The Romantic Period: Why The Prelude?

More than 170 years after its surprise, posthumous publication, Wordsworth's autobiographical epic is recognized as the most consequential long poem after Paradise Lost. With close reading, historically contextualized reading, deep reading, brain/psychological reading, critical reading, we study this stunning, radical experiment in genre, narrative temporalities, haunted historiography, literary history, & textual history, meta-narrative, meta-history, meta-autobiograph--pulsing with durably influential literary modernity. 13/14 bks (1805/1850, early drafts) supplemented by Tintern Abbey & the Great Ode on childhood.