ABSTRACT
Wordsworth's description of the reawakened imagination is not unlike the gradual disclosure of Satan's disordered thoughts that seemed to lie behind Burke's discussion of attonitus. The Prelude could not, however, be more differently structured to the narrative of Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost is quite opposite therefore to The Prelude in the sense that each crucial moment is a decision that cannot be withdrawn or reconfigured at a later date. The Fall is unique, but the various moments of epiphany in The Prelude are not. Wordsworth's poems are therefore something of a red herring, which becomes apparent when considering the inconsequence of linearity for the Romantic poet. Andrew Bennett has argued that 'Underlying such attacks is the recognition of a fundamental opposition between the events of narrative and "poetry". Wordsworth is objecting not simply to sensationalism, to a "degrading thirst for outrageous stimulation", but to narrative itself'.
