The Speaker as Child
A speaker, by definition, narrates a poem, often sharing his or her own experiences. But the way Wordsworth plays with time in the Prelude makes this characterization less straightforward. The speaker is essentially split up into two related but distinct characters. One is young, and is the subject of the memories that the early books of the Prelude describe. This version of the speaker doesn't really get to narrate for himself. Rather, that job is passed off to his older self, whose recollections are vivid but distinct and influenced by intervening years of experience.
This young version of the speaker is deeply immersed in the natural world and generally free from the pressures and arbitrary norms of human society. In this sense, he is fairly innocent. But, while uncorrupted by artificiality or urban life, he is still fairly worldly. He craves and seeks experience, knowledge, and understanding—but in the form of the natural world and his own mind.
The Speaker as Adult
There's no single place in the text where the young speaker morphs into his older self—perhaps we can locate the transition during his stint at Cambridge, which the speaker himself recalls as a period of gentle transition into adulthood. This adult version of our speaker is the one we hear from. He speaks directly to us, such that all of his childhood experiences of exploration and immersion in nature come filtered through this older and more jaded viewpoint. At times, this troubles the older speaker, who notes that he feels like a completely different being from his childhood self. He worries about how to properly represent the past, and often reflects on the difficult or even impossible task he has chosen to take on in narrating his own autobiography. The times when he feels most "himself" are the times in which he reconnects with his childhood way of life by embracing nature, rusticity, and poetry.
While the speaker is not explicitly named, we know that the "Prelude" is an account of William Wordsworth's own life. Therefore, the speaker (in both childhood and adulthood) is a representation of the poet himself. It's possible to interpret the work with a great deal of supplementary detail taken from our outside knowledge of Wordsworth's life, but it's also possible to read the work without doing so, treating the narrator as a character in his own right. For this reason, this guide generally refers to the character within the text as "the speaker," to distinguish him from Wordsworth the writer.
The Woman Who Sells Food
In Book Second, Wordsworth briefly describes a woman who sold food to him and his friends at a large stone in the center of their village. The woman is by no means a major character—in fact, she never receives a name. Instead, her relevance is almost symbolic. She helps illustrate and stand in for a rural, preindustrial world of close-knit communal life and humble, inexpensive pleasures organized via a loose and informal system. Eventually, the woman disappears, as does her stone: the stone, it turns out, has been used in the construction of a new assembly room. This is distressing for the speaker on a few levels. It reminds him how quickly time has passed and how distant his childhood has become. It also suggests that those informal communal networks are being replaced by a far more inflexible and hierarchical way of life, for which he has little patience.
Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was William Wordsworth's close friend and collaborator, as well as the real-life intended reader of the Prelude. He was largely responsible for establishing the famous Lake District literary circle in which Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy participated, although, later in life, the relationship between Coleridge and Wordsworth turned distant. In The Prelude, the speaker describes Coleridge departing for Sicily to improve his health—as did the real Coleridge. This causes the speaker to address him with even more nostalgia, admiration, and curiosity.
At the same time, the version of Coleridge portrayed in and addressed in the poem is as much a poetic contrivance, intended to shape the character of the speaker and develop the Prelude's themes, as he is a depiction of a real person. The Coleridge of the poem is a foil of sorts to the speaker: not reared in the idyllic Lake District, he instead grows to embrace natural and artistic beauty as an adult. Thus he becomes an example of another kind of poetic genius: one who has to discover later in life what comes to the speaker almost effortlessly from childhood.
The Great Men of Cambridge
In his days at university, the speaker lives near a thoughtful-looking statue of Isaac Newton. In fact, he's surrounded by reminders of the famous figures who have attended Cambridge. These include not only Newton, but also the poets Milton and Spenser. He deeply admires all of these men, saving his most fervent devotion for Milton. However, it's hard for him to know exactly how to relate to these ghostly presences. He feels in some ways underwhelmed by them: while he tries to use them as inspiration to become a more serious and disciplined student, he finds that they feel too distant, not nearly as immediate and intense an inspiration as nature is. At the same time, he feels overwhelmed by the pressure they induce and by the pressure he puts on himself to relate to or pay homage to them. When visiting Milton's old dormitory, the home of his own friend, he gets so carried away that he becomes uncontrollably drunk. In other words, while he cares about the legacy of these historical figures, he doesn't feel fulfilled when he thinks about them. That relationship of productive, sublime inspiration is reserved for nature.
The Discharged Soldier
During his first summer vacation from Cambridge, the speaker encounters a lone, injured soldier resting on a rural road. The speaker is torn by a blend of fear, fascination, and pity. Wordsworth describes the soldier as "ghastly," emphasizing that he seems almost alien. Ultimately, fighting his instinct to stay put and avoid an encounter, the speaker opts to help the man find a place to sleep. He learns, as they walk, that the man has been sent back to England abruptly after a military stint abroad, and that he is now struggling to return home. The speaker's choice to help the man in spite of himself suggests the flowering of a social consciousness: whereas he once merely preferred the natural world to human society, he now encounters some of the ways in which human society can be unnaturally cruel, and decides to counter with sympathy and compassion. However, he also remains deeply uncomfortable for the length of their encounter: his compassion does not erode his feelings of unease, but rather exists alongside them.
The Speaker's Mother
The speaker, being a version of Wordsworth, explains that his own mother died when he was young—just like the poet's did. From his early recollections, however, he has nothing but praise for her. In fact, he considers her nurturing an absolutely essential part of his development as a poet. As a baby, he says, he was given love, affection, and care. This basis allowed him to develop a poetic sensitivity. Later, his mother—who was not particularly cultivated but possessed an intuitive wisdom—allowed him to adventure as he pleased through both nature and literature. He contrasts this free, joyful upbringing with the overeducated and limited one that he sees other children experiencing. His mother's rustic insight has been an engine in his growth, more so than any formal educational experience.
Dorothy Wordsworth
In Book Sixth, the speaker describes spending happy summers with his sister. In reality, Wordsworth had a close relationship with his sister Dorothy, a writer in her own right (although she did not publish work while alive). Dorothy and her brother were particularly close with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to whom the Prelude is addressed. In fact, the speaker explains that he associates Coleridge with those memories of his sister, even though Coleridge had not yet met Wordsworth. Later, he names Dorothy and Coleridge as the two people who calmed and comforted him following the tumult of the French Revolution. Therefore, Wordsworth establishes a link between Dorothy, Coleridge, and himself.
Michel Beaupuis
While living in France, the speaker befriends a French military officer. Unlike his fellow officers, he believes in the cause of the Revolution and is therefore the subject of extreme dislike. He and the speaker spend their time walking in the forests and discussing history, politics, government, and their vision for a more just world. Beaupuy (whom Wordsworth refers to only by his last name; other aspects of his identity are available from historical sources) is described as a man of sensitivity and moral integrity. When he and the speaker see a starving child, he is visibly distressed and tells the speaker all about the post-revolution future, in which even the poor will have enough to eat. For the speaker, Beaupuy represents the best of the revolutionary cause. He ultimately gives his life for the cause, which the speaker claims is for the best: the idealistic Beaupuy never has to see the Reign of Terror or the rise of Napoleon.
The Teacher
The speaker recounts the story of the day he learned that French revolutionary leader Robespierre had died. He explains that he was visiting the grave of a beloved schoolteacher who had died. The schoolteacher, he says, loved poetry and in fact encouraged the young speaker to write his own. The speaker felt mournful and nostalgic at his teacher's grave, but was thrilled and relieved to learn of Robespierre's death. By positioning the story of the schoolteacher beside the death of Robespierre, Wordsworth juxtaposes the two figures. He hints that the teacher, who devoted himself to encouraging a student, was perhaps more revolutionary than Robespierre—a man whom the speaker detests as a symbol of oppression.
The Speaker's Father
The speaker's father is a little-described figure. He is mentioned in detail only in Book Twelfth, and in that case only when the speaker describes his death and funeral many years before. The father's death prompts a period of regret and guilt for the speaker, who experiences the event as a punishment of sorts for his own failings. Thus, the father's presence in The Prelude is eerily blank, serving as a warning or source of chastisement to the speaker.
Raisley Calvert
In the concluding book of the Prelude, the speaker expresses appreciation for a friend named Calvert. While not a poet himself, he says, Calvert valued poetry and therefore used his personal fortune to fund Wordsworth's writing. This Calvert was a real figure—Raisley Calvert, a friend of the poet's who left him a significant sum of money when he died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-one. In fact, Wordsworth composed a short poem praising Calvert and mourning his short life, entitled "To The Memory of Raisley Calvert." In the poem, Wordsworth notes this his own artistic liberty was Calvert's concern "when sickness did condemn/Thy youth to hopeless wasting."
