William Wordsworth.docVIP

Wordsworth redirects here. For other uses, see Wordsworth (disambiguation).For the Scottish composer, see William Wordsworth (composer).William WordsworthPortrait of William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon (National Portrait Gallery).Born(1770-04-07)7 April 1770Cockermouth, Cumberland, EnglandDied23 April 1850(1850-04-23) (aged80)Cumberland, EnglandOccupationPoetAlmamaterCambridge UniversityLiterary movementRomanticismNotable worksLyrical Ballads, Poems in Two Volumes, The Excursion, The Prelude, I Wandered Lonely as a CloudWilliam Wordsworth (7 April 1770 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was generally known as the poem to Coleridge.1 Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.Relationship with Annette Vallon editIn November 1791 Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enthralled with the Republican movement. He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their child, Caroline. Because of lack of money and Britains tensions with France he returned alone to England the next year.8 The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behavior raised doubts as to his declared wish to marry Annette, but he supported her and his daughter as best he could in later life. The Reign of Terror estranged him from Republican France, and war between France and Britain prevented him from seeing Annette and Caroline again for several years.With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette and Caroline in Calais. The purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson.8 Afterwards he wrote the sonnet It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, recalling a seaside walk with the nine-year-old Caroline, whom he had never seen before that visit. Mary was anxious that Wordsworth should do more for Caroline and upon Carolines marriage, in 1816, when Wordsworth settled 30 pounds a year on her (equivalent to 1,360 pounds as of the year 2000). The payments continued until 1835, when they were replaced by a capital settlement.910First publication and Lyrical Ballads editWordsworth in 1798, about the time he began The Prelude.11The year 1793 saw the first publication of poems by Wordsworth, in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. In 1795 he received a legacy of 900 pounds from Raisley Calvert and became able to pursue a career as a poet.It was also in 1795 that he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. In 1797 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxton House, Somerset, just a few miles away from Coleridges home in Nether Stowey. Together Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement.12 The volume gave neither Wordsworths nor Coleridges name as author. One of Wordsworths most famous poems, Tintern Abbey, was published in this collection, along with Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The second edition, published in 1800, had only Wordsworth listed as the author, and included a preface to the poems.13 It was augmented significantly in the next edition, published in 1802.14 In this preface, which some scholars consider a central work of Romantic literary theory, Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the elements of a new type of verse, one that is based on the real language of men and avoids the poetic diction of much 18th-century verse. Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility, and calls his own poems in the book experimental. A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.15Germany and move to the Lake District editWordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1798. While Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the journey, its main effect on Wordsworth was to produce homesickness.8 During the harsh winter of 179899 Wordsworth lived with Dorothy in Goslar, and, despite extreme stress and loneliness, began work on the autobiographical piece that was later titled The Prelude. He wrote a number of other famous poems in Goslar, including The Lucy poems. In the Autumn of 1799, Wordsworth and his sister returned to England and visited the Hutchinson family at Sock burn. When Coleridge arrived back in England he travelled to the North with their publisher Joseph Cottles to meet Wordsworth and undertake a proposed tour of the Lake District. This was the immediate cause of the siblings settling at Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the Lake District, this time with another poet, Robert Southey nearby. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey came to be known as the Lake Poets.17 Throughout this period many of Wordsworths poems revolve around themes of death, endurance, separation and grief.Laureateship and other honors editWordsworth remained a formidable presence in his later years. In 1837 the Scottish poet and playwright Joanna Baillie reflected on her long acquaintance with Wordsworth. He looks like a man that one must not speak to unless one has some sensible thing to say. However he does occasionally converse cheerfully & well; and when one knows how benevolent & excellent he is, it disposes one to be very much pleased with him.21In 1838 Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham and in 1839 he was awarded the same honorary degree by the University of Oxford.8 In 1842 the government awarded him a Civil List pension of 300 pounds a year.Following the death of Robert Southey in 1843 Wordsworth became Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honor, saying that he was too old, but accepted when the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, assured him that you shall have nothing required of you. He became the only laureate to write no official verses. When his daughter Dora died in 1847 his production of verse came to a standstill.Death editGravestone of William Wordsworth, Grasmere, CumbriaWilliam Wordsworth died from an aggravated case of pleurisy on 23 April 1850, and was buried at St Oswalds Church, Grasmere. His widow Mary published his lengthy autobiographical poem to Coleridge as The Prelude several months after his death. Though it failed to arouse much interest at that time, it has since come to be widely recognized as his masterpiece.Major works edit Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798) o Simon Leeo We are Seveno Lines Written in Early Springo Expostulation and Replyo The Tables Turnedo The Thorno Lines Compose