Wordsworth

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Born in 1770 at Cockermouth.
Died April 23, 1850, Grasmere.
Poet laureate.

With Samuel Taylor Coleridge they ushered in the English Romantic movement.
Many consider him the most important English Romantic poet. Visited France in 1790 and influenced by the turmoil of the French Revolution.

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

(Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 175-186)

A Brief Introduction

Wordsworth's mother died when he was eight and father died when he was 13. He was separated from his sister, Dorothy, in 1778 and did not see her again until 1787.

He attended Hawkshead Grammar School in 1778, and went to Cambridge from 1787-1791 (there are conflicting claims wether he graduated). However, he left college in order to return to France and support the Revolution.

In 1791 he graduated from Cambridge and travelled abroad. While in France he fell in love with Annette Vallon, who bore him a daughter, Caroline, in 1792. Although he did not marry her, it seems to have been circumstance rather than lack of affection that separated them. Throughout his life he supported Annette and Caroline as best he could, finally settling a sum of money on them in 1835.

The spirit of the French Revolution had strongly influenced Wordsworth, and he returned (1792) to England. In 1793 were published An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches, written in the stylized idiom and vocabulary of the 18th century. The outbreak of the Reign of Terror prevented Wordsworth's return to France, and after receiving several small legacies, he settled with his sister Dorothy in Dorset. Wordsworth was extraordinarily close to his sister. Throughout his life she was his constant and devoted companion, sharing his poetic vision and helping him with his work.

In Dorset Wordsworth became the close friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together the two poets wrote Lyrical Ballads (1798), in which they sought to use the language of ordinary people in poetry; it included Wordsworth's poem Tintern Abbey. The work introduced romanticism into England and became a manifesto for romantic poets. In 1799 he and his sister moved to the Lake District of England, where they lived the remainder of their lives.

A second edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1800), which included a critical essay outlining Wordsworth's poetic principles, was unmercifully attacked by critics.

In 1802 Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, an old school friend. The marriage was a happy one, and the couple had four children. The Prelude, his long autobiographical poem, was completed in 1805, though it was not published until after his death. His next collection, Poems in Two Volumes (1807), included the well-known Ode to Duty, the Ode: Intimations of Immortality, and a number of famous sonnets.

Thereafter, Wordsworth's creative powers diminished. Nonetheless, some notable poems were produced after this date, including The Excursion (1814), Laodamia (1815), White Doe of Rylstone (1815), Memorials of a Tour of the Continent, 1820 (1822), and Yarrow Revisited (1835). In 1842 Wordsworth was given a civil list pension, and the following year, having long since put aside radical sympathies, he was named poet laureate.

Index to poems

1. Character of the Happy Warrior
2. A Complaint
3. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
4. Dion
5. Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm
6. Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg
7. The French Revolution
8. The Green Linnet
9. I Travelled among Unknown Men
10. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
11. Influence of Natural Objects
12. Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge
13. It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free
14. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
15. It is not to be Thought of
16. Laodamia
17. Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
18. London, 1802
19. Lyrical Ballads (1798) (co-authored with Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
20. Michael: A Pastoral Poem
21. Most Sweet it is
22. Mutability
23. November, 1806
24. Nutting
25. October, 1803
26. Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
27. Ode to Duty
28. The Old Cumberland Beggar
29. On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples
30. On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
31. A Poet! He Hath Put his Heart to School
32. The Power of Armies is a Visible Thing
33. The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time
34. The Prelude: Book 2: School-time
35. The Primrose of the Rock
36. Resolution and Independence
37. The Reverie of Poor Susan
38. Scorn not the Sonnet
39. September, 1819
40. She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
41. She Was a Phantom of Delight
42. Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman
43. The Simplon Pass
44. A Slumber did my Spirit Seal
45. The Solitary Reaper
46. Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle
47. Sonnets from The River Duddon: After-Thought
48. The Tables Turned
49. There was a Boy
50. Three Years She Grew
51. To a Highland Girl
52. To a Skylark
53. To the Cuckoo
54. The Virgin
55. The World is too much with us
56. Written in London. September, 1802
57. Yarrow Revisited
58. Yarrow Unvisited
59. Yarrow Visited. September, 1814

Wordsworth