'He treated only one subject - himself.' How applicable is this to the Essay

'He treated only one subject - himself.' How applicable is this to the work of Wordsworth - Essay Example Considered one of William Wordsworth's most important poems, The Prelude occupied the poet throughout his life. Wordsworth revised the poem intermittently but he did not publish it during his lifetime. The Prelude is autobiographical and essential to understand Wordsworth' life and poetry. The Prelude's fourteen books collect Wordsworth's meditations on his life, his poetic vocation and its evolution, and some historic critics claim it contains the poet's thoughts on his contemporary political context, such as his views on the French Revolution. However can we really insist that Wordsworth only wrote about himself And if we do, could we argue that other talented poets or authors have not done the same Wordsworth portrayed himself as a gifted man as he could dedicate himself to his poetry. In that sense we find that freedom in his work as he freely talks about all the subjects that he believed were crucial at that time. We would be wrong to see The Prelude as a one subject poem: the a uthor. It is mainly an epic debate of the themes of man and nature, a meditation of the mind. We can note, even from the titles of the fourteen books, -"Childhood and school-time", "Residence at Cambridge", "Summer Vacation", "Cambridge and the Alps", "Residence in London", "Residence in France", that this long poem is purely autobiographical. It would be a mistake. Using himself as a character, applying a personification, is only the method which Wordsworth chose to explore the themes of man and nature, and depict the "life of a nineteenth century man" Wordsworth is also referring to his own evolution, recognizing he has lost his childhood's imagination and replaced it with the wisdom that comes with age. The narrator is the poet himself and the subject of the poem is the poet. However, this is a timeless theme, the loss of innocence, the passage from childhood to being adult. This newfound wisdom allows him to see the "still, sad music of humanity" because he can achieve a more meaningful and realistic understanding of nature. This poem brings together two of what were Wordsworth's most profound concerns: nature and the self. Furthermore, Wordsworth needs to depict himself in his poems as he's presenting complex notions which can only be argued by living experiences. In "Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth wrote "the picture of the mind revives again" presenting one of his most important ideas: the memory is the instrument of the associative or transformative power. He sees a landscape through his mental picture of the same landscape, but five years earlier. How would it be possible to develop such a theory if he had not experienced it himself And what better means of persuading the reader of the true nature of this theory than depicting a personal experience - therefore personifying himself - which can bind every human being For Wordsworth, poetry was more than just a form of creative expression. He regarded it as a learning tool he could use to educate his readers on significance of history. Wordsworth believed that history not only shaped the world in which man lived, but also mankind itself. Wordsworth did not allow the repetition of history's mistakes to turn him into a jaded cynic. He productively used what he had seen, experienced and red and transformed it into poetry which was not only eloquent, but educational. With "The Prelude," he was speaking directly to his readers, in