English Literature - Poems - Boat Stealing

Wordsworth was a pantheist. He believed that the universe (or nature as the totality of everything) was identical with divinity, or that everything composed an all-encompassing, immanent God. (immanent = existing or operating within). (i.e. God lived in and was composed of nature and the universe)

• "troubled pleasure" - Poets use of this oxymoron shows how the boy is distressed and "troubled" by his guilt despite the enjoyment of being on the water.

• "She was an elfin pinnace" - ("elfin pinnace" = small boat, fit for a female elf) - Comparing the boat to a small, delicate structure shows how the boy's deed has made him feel small and, in comparison with his "huge" surroundings, vulnerable.

• "huge cliff...huge cliff" - Repetition shows how the boy's guilt has caused him to imagine such powerful, overwhelming and threatening things that he has become lost for words. 

• "proudly rowed with his best skill" --> "With trembling hands I turned" - Once again, his guilt has caused such terrible imaginings that they have caused him to utterly loose his confidence, even in "his best skill".

• "Stealing" (title) + "stole" - Double meaning - (steal = to take something that isn't yours OR to move quietly/secretively) -  Use of the verb 'to steal' as opposed to 'to ride/row etc.' repeats the fact that the boat is stolen and thus emphasises how the boy cannot shake the thought and how heavily it weighs upon his mind.

• "for many days" - Emphasises the weight of the guilt on his mind.

• "my brain worked with a dim and undetermined sense of unknown modes of being" + "huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men moved slowly through my mind" - ("unknown modes of being" + "do not live like living men" = supernatural) - The boy's guilt has caused him to imagine supernatural beings/happenings. It states that they are "huge and mighty", once againg showing the weight of his guilt.

• "moved slowly though my mind by day, and were the trouble of my dreams." - His guilt and the supernatural happenings the boy imagines because of it haunt his dreams "by day", once again, emphasising the impact it has on him. - "by day" shows that it is recurring and he cannot shake it.

• "strode" - Shows that he not only imagines the mountain to be moving but, in fact, purposely chasing him.

• "upreared its head" + "with measured motion, like a living thing" + "strode"  - All phrases which personify the mountain. - Shows how powerful and overwhelming his imaginings are.

• "upreard its head" - Personifying the mountain yet refering to it as "it" shows that he imagines it as mosterous and inhuman.

• Form - Narrative Poem (tells a story)

• No Rhyme

• Blank Verse

• Enjambment - Perhaps mimics the fluid movement of the boat through the water.

• Iambic Pentameter - Sticks strictly to this rhythm, suggesting that he feels constrained/trapped by his guilt.