Wordsworth’s The Prelude uses images of violence in Book Nine and Ten to highlight his changing attitude toward the French Revolution. Liu’s argument on book nine’s Vaundercour and Julia episode relates it to the revolution by representing the revolution as ‘a doomed revolution against social and political institutions represented by his father’. I want to further Liu’s view through looking at Rowland’s view that this is a story of parental abuse and infanticide. Rowland points to the final lines of the poem and believes the ‘silence and strangeness of these lines points to the crime of infanticide’ () and that it ‘traces violence against one child from one generation to the next’ (). Paine’s essay helps to understand this further. Paine discusses
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The first two stanzas of this poem are used to create a sense of peace. Within the first two lines, emphasis is thrown onto the fact that it is ‘silent’ through repetition and placing the word in the same position in each line. Coleridge paints the scene in an idyllic, pastoral quality with phrases such as ‘fresh and delicate’, ‘never bloomless’, ‘quiet spirit-healing nook’, and ‘breezy air’. However, there is uncertainty to this peace through the words such as ‘may’ in relation to a potential invasion. Not only is Coleridge aware that the peace within the valley is uncertain, but that it is also upheld by violence both inside and outside the country. The identity of the invaders is kept obscure, no direct reference is made to the French. The ambiguity of the invaders is furthered near towards the end in which the speaker calls for the people to ‘render them back upon the insulted ocean,/And let them toss as idly on it waves’. The use of ‘them’ gives the reader no sense of who the poet is referring to. During this period in Britain, violence is used against supporters of the revolution in order to repress them (Dickinson). Coleridge also describes the peace as ‘long preserved by fleets’(). By referring directly to the naval force of Britain, Coleridge notes the huge naval efforts produced from Britain in order to suppress French ambition (). Coleridge links the notions of peace in Britain to the violence used in order to continue this
The first two stanzas of this poem are used to create a sense of peace. Within the first two lines, emphasis is thrown onto the fact that it is ‘silent’ through repetition and placing the word in the same position in each line. Coleridge paints the scene in an idyllic, pastoral quality with phrases such as ‘fresh and delicate’, ‘never bloomless’, ‘quiet spirit-healing nook’, and ‘breezy air’. However, there is uncertainty to this peace through the words such as ‘may’ in relation to a potential invasion. Not only is Coleridge aware that the peace within the valley is uncertain, but that it is also upheld by violence both inside and outside the country. The identity of the invaders is kept obscure, no direct reference is made to the French. The ambiguity of the invaders is furthered near towards the end in which the speaker calls for the people to ‘render them back upon the insulted ocean,/And let them toss as idly on it waves’. The use of ‘them’ gives the reader no sense of who the poet is referring to. During this period in Britain, violence is used against supporters of the revolution in order to repress them (Dickinson). Coleridge also describes the peace as ‘long preserved by fleets’(). By referring directly to the naval force of Britain, Coleridge notes the huge naval efforts produced from Britain in order to suppress French ambition (). Coleridge links the notions of peace in Britain to the violence used in order to continue this