7.1.2

Personification & Imagery

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Personification of Nature - Gentle

Wordsworth explores the power of nature in The Prelude. Here is how Wordsworth personifies (gives human characteristics to) nature as kind and gentle:

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“one summer evening (led by her)”

  • Although nature is powerful, indicated by the verb “led”, it is also benevolent and gentle.
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“I unloosed her chain, and stepping in / Pushed from the shore”

  • This reinforces the idea that nature is kind and gentle.
  • The enjambment (sentence flowing over a line) could reflect the sense of freedom felt by the poet as he takes off across the lake in the boat.

Personification of Nature - Powerful

Wordsworth explores the power of nature, presenting it as untameable and awe-inspiring.

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Menacing and frightening

  • “The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, / As if with voluntary power instinct, / Upreared its head.”
    • This is different from earlier on in the poem, where nature was characterised as benevolent (all loving).
    • Nature is now personified and characterised as something menacing and frightening.
    • “Black” is associated with ideas of power and death.
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Mountain

  • "For so it seemed, with purpose of its own / And measured motion like a living thing, / Strode after me."
    • The personification here suggests the mountain is powerful.
    • The alliteration of “measured motion” highlights the mountain’s control.

Imagery in The Prelude

There are contrasting images of beauty and darkness to show the two sides of nature.

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Beauty of nature

  • The poet creates positive images of beauty at the start of the poem. This presents nature as awe-inspiring and magical:
    • “Small circles glittering idly in the moon, / Until they melted all into one track / Of sparkling light”.
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Haunting effect of nature

  • “There hung a darkness”.
  • This dark imagery highlights the haunting effect of the experience on the speaker.
  • The verb “hung” indicates that the narrator was unable to get rid of these disturbing thoughts and feelings.

Jump to other topics

1Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

2London - William Blake (1757-1827)

3Storm on the Island - Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

4Exposure - Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

5War Photographer - Carol Ann Duffy (born 1955)

6My Last Duchess - Robert Browning (1812-1889)

7The Prelude - William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

8Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Tennyson

9Bayonet Charge - Ted Hughes (1930-1998)

10Poppies - Jane Weir (Born 1963)

11Tissue - Imtiaz Dharker (Born 1954)

12The Emigree - Carol Rumens (Born 1944)

13Kamikaze - Beatrice Garland (Born 1938)

14Checking Out Me History - John Agard (Born 1949)

15Remains - Simon Armitage (Born 1963)

16Grade 9 - Themes & Comparisons

16.1Grade 9 - Themes & Comparisons

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