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Beginning The Prelude: analysis

Professor Simon Bainbridge discusses the opening two sentences of Wordworth's The Prelude, explaining how these lines introduce the poem’s key themes.

In this video, Professor Simon Bainbridge discusses the opening two sentences of The Prelude, explaining how these lines introduce the poem’s key themes.

As you will remember from this week’s opening video, Simon and Jeff looked at the manuscript of these lines held in the Jerwood Centre. You can download an image of this page of the manuscript from the downloads section below.

Do you think it makes a difference to your understanding of the poem, and of how it was written, to be able to see the manuscript version?

Please note, you may need to use the zoom function on your pdf reader to enlarge the manuscript.

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William Wordsworth: Poetry, People and Place

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