William Wordsworth"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."
BiographyEnglish poet William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, on 7 April 1770, to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson. He was the second of five children. His youngest brother, Christopher, was a clergyman and scholar who later became the master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Given their closeness in age, Wordsworth was especially close to her sister, Dorothy. The two however were separated following the death of their mother, after which Dorothy was dispatched to Halifax to attend boarding school. The two did not reunite for nine years. Despite the melancholy, Wordsworth enjoyed his years of schooling, the place he credits with cultivation of his literary imagination. His daily interactions with the working people of Hawkshead had a profound impact on the poetry of Wordsworth. In 1878, Wordsworth left the Lake District for the first time in his life in order to attend St. John’s College. Despite being placed first in class during his first year, he did not make the most of his ability and he graduated without honours 1791. In summer of 1790, Wordsworth took a walking tour of the Alps and the revolutionary France, an event that also had a profound impact on his poetry and later writing. Following gradation and a brief return to the Lake District, he moved to London. During his time in London, he attended speeches by Edmund Burke, most of which discussed the importance of the French Revolution. Burke also introduced the idea of the sublime, an idea that most of Wordsworth’s poetry revolves around. Wordsworth went back to France and met Annette Vallon. The two fell in love and she returned to England with him, although she returned to France along with their daughter, Caroline, shortly after. Wordsworth's own return to London was short-lived as well, mainly due to his radical political views, which did threaten him a few times during his life. In order to keep him out of trouble, Wordsworth was offered a rent-free stay in one of his father’s properties, Racetown lodge in Devon. En route to Devon, Wordsworth stayed in Bristol where he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth’s friendship with Coleridge was to have a great impact in his writing career. Together they wrote Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems that many have credited with marking the beginning of the English Romantic period. In the second edition of the book, published in 1800, Wordsworth included a preface, which outlined Wordsworth’s literary theory. The main aspect of the book, as argued by Wordsworth himself, was that it was written in the “true language of the man.” In the coming years, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, a friend of Dorothy’s. He periodically visited France to see Annette and his daughter Caroline. Wordsworth dies in on 23 April 1850. Mary, his widow, published his autobiographical poems as The Prelude posthumously. Wordsworth is considered as one of the leading figures in Romantic literature.
Source: Gill, Stephen. "Wordsworth, William." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford UP, 2004. |
Notable Works
Themes of nature, power of emotion and the lives of the common men dominate the poetry of William Wordsworth, as exemplified by this selection.