The Prelude: A Parallel Text

Wordsworth, William; Maxwell, J. C. (editor)

ISBN 10: 0300027567 / ISBN 13: 9780300027563

Published by Yale University Press, New Haven, 1981

About this Item

As new soft cover book. Unread. First Yale University Press soft cover edition, first printing. Printing line on copyright page reads: "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.".

Seller Inventory # 002284

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Prelude: A Parallel Text
• Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven
• Publication Date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300027567
• ISBN 13: 9780300027563
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: First Thus
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket (as issued)
• Weight: 14 ounces

About this title

Synopsis

First published in July 1850, shortly after Wordsworth's death, The Prelude was the culmination of over fifty years of creative work. The great Romantic poem of human consciousness, it takes as its theme 'the growth of a poet's mind': leading the reader back to Wordsworth's formative moments of childhood and youth, and detailing his experiences as a radical undergraduate in France at the time of the Revolution. Initially inspired by Coleridge's exhortation that Wordsworth write a work upon the French Revolution, The Prelude has ultimately become one of the finest examples of poetic autobiography ever written; a fascinating examination of the self that also presents a comprehensive view of the poet's own creative vision.

From the Back Cover

The great Romantic poem of human consciousness, The Prelude takes as its theme 'the growth of a poet's mind'. In its search for the origins of the adult personality, The Prelude takes the reader back to the formative moments of childhood and youth: the baby at the breast, the boy ranging over the Cumbrian fells, the revolutionary undergraduate. In many ways it can be seen as the first modern poem, challenging Milton in its redefinition of epic, as Milton challenged Homer and Virgil. This new Penguin English Poets edition of The Prelude contains the brief first draft, Was It for This, composed in 1798; The Prelude in two books completed in 1799; and The Prelude in its 1805 and 1850 versions, printed here in parallel texts. The editor provides an invaluable introduction to the texts and fuller, more detailed notes than in any previous edition, as well as significant textual variants and a biographical table of dates.