ABSTRACT
Dr Johnson said of Paradise Lost that no man ever wished it longer, and the same is no doubt true of The Prelude, one of the very few poems in English which can challenge comparison with Milton's masterpiece. Like most poems of the Romantic period and since, The Prelude is sui generis, a unique mixture of kinds. The Prelude's structure may usefully be approached by way of several of its dominant images. This energy is suggested by a number of words beginning with the prefix 'under', some of them coined by Wordsworth. The invocations to Coleridge, usually addressed as 'Friend', which punctuate the poem are further reminders of human mutability, as the history of his past and present life is sketched in parallel to Wordsworth's. The other point suggested by this narrative should also be axiomatic for the reader who has advanced thus far in the poem.
