What is the meaning of Wordsworth's claim that he grew up 'foster'd alike by beauty and by fear' (I:306)?

The first 200 words of this essay...

What is the meaning of Wordsworth's claim that he grew up 'foster'd alike by beauty and by fear' (I:306)?

In the opening book of The Prelude, Wordsworth illustrates his claim that he was 'foster'd alike by beauty and fear' by relating several memories of the type he describes as 'spots of time'. We get the sense that these encounters with the natural world are powerfully constitutional of his character. In what is essentially an account of 'the growth of a poet's mind', Wordsworth is laying creative hold on his past and tracing the origins of his power and genius. But these passages have a quality that teaches us something of a more universal nature. They remind us of our own similar experiences of shaping influence, to which our indebtedness is often left unarticulated. We are reminded that we all hold a kind of intercourse with nature, particularly intense in childhood, which shapes the mind's perception of the world as we are introduced to it. Wordsworth demonstrates a typically Romantic sensibility to the sublime aspect of this intercourse, exploring the emotion of fear as one of the 'passions that build up our human soul' (I:434). He also clearly recognizes the importance