William
Wordsworth
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).
William Wordsworth was
born on 7 April 1770 in Cumberland,
in the Lake District. His father was John Wordsworth, Sir James Lowther's
attorney. The magnificent landscape deeply affected Wordsworth's imagination
and gave him a love of nature. He lost his mother when he was eight and five
years later his father. The domestic problems separated Wordsworth from his
beloved and neurotic sister Dorothy, who was a very important person in his
life.
Cumberland, in the Lake District. His father was John
Wordsworth, Sir James Lowther's attorney. The magnificent landscape deeply
affected Wordsworth's imagination and gave him a love of nature. He lost his
mother when he was eight and five years later his father. The domestic problems
separated Wordsworth from his beloved and neurotic sister Dorothy, who was a
very important person in his life.
With the help of his two uncles, Wordsworth entered a local
school and continued his studies at Cambridge University. Wordsworth made his
debut as a writer in 1787, when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine
. In that same year he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, from where he
took his B.A. in 1791.
During a summer vacation in 1790 Wordsworth went on a
walking tour through revolutionary France and also traveled in Switzerland. On
his second journey in France, Wordsworth had an affair with a French girl,
Annette Vallon, a daughter of a barber-surgeon, by whom he had a illegitimate
daughter Anne Caroline. The affair was basis of the poem "Vaudracour and
Julia", but otherwise Wordsworth did his best to hide the affair from
posterity.
In 1795 he met Coleridge. Wordsworth's financial situation
became better in 1795 when he received a legacy and was able to settle at
Race down, Dorset, with his sister Dorothy.
Encouraged by Coleridge and stimulated by the close contact
with nature, Wordsworth composed his first masterwork, Lyrical Ballads, which
opened with Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." About 1798 he started to
write a large and philosophical autobiographical poem, completed in 1805, and
published posthumously in 1850 under the title The Prelude.
Wordsworth spent the winter of 1798-99 with his sister and
Coleridge in Germany, where he wrote several poems, including the enigmatic
'Lucy' poems. After return he moved Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and in 1802 married
Mary Hutchinson. They cared for Wordsworth's sister Dorothy for the last 20
years of her life.
Wordsworth's second verse collection, Poems, In Two Volumes,
appeared in 1807. Wordsworth's central works were produced between 1797 and
1808. His poems written during middle and late years have not gained similar
critical approval. Wordsworth's Grasmere period ended in 1813. He was appointed
official distributor of stamps for Westmoreland. He moved to Rydal Mount,
Ambleside, where he spent the rest of his life. In later life Wordsworth
abandoned his radical ideas and became a patriotic, conservative public man.
In 1843 he succeeded Robert Southey (1774-1843) as England's
poet laureate. Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850.
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