This
poem, dedicated to Coleridge, and written in the form of a
confidence bestowed on an intimate friend, was finished in 1805, but
was not published till after the poet's death. Mrs. Wordsworth then
named it _The Prelude_, indicating thus the relation which it bears
to the _Excursion_--or rather, to the projected poem of the _Recluse_,
of which the _Excursion_ was to form only the Second out of three
Divisions. One Book of the First Division of the _Recluse_ was
written, but is yet unpublished; the Third Division was never even
begun, and "the materials," we are told, "of which it would have
been formed have been incorporated, for the most part, in the
author's other publications." Nor need this change of plan be
regretted: didactic poems admit easily of mutilation; and all that
can be called plot in this series of works is contained in the
_Prelude_, in which we see Wordsworth arriving at those convictions
which in the _Excursion_ he pauses to expound.
It would be too much to say that Wordsworth has been wholly
successful in the attempt--for such the _Prelude_ virtually is--to
write an epic poem on his own education. Such a poem must almost
necessarily appear tedious and egoistic, and Wordsworth's manner has
not tact enough to prevent these defects from being felt to the full.
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