Ideology and the Sublime in William Wordsworth’s The Prelude

In order to follow the contours of Wordsworth’s ideological development and the role played by the sublime in the growth of his mind, one is well-advised to follow the temporal and narrative progression of The Prelude (1799). Through a Žižekian analysis of Wordsworth’s magnum opus, this study argues that the sublime can be approached from two different points. First, it can be conceived as the symbolic intrusion into the imaginary world of the subject, rifting the sense of unity and perfection, and relocating the object of desire from the imaginary to the symbolic order. Next, it can be perceived as the intrusion of the real into the symbolic order, as the lack at the heart of the Other, making a perfect correspondence of the signifying elements and the ultimate achievement of the object of desire impossible. What links these two different significations of the sublime together is the crucial realization that, in both cases, the sublime holds the place of illusory and non-existent states.