The Prelude & My Last Duchess

This lesson pairs two poems that explore power in deeply personal ways. Wordsworth's extract from The Prelude dramatises the overwhelming power of nature over the human mind, while Browning's My Last Duchess reveals the chilling power of a man who treats people as possessions. Together, they show how power operates at the individual level — one through awe, the other through control.

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The Prelude (Extract) — William Wordsworth (1799/1850)

Context

Fact	Detail
Poet	William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
Movement	Romantic poet — co-founded Romanticism with Coleridge
Work	The Prelude is a long autobiographical poem (14 books)
Extract	"Stealing the Boat" — a childhood memory from Book I
Published	1850 (posthumously), though written from 1798 onwards
Form	Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)

Wordsworth is the quintessential Romantic poet. The Romantics believed in the sublime — the idea that nature is a force so vast and powerful that it overwhelms human understanding, inspiring a mixture of terror and awe. The Prelude is subtitled "Growth of a Poet's Mind" — the extract describes a pivotal childhood experience that shaped Wordsworth's relationship with nature.

Examiner's tip: The concept of the sublime is essential for this poem. It does not just mean "beautiful" — it means terrifyingly, overwhelmingly powerful. Nature humbles the individual.

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Content Summary

The young Wordsworth steals a boat one evening and rows out onto a lake. He feels confident and powerful at first, but then a huge mountain ("a huge peak, black and huge") seems to rise up and pursue him. Terrified, he rows back to shore. For days afterwards, his mind is haunted by "huge and mighty forms" — the experience has fundamentally changed him.

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Key Quotes

Quote	Technique	Analysis
"One summer evening (led by her)"	Personification	Nature is personified as a female guide — "her." Wordsworth initially sees nature as benign and nurturing.
"an act of stealth / And troubled pleasure"	Oxymoron	"Troubled pleasure" captures the boy's guilt mixed with excitement. The theft foreshadows the moral lesson to come.
"lustily I dipped my oars"	Adverb	"Lustily" conveys youthful confidence and physical energy — the boy feels powerful and in control.
"a huge peak, black and huge"	Repetition / enjambment	The repetition of "huge" emphasises the mountain's overwhelming scale. The enjambment mirrors the way the peak keeps growing.
"As if with voluntary power instinct / Upreared its head"	Personification	The mountain seems alive — a living creature rearing up. Nature is presented as a conscious, threatening force.
"Strode after me"	Personification / verb	"Strode" gives the mountain human movement — it pursues him like a predator. The boy's earlier confidence is shattered.
"With trembling oars I turned"	Contrast	"Trembling" replaces the earlier "lustily" — the power dynamic has completely reversed.
"huge and mighty forms, that do not live / Like living men, moved slowly through the mind"	Paradox / imagery	The experience haunts him — the "forms" are not alive yet they move through his consciousness. Nature has invaded his inner world.
"No familiar shapes / Remained"	Negation	The ordinary, comfortable world has been replaced by something vast and unknowable. His perception is permanently altered.

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Language Analysis

Shift in tone: The poem's language transforms dramatically. The opening is warm, confident, even playful ("elfin pinnace," "lustily"). After the mountain appears, the language becomes dark, fearful, and abstract ("blank desertion," "solitude / Or blank desertion"). This tonal shift is the poem's central structural device.

The sublime: Wordsworth dramatises the Romantic concept of the sublime — nature's power is so immense that it cannot be rationally understood. The mountain is never simply a mountain; it becomes a moral and spiritual force.

First person: The use of "I" makes the experience intimate and personal. The reader shares the boy's growing terror.

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Form and Structure

Feature	Detail	Effect
Blank verse	Unrhymed iambic pentameter	Mimics natural speech — suitable for autobiography and reflection
Enjambment	Lines run over constantly	Creates a breathless, flowing quality — mirrors the movement of the boat and the rush of emotion
Volta	The mountain's appearance (around line 21)	A dramatic turning point — confidence becomes terror
Single verse paragraph	No stanza breaks	The continuous form suggests an unbroken, overwhelming experience
Caesura	"I struck and struck again"	The pauses create a rhythmic tension, reflecting the boy's panicked rowing

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My Last Duchess — Robert Browning (1842)

Context

Fact	Detail
Poet	Robert Browning (1812–1889)
Movement	Victorian poet
Inspiration	Loosely based on Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara (1533–1598), whose first wife died in suspicious circumstances
Form	Dramatic monologue in rhyming couplets
Setting	The Duke is speaking to an envoy negotiating his next marriage

Browning was a master of the dramatic monologue — a poem in which a single character speaks, unintentionally revealing their true nature. My Last Duchess is set in Renaissance Italy and draws on the historical Duke of Ferrara, who may have had his young wife murdered because she did not behave as he wished. The poem was written during the Victorian era, when debates about women's rights and the nature of marriage were intensifying.

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Content Summary

The Duke of Ferrara shows a visitor a portrait of his "last Duchess" (his dead wife). He explains that she smiled too freely at everyone — she treated his "gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name" the same as a sunset or a cherry branch. Rather than stoop to correct her, he "gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." He then moves on to discuss his next marriage, casually mentioning the dowry.

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Key Quotes

Quote	Technique	Analysis
"That's my last Duchess painted on the wall"	Possessive pronoun	"My" — he owns her. Even in death, she is his possession. "Last" implies there have been (or will be) others.
"Looking as if she were alive"	Dramatic irony	The reader gradually realises she is dead — possibly murdered.
"Fra Pandolf's hands / Worked busily a day"	Name-dropping	The Duke emphasises the famous artist — everything, including his wife, is a status symbol.
"She had / A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad"	Hesitation / euphemism	The pauses ("how shall I say?") create a false impression of delicacy, masking his cold control. Her "fault" was simply being kind and happy.
"as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody's gift"	Enjambment / arrogance	His outrage is that she valued his aristocratic lineage no more than simple pleasures. His sense of entitlement is staggering.
"I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together"	Euphemism / caesura	The most chilling line in the poem. "Commands" is deliberately vague — murder? imprisonment? The caesura after "commands" creates a sinister pause. "All smiles stopped" — she was silenced permanently.
"Notice Neptune, though, / Taming a sea-horse"	Symbolism	The sculpture of Neptune (god of the sea) taming a sea-horse mirrors the Duke's desire to control women. He sees himself as a god subduing a lesser creature.
"There she stands / As if alive"	Repetition	Echoes the opening. The portrait is the only version of the Duchess the Duke can tolerate — silent, still, and entirely under his control.

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Language Analysis