Subtitled Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem, The Prelude is an extremely personal work, revealing many details of Wordsworth's life. It was intended as the introduction to a more philosophical poem, The Recluse, which Wordsworth never finished.
Wordsworth initially planned this work as a joint composition with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, their intent being to surpass Milton's Paradise Lost. If The Recluse had been completed, it would have been about three times as long as Paradise Lost (33,000 lines, as compared with 10,500 – not "three times longer", as Wikipedia has it). Wordsworth often commented in his letters that he was plagued with agony because he had failed to finish the work.
The lines quoted come soon after the beginning of what is probably the most famous section of The Prelude, which is entitled The French Revolution as it Appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement. eNotes explains: "As a young man, Wordsworth, like many British liberals, believed that the French Revolution marked the inauguration of a new age of political equality and freedom from tyranny; the old ways that had enslaved men were being changed by Reason, and dreams were coming true because people were concentrating on the problem of how to make life on earth pleasant rather than on how to earn an eternal life of joy. After he had grown apart from nature and momentarily accepted the rationalistic doctrine that man could form a perfect society on earth, Wordsworth was blinded to the full implications of the Revolution. In fact, he believed so strongly in the power of Reason that the Reign of Terror and the execution of the royal family came as a disillusioning shock to him and threw him into such a quandary that for a while he could find nothing solid upon which to build his life. The quotation comes from his account of the dreams of his youth before the period of disillusionment began."
You can read the entire section concerning the French Revolution on the Poetry Foundation website.
Wordsworth began The Prelude in 1798, at the age of 28, and continued to work on it until his death in 1850. He never gave it a title, but in his letters to his sister Dorothy he referred to it as "the Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge". The poem was unknown to the general public until the final version was published three months after Wordsworth's death. The title by which it came to be known was given to it by his widow Mary.
© Haydn Thompson 2020