William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor

Coleridge, helped to launch the romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical
Ballads (1798). Wordsworth ranks as one of the greatest lyric poets in the history of English
literature. From 1787 to 1790 Wordsworth attended St. John's College at Cambridge
University. He became England's poet laureate in 1843, a role he held until his death in 1850.

Bography: William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a English Romantic poet who,
with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the romantic Age in English literature with their joint
publication Lyrical Ballads (1798). The collection, which contained Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey,"
introduced Romanticism to English poetry.

Wordsworth also showed his affinity for nature with the famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud."

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi-

autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It
was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it
was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge".[1] Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate
from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850.[

Born: April 7, 1770

Cookermouth, Cumberland, England
Died: April 23, 1850
Rydal Mount, Westmorland, England
English poet

William Wordsworth was an early leader of romanticism (a literary movement that celebrated
nature and concentrated on human emotions) in English poetry and ranks as one of the
greatest lyric poets in the history of English literature.

His early years

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cookermouth, Cumberland, England, the
second child of an attorney. Unlike the other major English romantic poets, he enjoyed a
happy childhood under the loving care of his mother and was very close to his sister Dorothy.
As a child he wandered happily through the lovely natural scenery of Cumberland. In
grammar school, Wordsworth showed a keen interest in poetry. He was fascinated by the epic
poet John Milton (1608–1674).

From 1787 to 1790 Wordsworth attended St. John's College at Cambridge University. He
always returned to his home and to nature during his summer vacations. Before graduating
from Cambridge, he took a walking tour through France, Switzerland, and Italy in 1790. The
Alps made an impression on him that he did not recognize until fourteen years later.
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Stay in France
Revolutionary passion in France made a powerful impact on Wordsworth, who returned there
in November 1791. He wanted to improve his knowledge of the

William Wordsworth.
Reproduced by permission of the
Granger Collection
.
French language. His experience in France just after the French Revolution (1789; the French
overthrew the ruling monarchy) reinforced his sympathy for common people and his belief in
political freedom.

Wordsworth fell passionately in love with a French girl, Annette Vallon. She gave birth to
their daughter in December 1792. However, Wordsworth had spent his limited funds and was
forced to return home. The separation left him with a sense of guilt that deepened his poetic
inspiration and resulted in an important theme in his work of abandoned women.

Publication of first poems

Wordsworth's first poems, Descriptive Sketches and An Evening Walk, were printed in 1793.
He wrote several pieces over the next several years. The year 1797 marked the beginning of
Wordsworth's long friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834). Together they
published Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth wanted to challenge "the gaudiness
[unnecessarily flashy] and inane [foolish] phraseology [wording] of many modern writers."
Most of his poems in this collection centered on the simple yet deeply human feelings of
ordinary people, phrased in their own language. His views on this new kind of poetry were
more fully described in the important "Preface" that he wrote for the second edition (1800).

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"Tintern Abbey"
Wordsworth's most memorable contribution to this volume was "Lines Composed a Few
Miles Above Tintern Abbey," which he wrote just in time to include it. This poem is the first
major piece to illustrate his original talent at its best. It skillfully combines matter-of-factness
in natural description with a genuinely mystical (magical) sense of infinity, joining self-
exploration to philosophical speculation (questioning). The poem closes on a subdued but
confident reassertion of nature's healing power, even though mystical insight may be obtained
from the poet.

In its successful blending of inner and outer experience, of sense perception, feeling, and
thought, "Tintern Abbey" is a poem in which the writer becomes a symbol of mankind. The
poem leads to imaginative thoughts about man and the universe. This cosmic outlook rooted
in the self is a central feature of romanticism. Wordsworth's poetry is undoubtedly the most
impressive example of this view in English literature.

Poems of the middle period

Wordsworth, even while writing his contributions to the Lyrical Ballads, had been feeling his
way toward more ambitious schemes. He had embarked on a long poem in unrhymed verse,
"The Ruined Cottage," later referred to as "The Peddlar." It was intended to form part of a
vast philosophical poem with the title "The Recluse, or Views of Man, Nature and Society."
This grand project never materialized as originally planned.

Abstract, impersonal speculation was not comfortable for Wordsworth. He could handle
experiences in the philosophical-lyrical manner only if they were closely related to himself
and could arouse his creative feelings and imagination. During the winter months he spent in
Germany, he started work on his magnum opus (greatest work), The Prelude, or Growth of a
Poet's Mind. It was published after his death.

However, such a large achievement was still beyond Wordsworth's scope (area of
capabilities) at this time. It was back to the shorter poetic forms that he turned during the
most productive season of his long literary life, the spring of 1802. The output of these fertile
(creative) months mostly came from his earlier inspirations: nature and the common people.
During this time he wrote "To a Butterfly," "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," "To the
Cuckoo," "The Rainbow," and other poems.

Changes in philosophy
The crucial event of this period was Wordsworth's loss of the sense of mystical oneness,
which had sustained (lasted throughout) his highest imaginative flights. Indeed, a mood of
despondency (depression) descended over Wordsworth, who was then thirty-two years old.

In the summer of 1802 Wordsworth spent a few weeks in Calais, France, with his sister
Dorothy. Wordsworth's renewed contact with France only confirmed his disillusionment
(disappointment) with the French Revolution and its aftermath.

During this period Wordsworth had become increasingly concerned with Coleridge, who by
now was almost totally dependent upon opium (a highly addictive drug) for relief from his
physical sufferings. Both friends came to believe that the realities of life were in stark
contradiction (disagreement) to the visionary expectations of their youth. Wordsworth
characteristically sought to redefine his own identity in ways that would allow him a measure
of meaning. The new turn his life took in 1802 resulted in an inner change that set the new
course his poetry followed from then on.
Poems about England and Scotland began pouring forth from Wordsworth's pen, while
France and Napoleon (1769–1821) soon became Wordsworth's favorite symbols of cruelty
and oppression. His nationalistic (intense pride in one's own country) inspiration led him to
produce the two "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland" (1803, 1814) and the group entitled
"Poems Dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."

Poems of 1802
The best poems of 1802, however, deal with a deeper level of inner change. In Wordsworth's
poem "Intimations of Immortality" (March–April), he plainly recognized that "The things
which I have seen I now can see no more"; yet he emphasized that although the "visionary
gleam" had fled, the memory remained, and although the "celestial light" had vanished, the
"common sight" of "meadow, grove and stream" was still a potent (strong) source of delight
and solace (comfort).

Thus Wordsworth shed his earlier tendency to idealize nature and turned to a more sedate
(calm) doctrine (set of beliefs) of orthodox Christianity. Younger poets and critics soon
blamed him for this "recantation" (renouncing), which they equated with his change of mind
about the French Revolution. His Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822) are clear evidence of the way
in which love of freedom, nature, and the Church came to coincide (come together at the
same time) in his mind.

The Prelude
Nevertheless, it was the direction suggested in "Intimations of Immortality" that, in the view
of later criticism, enabled Wordsworth to produce perhaps the most outstanding achievement
of English romanticism: The Prelude. He worked on it, on and off, for several years and
completed the first version in May 1805. The Prelude can claim to be the only true romantic
epic (long, often heroic work) because it deals in narrative terms with the spiritual growth of
the only true romantic hero, the poet. The inward odyssey (journey) of the poet was described
not for its own sake but as a sample and as an adequate image of man at his most sensitive.

Wordsworth shared the general romantic notion that personal experience is the only way to
gain living knowledge. The purpose of The Prelude was to recapture and interpret, with
detailed thoroughness, the whole range of experiences that had contributed to the shaping of
his own mind. Wordsworth refrained from publishing the poem in his lifetime, revising it
continuously. Most important and, perhaps, most to be regretted, the poet also tried to give a
more orthodox tinge to his early mystical faith in nature.

Later years
Wordsworth's estrangement (growing apart) from Coleridge in 1810 deprived him of a
powerful incentive to imaginative and intellectual alertness. Wordsworth's appointment to a
government position in 1813 relieved him of financial care.

Wordsworth's undiminished love for nature made him view the emergent (just appearing)
industrial society with undisguised reserve. He opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, which, in
his view, merely transferred political power from the land owners to the manufacturing class,
but he never stopped pleading in favor of the victims of the factory system.

In 1843 Wordsworth was appointed poet laureate (official poet of a country). He died on
April 23, 1850.

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