stolen boat summary
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William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is one of the stalwarts of the English Literature canon. He precipitated the Romantic Movement along with fellow poet Coleridge. Their joint venture, ‘Lyrical Ballads’ of 1798 is considered a touchstone of the Romantic sentiment. His most ambitious work was ‘The Recluse’ but he never got around to completing it. His ‘The Prelude’ of which ‘The Stolen Boat’ is an extract was meant to be the preface of ‘The Recluse’. He is known for his precision and dedication to poetic representation and he was of the opinion that he owed his poetic skills to his imagination and memories.
He was the son of John Wordsworth and Anne Cookson. He had four siblings of whom he was closest to his sister, Dorothy. He was married to family friend, Mary Hutchinson but he had a relationship with a Frenchwoman named Annette Vallon before his marriage to Mary. He had a child named Caroline with Annette but could never marry her. However, he did support them financially.
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He was great friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was also close to the poet Robert Southey. They all resided around/near/by the Lake District, northwest England, and was thus, called the ‘Lake Poets’.
Wordsworth was given the title and position of the Poet Laureate of Britain in 1843 and he remained so till his death in 1850.
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ABOUT THE POEM: This particular poem is an excerpt from Wordsworth’s autobiographical epic poem, The Prelude. It was published and named posthumously in 1850 by his widow Mary.
This excerpt is taken from the 1850 edition. The poem is composed like an epic, amassing a total of 14 books. The poem traces the trajectory of the poet’s life, starting from his youth to the time he attains maturity, both as a poet and as a man. This particular excerpt deals with an incident in his childhood that had taught him a lesson and also strengthened his relationship with nature.
SETTING OF THE POEM: MOOD: The mood of the poem is varied. It begins with a serene recounting of past tales. But as the poem gathers momentum, the mood tightens. The reminiscent and peaceful air of the poem is surpassed by a sense of fear mingled with a feeling of guilt when the poet is reminded of his stealth and its aftermath.
Stolen Boat by William Wordsworth Summary
Since the poem is an excerpt of a long epic, the whole poem forms one whole stanza. The poem begins with the poet confessing an incident form his childhood.
On a summer evening, the young poet found a little boat tethered to a willow tree in some rocky cave. He ‘stole’ the boat and took it on a joy ride across the lake. He was aware of his act of stealth but his guilt was intermixed with the feeling of pleasure. He says that his ride of the boat was accompanied by the echoes of the mountain. The poet steadily kept moving away from the shore and the reflection of the stars and moon left a trail of light on the surface of the water. As he sailed away from the shore, he kept his eyes on the horizon, which comprised a short crag and the stars above, to keep his path fixed to a straight, unswerving line. The poet praises the light boat he had stolen and calls is ‘an elfin pinnace’. He also praises his own prowess as a rower and compares himself and the boat to a swan that goes heaving through the water gracefully and effortlessly. This merry ride continued in peace until a mighty mountain peak upreared its head between the short crag and the stars.
As he kept rowing further away from the shore, the mountain grew in sight. The form of the huge shape frightened the poet and stirred
ABOUT THE POET:
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is one of the stalwarts of the English Literature canon. He precipitated the Romantic Movement along with fellow poet Coleridge. Their joint venture, ‘Lyrical Ballads’ of 1798 is considered a touchstone of the Romantic sentiment. His most ambitious work was ‘The Recluse’ but he never got around to completing it. His ‘The Prelude’ of which ‘The Stolen Boat’ is an extract was meant to be the preface of ‘The Recluse’. He is known for his precision and dedication to poetic representation and he was of the opinion that he owed his poetic skills to his imagination and memories.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS-
This poem has the potential to be read on various levels. To each of us, the poem reads differently. Few of the levels, however, are the most important and apparent. On the literal level, the poem is simply about the theft of a boat by the young Wordsworth and the aftermath of which left him deeply troubled. The aftermath was his encounter with the grim form of a huge mountain that seemed to pop up suddenly in his line vision. The suddenness and the immense stature of the mountain left him flabbergasted and frightened. He felt as if the mountain was reprimanding him for stealing the boat by chasing after him. But what scared the young poet the most was the shapes they formed in his sleep. He felt they were inhuman giant-like creatures who were after him.
Metaphorically read, the mountain, that is, the ‘grim Shape’ can be interpreted as the poet’s conscience at having stolen the boat. The poet admits that stealing the boat was an act of ‘troubled pleasure’. Deep down, he knew the impropriety of his act. It is only after he acknowledges the guilt that he sees the mountain looming up behind the craggy hill. You may go through the detailed summary of Stolen Boat here.
If the poem is interpreted spiritually, then the encounter Wordsworth has with the image of the mountain can be seen Wordsworth’s encounter with his own self, his inner fears. As a young boy, Wordsworth was enamored by nature. He thought he was familiar with all its temperaments. But on the evening of the boat stealing incident, he saw a different side of his beloved nature. It led him to question nature and his own self and understanding. He found himself face-to-face with a new ‘being’, that was almost human yet not human. Witnessing the new side of nature he thought he knew so well, he also witnessed the birth of a new self. And the reason the incident haunted him so was because he faced his inner fears as a fugitive and because he realized that nature had a side to it that was not inert.
Although the poem is a recounting of the poet’s own experience as a child, it can be applied universally. We all fear what we don’t know. The spectacle of the ‘mighty Form’ is emblematic of the inherent fear in us of the unknown. Wordsworth pens down what our innermost fear is and explains through this incident. As a young boy too he knew that what happened to him was extraordinary. And he feared it. It thus tells us that the fear of the unknown is innate. The child poet was not familiar with the immensity of the particular mountain and in the evening, when the light is low, the sudden upreared peak of the mountain scared him because he did not understand what it was or what it meant.
Wordsworth believed that certain events or incidents in one’s life left a strong impact. Some of these events, which the poet called ‘spots of time’, leave a stronger imprint than others. In this poem, the poet talks of one such ‘spot of time’, namely, the boat stealing incident, which had left a deep impact on his psyche. And according to Wordsworth, the incident, along with many others, had helped form his poetic impulse.
TONE OF THE POEM
The tone of the poem is varied much like the mood. The poem begins with a serene voice while the mood is reminiscent. As the mood shifts, the tone shifts too. The act of stealth is described with a passive excitement but as the lofty shape starts to darken the poet’s view, it starts to darken the tone as well. The tone becomes fearful and excited. Thus, it precipitates a certain sense of awe and the language seems to be aware of the existence of beings other than the self.
CONCLUSION