Gents Mag 1850 part 2 p.459

---

	introduction
	list, 3rd qtr 19th century
	Gentleman's Magazine 1850 part 2 p.459
The Prelude   William Wordsworth
	The Prelude, William Wordsworth book review WORDSWORTH'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM.* IN noticing "The Prelude by William Wordsworth," we must become for a while retrospective reviewers; for this poem is not of to-day, nor even of this generation. Five times, since its concluding lines were written, has the period enjoined by Horace for the revision and retouching of the original manuscript passed away; nor, in the meanwhile, has the work been remodeled by its author. It is, as it were, virgin from his pen. It is now printed as Wordsworth conceived and transcribed it nearly half a century ago. It relates, objectively, to the England and Europe of 1800; and, subjectively, to the vernal prime of him who, but a few months ago, died full of years and honours. Both historically and psychologically, therefore, this posthumous yet youthful work is of the highest interest. Historically, it carries us back to the very threshold of the nineteenth century. "It was commenced in 1799, and completed in the summer of 1805." It speaks to us across a gulf of fifty years. Nor is the circumstance of its real date alone impressive; for during that interval of fifty years, while the manuscript slumbered in its author's desk, or was partially communicated to his friends, more complete and comprehensive mutations were enacted in the world than vcan be recorded of any equal period of time, without excepting even the half-century that followed the victory at Plataea, or that which succeeded the burning of the Papal bull and decreatals at Wittnebergh. In literature as well as in history most things during that interval have "become new." For the Prelude is elder than the meridian products of Goethe's genius, than the deepest thoughts of Jean Paul, than the criticism of the Schlegels, than the philosophical works of Coleridge, than the poetry and the prose of Byron, Shelley, Southey, and Carlyle. And, as regards history, the Prelude is anterior to the greatest war and to the most appalling catastrophe the world has ever seen. It is elder, too, than all the mechanical strides of science, and all the political and social developments which have rendered the nineteenth century an epoch far more momentous and marvellous than any epoch of equal duration "in ancient or in modern books enrolled." We approach, therefore, this record of a poet's mind with a feeling of two-fold homage - in part to his genius, and in part to the age; and, in relation to the Prelude itself, the sources of this homage are so intimately connected with each other, that in our abstract and survey of it we shall not attempt to separate them. The octogenarian bard may be fitly regarded as a representative of the acts and thoughts of the last half-century. The Prelude, as its title-page indicates, is a poetical autobiography, commencing with the author's earliest reminiscences and experiences, down to the year 1805. It consists of fourteen books. Two of these are devoted to the childhood and school-time of the
	* "The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; an Autobiographical Poem, William Wordsworth." London: Moxon. 1850.
	next page

Lakes Guides menu.

---