﻿IV 



The Round of Thought in 'The Prelude' 



Our final examination of Wordsworth's mind should regard 

 chiefly ' The Prelude ; or, Growth of a Poet 's Mind ; an Autobiogra- 

 phical Poem. ' This poem refers specifically to the first twenty- 

 eight years of the author's life and was written between 1799 and 

 1805, though not printed till just after his death in 1850. 



Its purpose is to record the growth of the poetic consciousness; 

 to show hoAV emotional egotism becomes a form of poetic energy 

 that seeks its milieu, its means of expansion and expression, in 

 surrounding nature; to show how objects become for the poet 

 images of thought and symbols of the great relationship of nature 

 with man and of man with his fellow beings. Because all this is 

 embodied in a round of peculiarly individual experience, it be- 

 comes generally true to man and to nature, and takes on many 

 widening significances that touch vitally the poetic thought of the 

 day. For whether this round of individual romantic experience is 

 reflected momentarily and spontaneously as in a song of Burns, or 

 whether it is elaborated intellectually and fantastically as in a 

 drama by Goethe or Byron, it presents, as we have already sug- 

 gested, the same common traits — emotional egotism, intense sym- 

 pathy with nature, triumphant discovery there of the symbols for 

 social readjustment. These things seem to be part of nearly all 

 contemporary genius. 



I make this statement not as a thesis to be defended, but merely 

 in the hope of clarifying rapidly again what is meant by the phrase 

 in my heading, the round of tJiought. Though I hold that this 

 round, as I have described it, is typical, not only of Wordsworthian 

 thought, but of most romantic thought as well, I do not wish here 

 to contribute further to the discussion of what is romanticism; I 

 wish only to base my analysis of 'The Prelude' on principles that 

 may be seen to have widening significances. It seems the more 

 necessary to point this out, when it is considered that the poem has 

 its source in the peculiarly personal and private feelings of a 

 thorough individualist, and that, in finding the origin of his round 

 of thought in his intense egotism, I am individualizing the ideas of 

 the poem rather than relating them to contemporary ideas. Ob- 



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