What is significant about the poem is not that we believe what Wordsworth claims about the power of nature and the mind, but that he tried so hard to search out some sense of meaning and order- Wordsworth is the first Modernist writer before there was a... more info
self obsessed and dull:
I used to like the Romantics - but this revealed to me the extent to which they were all immersed in their own selves so much they couldn't see beyond the individual. Wordsworth is long-winded and dull in linguistic terms, but admittedly some of the imagery (boat-stealing episode) is inspired. It is, fundamentally, all about himself though, and traces his own poetic growth which is interesting as a topic, but not the way Wordsworth does it. He throws in a few token pictures of the poor, who he was so... more info
Privacy policy: we don't collect information
about visitors except for the standard technical server logs. We don't send unsolicited emails. We don't
sell the information that we don't collect about you to anyone. When you follow
links to other sites, their privacy policies apply. Thanks for visiting!
