William wordsworth life summary. William Wordsworth Biography 2022-10-07

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William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication "Lyrical Ballads". He was born on April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the Lake District of England. His father, John Wordsworth, was a legal representative for James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and a member of the Durham Light Infantry. His mother, Ann Cookson, was descended from a wealthy and influential family.

Wordsworth was the second of five children and the oldest son. He had two younger brothers and two younger sisters. When Wordsworth was eight years old, his mother died and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Hawkshead, a small village in the Lake District. This experience had a profound impact on Wordsworth and it is evident in much of his poetry, which often reflects on the beauty and majesty of the natural world.

Wordsworth received his early education at Hawkshead Grammar School and then attended St. John's College, Cambridge, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1791. After graduation, he spent time traveling and studying in France, where he was exposed to the ideals of the French Revolution and became interested in politics. He returned to England in 1795 and began working as a secretary to Sir James Lowther, but he soon left this position to pursue his passion for poetry.

Wordsworth's poetry is characterized by a focus on nature and the beauty of the natural world, as well as a sense of emotion and contemplation. His most famous poems include "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", "The Daffodils", and "Tintern Abbey". In 1802, he published "The Prelude", a long, autobiographical poem that is considered one of his finest works and one of the greatest poems in the English language.

In 1802, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, with whom he had five children. The couple settled in Grasmere, where they established a home and a printing press. Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, also lived with them and played a significant role in his life and work.

Wordsworth was a pioneer of the Romantic movement in England and is often considered one of the greatest English poets of all time. He died on April 23, 1850 at the age of 80 and is buried in Grasmere, in the Lake District of England. His legacy lives on through his poetry, which continues to be read and admired by people all over the world.

William Wordsworth: A Life Summary

william wordsworth life summary

Reviewing his Cambridge years in The Prelude , Wordsworth later touched on many factors which might have contributed to his failure to make the best of his opportunity—principled dislike of competitive examinations; irritations such as compulsory chapel attendance; a sense that the academic community was moribund; the temptations of sociability. While Wordsworth's poetry dominates the collection, the book begins with Coleridge's ''Rime of the Ancient Mariner,'' which is still the most widely read poem in Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth was particularly interested in common people as the subject of his poetry, which was somewhat unusual at the time but would become an essential part of Romantic writing in the following decades. Wordsworth concluded the setting of his poetic affairs in order. It is a masterpiece of lyrical utterance. This was true of his walking tours in Europe as well as his jaunts in the Lake District.

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William Wordsworth

william wordsworth life summary

Tewari, One Interior Life—A Study of the Nature of Wordsworth's Poetic Experience New Delhi: S. It is a narrative autobiographical poem consisting of 14 books in blank verse. Wordsworth became rebellious to the point of destroying a family portrait. He was boarded out with Ann Tyson , and he drank in the stories about the neighbourhood told by his deeply loved surrogate mother. They did not see him again for over two years.

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William Wordsworth Poems, Books & Biography

william wordsworth life summary

John's College at Cambridge University. A Short History of Wilson's School. The widening of the war seemed certain to ensure that Wordsworth would be able to do nothing about them for some time to come. Writings, 1798—1807 A second edition of Lyrical Ballads , dated 1800, was issued by Longman and Rees late in March 1801. One begins to get a sense, just from the music and the longing of this single line of iambic pentameter, of how sorrow and joy beautifully intermingle in Wordsworth; they do so in a truly personal voice which ought to be the sincere envy of all us poets who cannot match that sincerity. Summary of The Prelude Here is a summary of The Prelude.

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William Wordsworth Biography

william wordsworth life summary

Back in the south by February 1795, Wordsworth associated with the élite of London radicalism: William Frend , Thomas Holcroft , William Godwin , James Losh , George Dyer , and others less well known. In the second section, Wordsworth describes some of his travels in France and London. Retrieved 4 August 2021. There was the question of Annette and Caroline. William had not been happy at Penrith, and now his already strained relations with his relatives worsened.


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William Wordsworth Biography

william wordsworth life summary

Lyrical Ballads Speaking of which, let's get to the poetry. Unable to speak the language fluently and restricted by an unusually severe winter and their tight funds, the Wordsworths gained little personally from their German sojourn. Charles Eager is a scholar, teacher, and poet in Yorkshire, England. Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed, The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense.

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The Eight Greatest Poems of William Wordsworth

william wordsworth life summary

He continued to write poetry. Having arrived in Lyons, travelling partly by boat along the Saône, they visited the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse on 4—5 August and then proceeded to Lake Geneva and on to the vale of Chamonix. Retrieved 13 November 2014. Next comes the addition of 1804, making the poem 11 stanzas in length. It was also in 1795 that he met "We have hills which, seen from a distance almost take the character of mountains, some cultivated nearly to their summits, others in their wild state covered with furze and broom.


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"The Prelude" by William Wordsworth

william wordsworth life summary

The Washington Post Rook World. Longmans were abandoned for Edward Moxon , whose reverence for Wordsworth allied to his attentiveness in details of business endeared him to the Wordsworth circle. And, fireside means the home. July 16, 1989, XIV, p. The Wordsworths loved Coleridge but thought his feelings for Sara were selfish and his treatment of his wife lamentable.

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Early life of William Wordsworth

william wordsworth life summary

Its reception was lukewarm, however. He wrote many of his best works there. Implicit in this proposition is a high claim for the power of poetry to foster human betterment. When she returned to her family home at Blois, farther south along the Loire, Wordsworth went with her. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half-create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. 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 18th-century poetry. He behaved as a tourist, ticking off the famous sites and pocketing a fragment of the Bastille as a souvenir.

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William Wordsworth summary

william wordsworth life summary

When King Louis XVI was beheaded on January 21, 1793, Wordsworth was back in England. For years critics contrasted the first complete version 1805 with the version 1836 that saw publication after he died; the glaring difference between the two was that Wordsworth in his constant revising of the poem had made it ever more Christian. In preface to the second edition Wordsworth expounds his principles of poetry. As a young man, Wordsworth was inspired by the politics of the French Revolution. In college examinations in December 1787 he was placed in the first class, and the following June in the second class.

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Life and Works of William Wordsworth

william wordsworth life summary

The Borderers was likewise hidden until the same year, when it too appeared in revised form, having been declared unactable by the Covent Garden management in 1797. In this section, nature feels very important to Wordsworth, as does childhood imagination. The Romantic period reacted against the previous period of the Enlightenment, which emphasized the ability of logic and reason to make the world understandable. Sources for Further Study Chicago Tribune. To list all their names here would be neither possible nor useful.

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