What if?

It seems to me that Wordsworth's "Prelude" and the never-realized "Recluse," was supposed to be the culmination of everything we've studied in class this semester. In his (seemingly) ultimate project, Wordsworth desired to recall himself as a poet in terms of nature, history, and his own sense of being. The publication history in itself is fascinating. In the 1850 introduction, he claims that he wanted "to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled the Recluse; as having for its principal subject, the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement." This project shadowed Wordsworth since he was in his 20s, and still was never fully finished. It's hard to imagine what the completed work would have been like. Yet we are only left a fraction of the bigger picture. While that fraction is a somewhat culmination of what we have discussed all year round, we readers can definitely tell that bigger plans were at work.