The Lake Poets Essay - Critical Essays - eNotes.com The Lake Poets Essay - Critical Essays link Link The Lake Poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey became known as the Lake Poets in the early years of the nineteenth century when critic Francis Jeffrey conferred this designation on them. In an 1817 article published in The Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey referred to the three poets as belonging to the "Lake School." The term refers to the Lake District of England, where all three poets resided for a time. Jeffrey began writing about the group of poets as early as 1802. In a review of Southey's Thalaba (1801), Jeffrey began his harsh criticism of a "sect" of poets that included Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Attributing a number of characteristics to the writings of the Lake Poets, Jeffrey argued that their work was based on anti-social principles and that while it reflected the simplicity and energy inspired by nature, it was also both harsh and quaint in its use of "ordinary" language and themes. Other critics, including Thomas De Quincey, have argued that there existed no such "school" of poetry.

According to these critics, the Lake Poets shared only friendship and brief periods of collaboration, not similar philosophies or poetic styles. Southey and Coleridge met in 1794, at Balliol College in Oxford. There they hatched a plan to create a Utopian community in America called "Pantisocracy." They collaborated on works that reflected their radical political beliefs, such as the drama The Fall of Robespierre (1794). Southey soon gave up on their political agenda, and Coleridge terminated the friendship. The two were married to sisters, however, and these familial bonds soon encouraged the poets to reconcile. By 1797, Coleridge had begun a close friendship with Wordsworth. They worked together closely in and near both the Lake District home that Wordsworth shared with his sister Dorothy and Coleridge's nearby residence. Together they wrote Lyrical Ballads (1798), a collection of poetry that was prefaced by a statement of Wordsworth's poetic theory and that helped define the Romantic Movement.

During this period, the two poets influenced each other greatly, with Coleridge encouraging Wordsworth to explore philosophic poetry and Wordsworth offering Coleridge his insights and perspectives on nature. As Coleridge's relationship with Wordsworth continued to develop, Southey's and Coleridge's friendship cooled. Even so, Southey and his wife took up residence with Coleridge and his family in Keswick, a part of the Lake District, in 1803. This was a time of increasing marital discord for Coleridge. During this period, Coleridge traveled extensively and lived with the Wordsworths for several years. Meanwhile, Southey helped raise Coleridge's children, frequently admonishing Coleridge to stop using opium and to write with some regularity in order to provide for his family. Despite their distinctly different styles and philosophies, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth are all considered Romantic poets. The Romantic fascination with the unusual and the supernatural is reflected in many of the works of Coleridge and Southey, most notably in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798).

Wordsworth and Coleridge both possessed an active imagination as well as a strong sense of perception. While Wordsworth used his imaginative powers to idealize the familiar, Coleridge explored the philosophical aspects of poetry. Southey's Romantic efforts centered on travel and adventure. He used exotic historical settings, such as Spain and the Orient, in his examination of the mythic and supernatural, but on the whole he was regarded more for his prose and literary criticism than for his poetry. The connection of the Lake Poets to Romanticism also encompassed a love of liberty and radical political convictions. The poets had, to varying degrees, sympathized with the French Revolution, believing that France was Europe's champion of liberty. Immersed in their love and worship of nature, the Lake Poets also believed in the spirit of reform through revolution, while maintaining that the union of the soul with nature was of primary importance. During the end of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century, they were sheltered from the affairs of the world in their Lake Country homes. But in the aftermath of the French Revolution they began to regain interest in worldly events, and their attitudes became increasingly conservative.

Their early revolutionary fervor was severely diminished and their hopes for France dashed as the nation, under Napoleon's rule, began conquering other countries. Their love of liberty was transformed into nationalism as they became convinced that England's constitutional monarchy and the guiding force of the Protestant Church were the only guarantors of freedom. This transition of the Lake Poets to conservatism has been a major focus of study by twentieth century critics. Hoxie Neal Fairchild and others have attributed the change primarily to the Lake Poets' reaction to the French Revolution and its aftermath. Fairchild has also suggested that the transition was part of a greater maturation process and that personal events in each of the poets' lives may have influenced their growing conservatism. These incidents include the death of Wordsworth's brother and Coleridge's immersion in German philosophy as well as his battle with opium addiction. While nineteenth-century critics such as George Brandes have condemned the Lake Poets as traitors to liberty, most recent critics have found a number of justifications for the shift from liberalism to conservatism. Another area of interest for recent scholars has been the relationship of the Lake Poets to each other and to their contemporaries.

Critics such as Earl Leslie Griggs, Malcolm Elwin, and Raimonda Modiano have focused their attention on the Lake Poets' opinions of each other, and on the intense collaboration between Wordsworth and Coleridge. The debate centering on Wordsworth's and Coleridge's relationship continues, with scholars questioning which poet more strongly influenced the other. Start Free Trial Start your free trial with eNotes to access more than 30,000 study guides. Get help with any book. †"This Bower My Prison" (poem) 1798 †The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poem) 1798 Robert Southey ‡The Fall of Robespierre (drama) 1794 Thalaba (poem) 1801 †"Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey" (poem) 1798 †First appeared in Lyrical Ballads ‡Collaboration with Coleridge link Link Francis Jeffrey SOURCE: A review of Thalaba, the Destroyer, in The Edinburgh Review, Vol. I, No. I, October, 1802, pp.

63-83. [In the following excerpt, Jeffrey identifies Southey as one of a "sect of poets" that included Wordsworth and Coleridge, and offers a harsh assessment of this group and its aim to focus on "ordinary" language and themes.] Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its standards were fixed long ago, by certain inspired writers, whose authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; and that many profess to be entirely devoted to it, who have no good works to produce in support of their pretensions. The catholic poetical church, too, has worked but few miracles since the first ages of its establishment; and has been more prolific, for a long time, of doctors than of saints: it has had its corruptions, and reformation also, and has given birth to an infinite variety of heresies and errors, the followers of which have hated and persecuted each other as cordially as other bigots. The author who is now before us, [Robert Southey] belongs to a sect of poets, that has established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years and is looked upon, we believe, as one of its chief champions and apostles.

The peculiar doctrines of this sect, it would not, perhaps, be very easy to explain; but, that they are dissenters from the established systems in poetry and criticism, is admitted, and proved indeed, by the whole tenor of their compositions. Though they lay claim, we believe, to a creed and a revelation of their own, there can be little doubt, that their doctrines are of German origin, and have been derived from some of the great modern reformers in that country. Some of their leading principles, indeed, are probably of an earlier date, and seem to have been borrowed from the great apostle of Geneva. As Mr. Southey is the first author of this persuasion, that has yet been brought before us for judgment, we cannot discharge our inquisitorial office conscientiously, without premising a few words upon the nature and tendency of the tenets he has helped to promulgate. The disciples of this school boast much of its originality, and seem to value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage of ancient authority, and re-asserted the independence of genius.

Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; and a man may change a good master for a bad one, without finding himself at all nearer to independence. That our new poets have abandoned the old models, may certainly be admitted; but we have not been able to discover that they have yet created any models of their own; and are very much inclined to call in question the worthiness of those to which they have transferred their admiration. The productions of this school, we conceive, are so far from being entitled to the praise of originality, that they cannot be better characterised, than by an enumeration of the sources from which their materials have been derived. The greatest part of them, we apprehend, will be found to be composed of the following elements: 1. The antisocial principles, and distempered sensibility of Rousseau—his discontent with the present constitution of society—his paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankerings after some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection. 2. The simplicity and energy (horresco referens) of Kotzebue and Schiller. 3.

The homeliness and harshness of some of Cowper's language and versification, interchanged occasionally with the innocence of Ambrose Philips, or the quaintness of Quarles and Dr. Donne. From the diligent study of these few originals, we have no doubt that an entire art of poetry may be collected, by the assistance of which the very gentlest of our readers may soon be qualified to compose a poem as correctly versified as Thalaba, and to deal out sentiment and description, with all the sweetness of Lambe, and all the magnificence of Coleridge. The authors of whom we are now speaking, have, among them, unquestionably, a very considerable portion of poetical talent, and have, consequently, been enabled to seduce many into an admiration of the false taste (as it appears to us) in which most of these productions are composed. They constitute, at present, the most formidable conspiracy that has lately been formed against sound judgment in matters poetical; and are entitled to a larger share of our censorial notice, than could be spared for an individual delinquent.

We shall hope for the indulgence of our readers, therefore, in taking this opportunity to inquire a little more particularly into their merits, and to make a few remarks upon those peculiarities which seem to be regarded by their admirers as the surest proofs of their excellence. Their most distinguishing symbol, is undoubtedly an affectation of great simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much art in this, for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; and their sentiments, they are determined shall be indebted, for their effect, to nothing but their intrinsic tenderness or elevation. There is something very noble and conscientious, we will confess, in this plan of composition; but the misfortune is, that there are passages in all poems that can neither be pathetic nor sublime; and that, on these occasions, a neglect of the establishments of language is very apt to produce absolute meanness and insipidity.

The language of passion, indeed, can scarcely be deficient in elevation; and when an author is wanting in that particular, he may commonly be presumed to have failed in the truth, as well as in the dignity of his expression. The case, however, is extremely different with the subordinate parts of a composition; with the narrative and description, that are necessary to preserve its connexion; and the explanation, that must frequently prepare us for the great scenes and splendid passages. In these, all the requisite ideas may be conveyed, with sufficient clearness, by the meanest and most negligent expressions; and, if magnificence or beauty is ever to be observed in them, it must have been introduced from some other motive than that of adapting the style to the subject. It is in such passages, accordingly, that we are most frequently offended with low and inelegant expressions; and that the language, which was intended to be simple and natural, is found oftenest to degenerate into mere slovenliness and vulgarity. It is in vain, too, to expect that the meanness of those parts may be redeemed by the excellence of others.

A poet who aims at all at sublimity or pathos, is like an actor in a high tragic character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become altogether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mock-majesty of those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot permit Hamlet to make use of a single provincial intonation, although it should only be in his conversation with the grave-diggers. The followers of simplicity are, therefore, at all times in danger of occasional degradation; but the simplicity of this new school seems intended to ensure it. Their simplicity does not consist, by any means, in the rejection of glaring or superfluous ornament,—in the substitution of elegance to splendour,—or in that refinement of art which seeks concealment in its own perfection. It consists, on the contrary, in a very great degree, in the positive and bona fide rejection of art altogether, and in the bold use of those rude and negligent expressions, which would be banished by a little discrimination.

One of their own authors, indeed, has very ingeniously set forth, (in a kind of manifesto, that preceded one of their most flagrant acts of hostility), that it was their capital object 'to adapt to the uses of poetry, the ordinary language of conversation among the middling and lower orders of the people' [William Wordsworth, in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads]. What advantages are to be gained by the success of this project, we confess ourselves unable to conjecture. The language of the higher and more cultivated orders may fairly be presumed to be better than that of their inferiors; at any rate, it has all those associations in its favour, by means of which a style can ever appear beautiful or exalted, and is adapted to the purposes of poetry, by having been long consecrated to its use. The language of the vulgar, on the other hand, has all the opposite associations to contend with; and must seem unfit for poetry, (if there were no other reason), merely because it has scarcely ever been employed in it. A great genius may indeed overcome these disadvantages; but we scarcely conceive that he should court them.

We may excuse a certain homeliness of language in the productions of a ploughman or a milk-woman; but we cannot bring ourselves to admire it in an author, who has had occasion to indite odes to his college-bell, and inscribe hymns to the Penates. But the mischief of this new system is not confined to the depravation of language only; it extends to the sentiments and emotions; and leads to the debasement of all those feelings which poetry is designed to communicate. It is absurd to suppose, that an author should make use of the language of the vulgar to express the sentiments of the refined. His professed object, in employing that language, is to bring his compositions nearer to the true standard of nature; and his intention to copy the sentiments of the lower orders, is implied in his resolution to make use of their style. Now, the different classes of society have each of them a distinct character, as well as a separate idiom; and the names of the various passions to which they are subject respectively, have a signification that varies essentially, according to the condition of the persons to whom they are applied.

The love, or grief, or indignation of an enlightened and refined character, is not only expressed in a different language, but is in itself a different emotion from the love, or grief, or anger of a clown, a tradesman, or a market-wench. The things themselves are radically and obviously distinct; and the representation of them is calculated to convey a very different train of sympathies and sensations to the mind. The question, therefore, comes simply to be—Which of them is the most proper object for poetical imitation? It is needless for us to answer a question, which the practice of all the world has long ago decided irrevocably. The poor and vulgar may interest us, in poetry, by their situation; but never, we apprehend, by any sentiments that are peculiar to their condition, and still less by any language that is characteristic of it.

The truth is, that it is impossible to copy their diction or their sentiments correctly, in a serious composition; and this, not merely because poverty makes men ridiculous, but because just taste and refined sentiment are rarely to be met with among the uncultivated part of mankind; and a language fitted for their expression, can still more rarely form any part of their 'ordinary conversation.' The low-bred heroes, and interesting rustics of poetry, have no sort of affinity to the real vulgar of this world; they are imaginary beings, whose characters and language are in contrast with their situation; and please those who can be pleased with them, by the marvellous, and not by the nature of such a combination. In serious poetry, a man of the middling or lower order must necessarily lay aside a great deal of his ordinary language; he must avoid errors in grammar and orthography; and steer clear of the cant of particular professions, and of every impropriety that is ludicrous or disgusting: nay, he must speak in good verse, and observe all the graces in prosody and collocation.

After all this, it may not be very easy to say how we are to find him out to be a low man, or what marks can remain of the ordinary language of conversation in the inferior orders of society. If there be any phrases that are not used in good society, they will appear as blemishes in the composition, no less palpably than errors in syntax or quantity; and if there be no such phrases, the style cannot be characteristic of that condition of life, the language of which it professes to have adopted. All approximation to that language, in the same manner, implies a deviation from that purity and precision, which no one, we believe, ever violated spontaneously. It has been argued, indeed, (for men will argue in support of what they do not venture to practise), that, as the middling and lower orders of society constitute by far the greater part of mankind, so, their feelings and expressions should interest more extensively, and may be taken, more fairly than any other, for the standards of what is natural and true.

To this, it seems obvious to answer, that the arts that aim at exciting admiration and delight, do not take their models from what is ordinary, but from what is excellent; and that our interest in the representation of any event, does not depend upon our familiarity with the original, but on its intrinsic importance, and the celebrity of the parties it concerns. The sculptor employs his art in delineating the graces of Antinous or Apollo, and not in the representation of those ordinary forms that belong to the crowd of his admirers. When a chieftain perishes in battle, his followers mourn more for him than for thousands of their equals that may have fallen around him. After all, it must be admitted, that there is a class of persons (we are afraid they cannot be called readers), to whom the representation of vulgar manners, in vulgar language, will afford much entertainment. We are afraid, however, that the ingenious writers who supply the hawkers and ballad-singers, have very nearly monopolized that department, and are probably better qualified to hit the taste of their customers, than Mr. Southey, or any of his brethren, can yet pretend to be.

To fit them for the higher task of original composition, it would not be amiss if they were to undertake a translation of Pope or Milton into the vulgar tongue, for the benefit of those children of nature. There is another disagreeable effect of this affected simplicity, which, though of less importance than those which have been already noticed, it may yet be worth while to mention: This is, the extreme difficulty of supporting the same low tone of expression throughout, and the inequality that is consequently introduced into the texture of the composition. To an author of reading and education, it is a style that must always be assumed and unnatural, and one from which he will be perpetually tempted to deviate. He will rise, therefore, every now and then, above the level to which he has professedly degraded himself; and make amends for that transgression by a fresh effort of descension. His composition, in short, will be like that of a person who is attempting to speak in an obsolete or provincial dialect; he will betray himself by expressions of occasional purity and elegance, and exert himself to efface that impression, by passages of unnatural meanness or absurdity. . . .

Thomas De Quincey SOURCE: "Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge: From 1807 to 1830," in Reminiscences of the English Lake Poets, 1839. Reprint by J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1907, pp. 189-201. [In this essay De Quincey offers his reflections on the personalities of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and compares their poetic styles and philosophical views.] A circumstance which, as much as anything, expounded to the very eye the characteristic distinctions between Wordsworth and Southey, and would not suffer a stranger to forget it for a moment, was the insignificant place and consideration allowed to the small book-collection of the former, contrasted with the splendid library of the latter. The two or three hundred volumes of Wordsworth occupied a little, homely, painted bookcase, fixed into one of two shallow recesses, formed on each side of the fireplace by the projection of the chimney in the little sitting-room up-stairs, which he had already described as his half kitchen and half parlour.

They were ill bound, or not bound at all—in boards, sometimes in tatters; many were imperfect as to the number of volumes, mutilated as to the number of pages; sometimes, where it seemed worth while, the defects being supplied by manuscript; sometimes not: in short, everything showed that the books were for use, and not for show; and their limited amount showed that their possessor must have independent sources of enjoyment to fill up the major part of his time. In reality, when the weather was tolerable, I believe that Wordsworth rarely resorted to his books, (unless, perhaps, to some little pocket edition of a poet, which accompanied him in his rambles,) except in the evenings, or after he had tired himself by walking. On the other hand, Southey's collection occupied a separate room, the largest, and, every way, the most agreeable in the house; and this room was styled, and not ostentatiously, (for it really merited that name,) the library. The house itself, Greta Hall, stood upon a little eminence, (as I have before mentioned,) overhanging the river Greta.

There was nothing remarkable in its internal arrangements: in all respects, it was a very plain unadorned family dwelling; large enough, by a little contrivance, to accommodate two or, in some sense, three families, viz. Mr. Southey, and his family; Mr. Coleridge, and his; together with Mrs. Lovell, who, when her son was with her, might be said to compose a third. Mrs. Coleridge, Mrs. Southey, and Mrs. Lovell were sisters; all having come originally from Bristol; and, as the different sets of children in this one house had each three several aunts, all the ladies, by turns, assuming that relation twice over, it was one of Southey's many amusing jests, to call the hill on which Greta Hall was placed, the ant-hill. Mrs. Lovell was the widow of Mr. Robert Lovell, who had published a volume of poems, in conjunction with Southey, somewhere about the year 1797, under the signatures of Bion and Moschus.

This lady, having only one son, did not require any large suite of rooms; and the less so, as her son quitted her, at an early age, to pursue a professional education. The house had therefore been divided (not by absolute partition, into two distinct apartments, but by an amicable distribution of rooms) between the two families of Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Southey; Mr. Coleridge had a separate study, which was... (The entire section is 7739 words.) Get Free Access Start your free trial with eNotes for complete access to this resource and thousands more. 30,000+ Study Guides Save time with thousands of teacher-approved book and topic summaries. Get Homework Help Ask real teachers questions on any subject or search 300,000+ answers. On the Go Access link Link C. H. Herford SOURCE: "Poetry," in The Age of Wordsworth, 1897. Reprint by G. Bell and Sons Ltd., 1930, pp. 146-284.

[In the following excerpt, Herford discusses the poetic styles of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey and comments on the influence that the three poets had on each other.] [Wordsworth and Coleridge] were at once profoundly akin and strikingly different, and both their points of kinship and their points of divergence go to the heart of English Romanticism. It is therefore necessary to define these with some care. On a first glance the two men seem, physically and psychologically, of wholly different make. Wordsworth, a rugged... (The entire section is 34849 words.) Get Free Access David Watson Rannie SOURCE: An introduction to Wordsworth and His Circle, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1907, pp. 1-17. [In the following excerpt, Rannie discusses the Romantic characteristics and influences of Wordsworth's work and the poet's association with Coleridge, Southey, De Quincey, and Charles Lamb.] In one sense it seems a dubious use of metaphor to regard Wordsworth as the centre of any circle.

For, if we think of a body of men as a circle, we must think of the centre as one of a group who shares its qualities; one who gives and takes, who lives in intellectual community and not alone. Yet no fact about Wordsworth is more certain and more... (The entire section is 16976 words.) link Link George Brandes SOURCE: "The Lake School's Conception of Liberty," in Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature: Naturalism in England, Vol. IV, translated by Mary Morison, William Heinemann, 1905, pp. 85-89. [In the following essay, originally published in 1875, Brandes compares the views of liberty held by the Lake Poets with those of the later Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley.] Coleridge and the other members of the Lake School would never have dreamt of calling themselves anything but warm friends of liberty; the days were past when the reactionaries called themselves by another name. Coleridge wrote one of his most beautiful...

(The entire section is 16338 words.) Lake poet | English literary circle | Britannica.com English literary circle Cavalier poet Lake poet, any of the English poets William Wordsworth , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , and Robert Southey , who lived in the English Lake District of Cumberland and Westmorland (now Cumbria) at the beginning of the 19th century. They were first described derogatorily as the “Lake school” by Francis (afterward Lord) Jeffrey in The Edinburgh Review in August 1817, and the description “Lakers” was also used in a similar spirit by the poet Lord Byron . These names confusingly group Wordsworth and Coleridge together with Southey, who did not subscribe in his views or work to their theories of poetry . Learn More in these related articles: in English literature: Other poets of the early Romantic period Robert Southey was closely associated with Wordsworth and Coleridge and was looked upon as a prominent member, with them, of the “Lake school” of poetry.

His originality is best seen in his ballads and his nine “English Eclogues,” three of which were first published in the 1799 volume of his Poems with a prologue explaining that these verse sketches of... 1 Reference found in Britannica Articles Assorted Reference Lake poets - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) The term Lake poets is a label applied to the English poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, who all lived in the English Lake District of Cumberland and Westmorland (now Cumbria) at the beginning of the 19th century. The three poets were first described derogatorily as the "Lake school" by Francis (afterward Lord) Jeffrey in The Edinburgh Review in August 1817, and the description Lakers was also used in a similar spirit by the poet Lord Byron. These names confusingly group Wordsworth and Coleridge together with Southey, who did not subscribe in his views or work to their theories of poetry. Article History Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback. MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later.

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Close Date Published: July 20, 1998 URL: Access Date: January 17, 2017 Share The Lake Poets - The Lake Poets By Tom Burrows William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey became known as the Lake Poets in the early years of the nineteenth century when critic Francis Jeffrey conferred this designation on them. In an 1817 article published in The Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey referred to the three poets as belonging to the "Lake School." The term refers to the Lake District, where all three poets resided for a time. Despite their distinctly different styles, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth are all considered Romantic poets. The Romantic fascination with the unusual and the supernatural is reflected in many of the works of Coleridge and Southey, most notably in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Wordsworth and Coleridge both possessed a strong perception of the world as well as an active imagination. While Wordsworth used his imaginative powers to idealize the familiar, Coleridge explored the philosophical aspects of poetry. Southey's Romantic efforts tended to centred on travel and adventure.

The connection of the Lake Poets to Romanticism also encompassed a love of liberty and radical political convictions. The poets had, to varying degrees, sympathized with the French Revolution, believing that France was Europe's champion of liberty. Immersed in their love and worship of nature, the Lake Poets also believed in the spirit of reform through revolution, while maintaining that the union of the soul with nature was of primary importance. During the end of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century, they were sheltered from the affairs of the world in their Lake Country homes. But in the aftermath of the French Revolution they began to regain interest in worldly events, and their attitudes became increasingly conservative. Their early revolutionary fervour was severely diminished and their hopes for France dashed as the nation, under Napoleon's rule, began conquering other countries. Their love of liberty was transformed into nationalism as they became convinced that England's constitutional monarchy and the guiding force of the Protestant Church were the only guarantors of freedom. Unlike Coleridge or Southey, Wordsworth was a son of the Lakes, born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, just a few miles west of Bassenthwaite.

His childhood was spent largely in Cockermouth and Penrith , his mother's home town. William and Dorothy and his future wife Mary Hutchinson attended infant school in Penrith between 1776 and 1777. William's mother died in Penrith when he was 8 shaping much of his later work. Wordsworth attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love of poetry was firmly established and, it is believed, he made his first attempts at verse. While he was at Hawkshead, Wordsworth's father died leaving him and his four siblings orphans. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John's College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities. While touring Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the French Revolution. This experience as well as a subsequent period living in France, brought about Wordsworth's interest and sympathy for the life, troubles and speech of the "common man". These issues proved to be of the utmost importance to Wordsworth's work. Wordsworth's earliest poetry was published in 1793 in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.

Equally important in the poetic life of Wordsworth was his 1795 meeting with the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge . It was with Coleridge that Wordsworth published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1798. While the poems themselves are some of the most influential in Western literature, it is the preface to the second edition that remains one of the most important testaments to a poet's views on both his craft and his place in the world. In the preface Wordsworth writes on the need for "common speech" within poems and argues against the hierarchy of the period which valued epic poetry above the lyric. Wordsworth's most famous work, The Prelude (1850), is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism. The poem, revised numerous times, chronicles the spiritual life of the poet and marks the birth of a new genre of poetry. Although Wordsworth worked on The Prelude throughout his life, the poem was published posthumously. Wordsworth spent his final years settled at Rydal Mount in England, travelling and continuing his outdoor excursions.

Devastated by the death of his daughter Dora in 1847, Wordsworth seemingly lost his will to compose poems. William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on April 23, 1850, leaving his wife Mary to publish The Prelude three months later. Create a free website William Wordsworth :: English Language Poet :: English Poetry Romanticism Influences: John Milton, Henry Vaughan, David Hartley, Samuel Coleridge, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Shakespeare, John "Walking" Stewart Influenced: John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leslie Stephen, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, W.B. Yeats, George Byron, 6th Baron Byron, John Millington Synge William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years that was revised and expanded a number of times.

It was never published during his lifetime, and was only given the title after his death. Up until this time it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850. Contents Biography Early life and education The second of five children, Wordsworth was born in Cumberland—part of the scenic region in north-west England called the Lake District. His sister was the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth. With the death of his mother in 1778, his father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School. In 1783 his father, who was a lawyer and the solicitor for the Earl of Lonsdale (a man much despised in the area), died. The estate consisted of around £4500[citation needed], most of it in claims upon the Earl, who thwarted these claims until his death in 1802. The Earl's successor, however, settled the claims with interest. After their father's death, the Wordsworth children were left under the guardianship of their uncles. Although many aspects of his boyhood were positive, he recalled bouts of loneliness and anxiety.

It took him many years, and much writing, to recover from the death of his parents and his separation from his siblings. Wordsworth began attending St John's College, Cambridge in 1787. His youngest brother, Christopher, rose to be Master of Trinity College.[1] Three years later, in 1790, he visited Revolutionary France and supported the Republican movement. The following year, he graduated from Cambridge without distinction. Relationship with Annette Vallon In November 1791, Wordsworth returned to France and took a walking tour of Europe that included the Alps and Italy. 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 Britain's tensions with France, he returned alone to England the next year.[2] The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raise doubts as to his declared wish to marry Annette but he supported her and his daughter as best he could in later life. During this period, he wrote his acclaimed "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free," recalling his seaside walk with his daughter, whom he had not seen for ten years.

At the conception of this poem, he had never seen his daughter before. The occurring lines reveal his deep love for both child and mother. The Reign of Terror estranged him from the Republican movement, and war between France and Britain prevented him from seeing Annette and Caroline again for several years. There are also strong suggestions that Wordsworth may have been depressed and emotionally unsettled in the mid 1790s. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, visited Annette and Caroline in France and arrived at a mutually agreeable settlement regarding Wordsworth's obligations.[2] First publication and Lyrical Ballads 1793 saw Wordsworth's first published poetry with the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. He received a legacy of £900 from Raisley Calvert in 1795 so that he could pursue writing poetry. That year, he also met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. In 1797, Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, moved to Somerset, just a few miles away from Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey.

Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement. The volume had neither the name of Wordsworth nor Coleridge as author. One of Wordsworth's most famous poems, "Tintern Abbey", was published in the work, along with Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". The second edition, published in 1800, had only Wordsworth listed as author, and included a preface to the poems, which was significantly augmented in the 1802 edition. This Preface to Lyrical Ballads is considered a central work of Romantic literary theory. In it, Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the elements of a new type of poetry, one based on the "real language of men" and which avoids the poetic diction of much eighteenth-century poetry. Here, Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquility." A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.

Germany and move to the Lake District Wordsworth, Dorothy, and Coleridge then travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1798. While Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the trip, its main effect on Wordsworth was to produce homesickness.[2] During the harsh winter of 1798–1799, Wordsworth lived with Dorothy in Goslar, and despite extreme stress and loneliness, he began work on an autobiographical piece later titled The Prelude. He also wrote a number of famous poems, including "the Lucy poems". He and his sister moved back to England, now to Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the Lake District, and this time with fellow poet Robert Southey nearby. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey came to be known as the "Lake Poets". Through this period, many of his poems revolve around themes of death, endurance, separation, and grief. William Wordsworth, reproduced from Margaret Gillies' 1839 original Portrait, 1842, by Benjamin Haydon Both Coleridge's health and his relationship to Wordsworth began showing signs of decay in 1804. That year Wordsworth befriended Robert Southey.

With Napoleon's rise as Emperor of the French, Wordsworth's last wisp of liberalism fell, and from then on he identified himself as a Tory. Autobiographical work and Poems in Two Volumes Wordsworth had for years been making plans to write a long philosophical poem in three parts, which he intended to call The Recluse. He had in 1798–99 started an autobiographical poem, which he never named but called the "poem to Coleridge", which would serve as an appendix to The Recluse. In 1804 he began expanding this autobiographical work, having decided to make it a prologue rather than an appendix to the larger work he planned. By 1805, he had completed it, but refused to publish such a personal work until he had completed the whole of The Recluse. The death of his brother, John, in 1805 affected him strongly. The source of Wordsworth's philosophical allegiances as articulated in The Prelude and in such shorter works as "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey" has been the source of much critical debate.

While it had long been supposed that Wordsworth relied chiefly on Coleridge for philosophical guidance, more recent scholarship has suggested that Wordsworth's ideas may have been formed years before he and Coleridge became friends in the mid 1790s. While in Revolutionary Paris in 1792, the twenty-two year old Wordsworth made the acquaintance of the mysterious traveler John "Walking" Stewart (1747-1822),[3] who was nearing the end of a thirty-years' peregrination from Madras, India, through Persia and Arabia, across Africa and all of Europe, and up through the fledgling United States. By the time of their association, Stewart had published an ambitious work of original materialist philosophy entitled The Apocalypse of Nature (London, 1791), to which many of Wordsworth's philosophical sentiments are likely indebted. In 1807, his Poems in Two Volumes were published, including "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". Up to this point Wordsworth was known publicly only for Lyrical Ballads, and he hoped this collection would cement his reputation. Its reception was only lukewarm, however.

For a time (starting in 1810), Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction.[2] Two of his children, Thomas and Catherine, died in 1812. The following year, he received an appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and the £400 per year income from the post made him financially secure. His family, including Dorothy, moved to Rydal Mount, Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water), where he spent the rest of his life.[2] The Prospectus In 1814 he published The Excursion as the second part of the three-part The Recluse. He had not completed the first and third parts, and never would complete them. However, he did write a poetic Prospectus to "The Recluse" in which he lays out the structure and intent of the poem.

The Prospectus contains some of Wordsworth's most famous lines on the relation between the human mind and nature: My voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too, Theme this but little heard of among Men, The external World is fitted to the Mind . Some modern critics recognise a decline in his works beginning around the mid-1810s. But this decline was perhaps more a change in his lifestyle and beliefs, since most of the issues that characterise his early poetry (loss, death, endurance, separation, abandonment) were resolved in his writings. But, by 1820 he enjoyed the success accompanying a reversal in the contemporary critical opinion of his earlier works. By 1828, Wordsworth had become fully reconciled to Coleridge, and the two toured the Rhineland together that year.[2] Dorothy suffered from a severe illness in 1829 that rendered her an invalid for the remainder of her life. In 1835, Wordsworth gave Annette and Caroline the money they needed for support.

The Poet Laureate and other honours Wordsworth received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1838 from Durham University, and the same honour from Oxford University the next year.[2] In 1842 the government awarded him a civil list pension amounting to £300 a year. With the death in 1843 of Robert Southey, Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate. When his daughter, Dora, died in 1847, his production of poetry came to a standstill. Marriage In 1802, after returning from his trip to France with Dorothy to visit Annette and Caroline, Wordsworth received the inheritance owed by Lord Lonsdale since John Wordsworth's death in 1783. Later that year, he married a childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson.[2] Dorothy continued to live with the couple and grew close to Mary. The following year, Mary gave birth to the first of five children, John. Death William Wordsworth died in Rydal Mount in 1850 and was buried at St. Oswald's church in Grasmere.

His widow published his lengthy autobiographical "poem to Coleridge" as The Prelude several months after his death. Though this failed to arouse great interest in 1850, it has since come to be recognised as his masterpiece. The lives of Wordsworth and Coleridge, in particular their collaboration on the "Lyrical Ballads," are discussed in the 2000 film Pandaemonium.

Major works Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798) "Simon Lee" "Lines Written in Early Spring" "Expostulation and Reply" "Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800) Preface to the Lyrical Ballads "Strange fits of passion I have known"[4] "She dwelt among the untrodden ways"[4] "Three years she grew"[4] "A slumber did my spirit seal"[4] "I travelled among unknown men"[4] "Lucy Gray" Poems, in Two Volumes (1807) "Resolution and Independence" "I wandered lonely as a cloud" "My heart leaps up" "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" "London, 1802" "The world is too much with us" The Excursion (1814) William Wordsworth - iSnare Free Encyclopedia William Wordsworth For the Scottish composer, see William Wordsworth (composer) . William Wordsworth Portrait of William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon ( National Portrait Gallery ).

Born Lyrical Ballads , Poems in Two Volumes, The Excursion , The Prelude , I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud William 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). Wordsworth's 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 Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. [2] Contents Main article: Early life of William Wordsworth The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland, [3] part of the scenic region in northwestern England known as the Lake District .

His sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth , to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. They had three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John, born after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in 1805 when the ship of which he was captain, the Earl of Abergavenny , was wrecked off the south coast of England; and Christopher , the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of Trinity College, Cambridge . [4] Wordsworth's father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections, lived in a large mansion in the small town. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in 1783. [5] However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular set him to commit to memory large portions of verse, including works by Milton , Shakespeare and Spenser . William was also allowed to use his father's library.

William also spent time at his mother's parents' house in Penrith , Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle, who also lived there. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide. [6] Wordsworth was taught to read by his mother and attended, first, a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families, where he was taught by Ann Birkett, who insisted on instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and Shrove Tuesday . Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, who later became his wife. [7] After the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworth's father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire (now in Cumbria ) and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire . She and William did not meet again for another nine years.

Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine . That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge . He received his BA degree in 1791. [8] He returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours , visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape . In 1790 he went on a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy. Relationship with Annette Vallon In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement. He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britain 's tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. [9] The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour 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 left Wordsworth thoroughly disillusioned with the French Revolution and the outbreak of armed hostilities between Britain and France prevented him from seeing Annette and his daughter for some 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. [9] Afterwards he wrote the sonnet " It is a beauteous evening, calm and free ," recalling a seaside walk with the 9-year-old Caroline, whom he had never seen before that visit. Mary was anxious that Wordsworth should do more for Caroline and upon Caroline's marriage, in 1816, when Wordsworth settled £30 a year on her (equivalent to £1360 as of the year 2000). The payments continued until 1835, when they were replaced by a capital settlement. [10] [11] First publication and Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth in 1798, about the time he began The Prelude .

[12] The 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 Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey . Together Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement . It was augmented significantly in the next edition, published in 1802. The Borderers Between 1795-97, Wordsworth wrote his only play, The Borderers, a verse tragedy set during the reign of King Henry III of England , when Englishmen in the North Country came into conflict with Scottish rovers.

He attempted to get the play staged in November 1797, but it was rejected by Thomas Harris , the manager of the Covent Garden Theatre , who proclaimed it "impossible that the play should succeed in the representation". The rebuff was not received lightly by Wordsworth and the play was not published until 1842, after substantial revision. [17] Germany and move to the Lake District Wordsworth, 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. [9] During the harsh winter of 1798–99 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 Sockburn. When Coleridge arrived back in England he travelled to the North with their publisher Joseph Cottle 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 ". [18] Throughout this period many of Wordsworth's poems revolved around themes of death, endurance, separation and grief. Dove Cottage (Town End, Grasmere) – home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, 1799–1808; home of Thomas De Quincey, 1809–1820 Marriage and children In 1802 Lowther's heir, William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale , paid the 4,000 pounds owed to Wordsworth's father through Lowther's failure to pay his aide. [19] It was this repayment that afforded Wordsworth the financial means to marry. On 4 October, following his visit with Dorothy to France to arrange matters with Annette, Wordsworth married his childhood friend Mary Hutchinson. [9] Dorothy continued to live with the couple and grew close to Mary.

The following year Mary gave birth to the first of five children, three of whom predeceased her and William: John Wordsworth (18 June 1803 – 1875). Married four times: Isabella Curwen (d. 1848) had six children: Jane, Henry, William, John, Charles and Edward. Helen Ross (d. 1854). No children Mary Ann Dolan (d. after 1858) had one daughter Dora (b. 1858). Mary Gamble. No children Dora Wordsworth (16 August 1804 – 9 July 1847). Married Edward Quillinan in 1843. Thomas Wordsworth (15 June 1806 – 1 December 1812). Catherine Wordsworth (6 September 1808 – 4 June 1812). William "Willy" Wordsworth (12 May 1810 – 1883).

Married Fanny Graham and had four children: Mary Louisa, William, Reginald, Gordon Autobiographical work and Poems in Two Volumes Wordsworth had for years been making plans to write a long philosophical poem in three parts, which he intended to call The Recluse. In 1798–99 he started an autobiographical poem, which he referred to as the " poem to Coleridge " and which he planned would serve as an appendix to a larger work called The Recluse. In 1804 he began expanding this autobiographical work, having decided to make it a prologue rather than an appendix. He completed this work, now generally referred to as the first version of The Prelude , in 1805, but refused to publish such a personal work until he had completed the whole of The Recluse. The death of his brother John, also in 1805, affected him strongly and may have influenced his decisions about these works. Wordsworth's philosophical allegiances as articulated in The Prelude and in such shorter works as " Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey " have been a source of critical debate.

It was long supposed that Wordsworth relied chiefly on Coleridge for philosophical guidance, but more recently scholars have suggested that Wordsworth's ideas may have been formed years before he and Coleridge became friends in the mid-1790s. In particular, while he was in revolutionary Paris in 1792 the 22-year-old Wordsworth made the acquaintance of the mysterious traveler John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822), [20] who was nearing the end of his thirty years of wandering, on foot, from Madras , India, through Persia and Arabia , across Africa and Europe, and up through the fledgling United States. By the time of their association Stewart had published an ambitious work of original materialist philosophy entitled The Apocalypse of Nature (London, 1791), to which many of Wordsworth's philosophical sentiments may well be indebted. In 1807 Wordsworth published Poems in Two Volumes , including " Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood ". Up to this point Wordsworth was known only for Lyrical Ballads, and he hoped that this new collection would cement his reputation.

Its reception was lukewarm, however. Rydal Mount – home to Wordsworth 1813–1850. Hundreds of visitors came here to see him over the years In 1810, Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction, [9] and in 1812, his son Thomas died at the age of 6 followed six months later by the death of 3-year-old Catherine. The following year he received an appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and the stipend of £400 a year made him financially secure. In 1813, he and his family, including Dorothy, moved to Rydal Mount , Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water), where he spent the rest of his life. [9] The Prospectus In 1814 Wordsworth published The Excursion as the second part of the three-part work The Recluse, even though he had not completed the first part or the third part, and never did.

He did, however, write a poetic Prospectus to "The Recluse" in which he laid out the structure and intention of the whole work. The Prospectus contains some of Wordsworth's most famous lines on the relation between the human mind and nature: My voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World Is fitted:—and how exquisitely, too, Theme this but little heard of among Men, The external World is fitted to the Mind. Some modern critics [21] suggest that there was a decline in his work beginning around the mid-1810s, perhaps because most of the concerns that characterised his early poems (loss, death, endurance, separation and abandonment) has been resolved in his writings and his life. By 1820, he was enjoying considerable success accompanying a reversal in the contemporary critical opinion of his earlier works. Following the death of his friend the painter William Green in 1823, Wordsworth also mended his relations with Coleridge. [22] The two were fully reconciled by 1828, when they toured the Rhineland together.

[9] Dorothy suffered from a severe illness in 1829 that rendered her an invalid for the remainder of her life. Coleridge and Charles Lamb both died in 1834, their loss being a difficult blow to Wordsworth. The following year saw the passing of James Hogg . Despite the death of many contemporaries, the popularity of his poetry ensured a steady stream of young friends and admirers to replace those he lost. Laureateship and other honours Wordsworth 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." [23] In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham and the following year he was awarded the same honorary degree by the University of Oxford.

[9] In 1842, the government awarded him a Civil List pension of £300 a year. Following the death of Robert Southey in 1843 Wordsworth became Poet Laureate . He initially refused the honour, saying that he was too old, but accepted when the Prime Minister, Robert Peel , assured him that "you shall have nothing required of you". Wordsworth thus became the only poet laureate to write no official verses. The sudden death of his daughter Dora in 1847 at the age of only 42 was difficult for the aging poet to take and in his depression, he completely gave up writing new material. Death Gravestone of William Wordsworth, Grasmere , Cumbria William Wordsworth died at home at Rydal Mount from an aggravated case of pleurisy on 23 April 1850, [24] and was buried at St Oswald's 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 recognised as his masterpiece.

In popular culture Wordsworth has appeared as a character in works of fiction, including: William Kinsolving – Mister Christian. 1996 Val McDermid – The Grave Tattoo. 2006 Major works Baillie, Joanna (2010). Thomas McLean, ed. Further Letters of Joanna Baillie . Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-8386-4149-1 . ^ Stephen Gill, William Wordsworth: A Life, Oxford University Press , 1989, pp. 422—3. ^ a b c d e M. H. Abrams, editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period, writes of these five poems: "This and the four following pieces are often grouped by editors as the 'Lucy poems,' even though 'A slumber did my spirit seal' does not identify the 'she' who is the subject of that poem. All but the last were written in 1799, while Wordsworth and his sister were in Germany, and homesick. There has been diligent speculation about the identity of Lucy, but it remains speculation.

The one certainty is that she is not the girl of Wordsworth's 'Lucy Gray'" (Abrams 2000). Further reading Hunter Davies, William Wordsworth: A Biography, Frances Lincoln, London, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7112-3045-3 Stephen Gill, William Wordsworth: A Life, Oxford University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0192827470 Emma Mason, The Cambridge Introduction to William Wordsworth (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Mary Moorman, William Wordsworth, A Biography: The Early Years, 1770–1803 v. 1, Oxford University Press, 1957, ISBN 978-0198115656 Mary Moorman, William Wordsworth: A Biography: The Later Years, 1803–1850 v. 2, Oxford University Press, 1965, ISBN 978-0198116172 M. R.

Tewari, One Interior Life—A Study of the Nature of Wordsworth's Poetic Experience (New Delhi: S. Chand & Company Ltd, 1983) Report to Wordsworth, Written by Boey Kim Cheng, as a direct reference to his poems "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" and "The World Is Too Much with Us" External links Collection : Wordsworth Collection Bust of William Wordsworth on pedestal Height (incl. pedestal): 7.3 inches (18.5 cm) Width: 2.3 inches (7 cm) Length: 2.2 inches (6 cm) Base: 2.2 x 2.2 x 8.1 inches (6 x 6 x 8 cm) Material bust: neolith (resin) Material base: neolith (resin) Weight: 1.1 lbs William Wordsworth, born on April 7, 1770, is considered to be one of the major Romantic poets. Together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge he introduced Romanticism to English poetry: their joint work Lyrical Ballads (1798) marks the start of the Romantic era in English poetry.

According to Wordsworth, poetry should be based on “the real language of men” and should do away with the artificial diction and rules of 18th century poetry. He defines poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility“. The autobiographical poem The Prelude – published in 1850, a few months after Wordsworth’s death – is considered to be his magnus opus. It is an extremely personal and revealing poem on Wordsworth’s personal life. Wordsworth himself did not give this work a name. He simply referred to it as “The Poem”. It was his wife Mary who named the poem posthumously. Wordsworth and Coleridge are – together with Robert Southey – also known as the “Lake Poets”.

Question: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey are commonly referred to as the 'what' Poets?
Answer: Lake Poets