To read Wordsworth's The Prelude is to receive an education of feelings and senses through imagination. Wordsworth articulates this pedagogical intention at the end of the Prelude.
Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak A lasting inspiration, sanctified By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved, Others will love, and we will teach them how; Instruct them how the mind of man becomes A thousand times more beautiful than the earth On which he dwells
(Book XIV, 446-452)
As Wordsworth writes about nature in the Prelude, he explores the terrain of the human mind and the depth of the human psyche. The human mind produces imagination, and imagination nourishes the human mind in turn. This essay traces the poet's treatment of imagination throughout the poem to explore the relationships of imagination and nature, imagination and the mind, and imagination and the self. The metaphysics of imagination is discussed along the way.
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