William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English
Romantic poet who, with
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
, helped to launch the
Romantic Age in
English literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...
with their joint publication ''
Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ''
magnum opus'' is generally considered to be ''
The Prelude'', a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "The Poem to Coleridge".
Wordsworth was
Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from
pleurisy
Pleurisy, also known as pleuritis, is inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the chest cavity (Pulmonary pleurae, pleurae). This can result in a sharp chest pain while breathing. Occasionally the pain may be a constant d ...
on 23 April 1850. He remains one of the most recognizable names in English poetry and was a key figure of the Romantic poets.
Early life
Family and education
The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in what is now named
Wordsworth House in
Cockermouth, Cumberland (now in Cumbria), part of the scenic region in northwestern England known as the
Lake District
The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...
. William's 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 Wordsworth, 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
Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...
, the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
.
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 until he died in 1783. However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular, set him to commit large portions of verse to memory, including works by
Milton,
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
and
Spenser which William would pore over in 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 uncle, who also lived there. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide.
Wordsworth was taught to read by his mother, and he first attended a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families. He was taught there by Ann Birkett, who instilled in her students traditions that included pursuing scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and
Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day) is the final day of Shrovetide, which marks the end of the pre-Lenten season. Lent begins the following day with Ash Wednesday. Shrove Tuesday is observed in many Christian state, Ch ...
. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the ''
Spectator'', but little else. At the school in Penrith, he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary Hutchinson, who later became his wife.
After the death of Wordsworth's mother, in 1778, his father sent him to
Hawkshead Grammar School in
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
(now in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...
) and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
. She and William did not meet again for nine years.
Wordsworth debuted as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in ''
The European Magazine
''The European Magazine'' (sometimes referred to as ''European Magazine'') was a monthly magazine published in London. Eighty-nine semi-annual volumes were published from 1782 until 1826. It was launched as the ''European Magazine, and London Rev ...
''. That same year he began attending
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...
. He received his BA degree in 1791. 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
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
. In 1790, he went on a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the
Alps
The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
...
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
Britain most often refers to:
* Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales
* The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
's tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year.
[Everett, Glenn]
"William Wordsworth: Biography"
at The Victorian Web, accessed 7 January 2007. The circumstances of his return and subsequent behaviour raised doubts about his declared wish to marry Annette. However, he supported her and his daughter as best he could in later life. The
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...
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
Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...
. The purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson.
[ 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. Upon Caroline's marriage, in 1816, Wordsworth settled £30 a year on her (equivalent to £ in 2021), payments which continued until 1835, when they were replaced by a capital settlement.
]
Early career
First publication and ''Lyrical Ballads''
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 from Raisley Calvert and was able to pursue a career as a poet.
It was also in 1795 that he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. For two years from 1795, William and his sister Dorothy lived at Racedown House in Dorset—a property of the Pinney family—to the west of Pilsdon Pen. They walked in the area for about two hours daily, and the nearby hills consoled Dorothy as she pined for the fells of her native Lakeland. She wrote,
"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. These delight me the most as they remind me of our native wilds."
In 1797, the pair 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
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
. The volume gave neither Wordsworth's nor Coleridge's name as author. One of Wordsworth's most famous poems, " Tintern Abbey", was published in this collection, along with Coleridge's " 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. It was augmented significantly in the next edition, published in 1802. 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 ordinary language "really used by men" while avoiding 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.
''The Borderers''
Between 1795 and 1797, 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 border reivers. He attempted to get the play staged in November 1797. However, 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 revisions.
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.[ During the harsh winter of 1798–99, Wordsworth lived with Dorothy in ]Goslar
Goslar (; Eastphalian dialect, Eastphalian: ''Goslär'') is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the Goslar (district), district of Goslar and is located on the northwestern wikt:slope, slopes of the Harz ...
, and, despite extreme stress and loneliness, began work on the autobiographical piece that was later titled ''The Prelude''. He wrote several 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 brother and sister's 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". Throughout this period, many of Wordsworth's poems revolved around themes of death, endurance, separation and grief.
Married life
In 1802, Lowther's heir, William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, paid the £4,000 () owed to Wordsworth's father through Lowther's failure to pay his aide. 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, at All Saints' Church, Brompton. 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:
* Rev. John Wordsworth MA (18 June 180325 July 1875). Vicar of Brigham, Cumberland and Rector of Plumbland, Cumberland. Buried at Highgate Cemetery (west side). Married four times:
*# Isabella Curwen (died 1848) had six children: Jane Stanley, Henry, William, John, Charles and Edward.
*## Jane Stanley (1833–1912), who married the Rev. Bennet Sherard Kennedy (an illegitimate son of Robert Sherard, 6th Earl of Harborough) and their son Robert Harborough Sherard became first biographer to his friend, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...
.
*# Helen Ross (died 1854). No children.
*# Mary Ann Dolan (died after 1858) had one daughter Dora.
*## Dora Wordsworth (1858–1934)
*# Mary Gamble. No children.
* Dora Wordsworth (16 August 18049 July 1847). Married Edward Quillinan in 1841.
* Thomas Wordsworth (15 June 18061 December 1812).
* Catherine Wordsworth (6 September 18084 June 1812).
* William "Willy" Wordsworth (12 May 18101883). He married Fanny Graham and had four children: Mary Louisa, William, Reginald, and Gordon.
Later career
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. However, scholars have recently 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 met the mysterious traveller John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822), who was nearing the end of his thirty years of wandering, on foot, from Madras
Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...
, India, through Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
, 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". Until now, Wordsworth was known only for ''Lyrical Ballads'', and he hoped this new collection would cement his reputation. Its reception was lukewarm.
In 1810, Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction,[ and in 1812, his son Thomas died at the age of 6, six months after 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, albeit at the cost of political independence. In 1813, he and his family, including Dorothy, moved to ]Rydal Mount
Rydal Mount is a house in the small village of Rydal, Cumbria, Rydal, near Ambleside in the English Lake District. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth from 1813 to his death in 1850. It is currently operated as a writer' ...
, Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water), where he spent the rest of his life.[
]
The Prospectus
In 1814, Wordsworth published '' The Excursion'' as the second part of the three-part work ''The Recluse'' even though he never completed the first or third parts. 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:
Some modern critics 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) had 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.
The poet and artist William Blake, who knew Wordsworth's work, was struck by Wordsworth's boldness in centring his poetry on the human mind. In response to Wordsworth's poetic programme that, “when we look / Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man– / My haunt, and the main region of my song” (''The Excursion''), William Blake wrote to his friend Henry Crabb Robinson that the passage " caused him a bowel complaint which nearly killed him”.
Following the death of his friend, the painter William Green in 1823, Wordsworth also mended his relations with Coleridge. The two were fully reconciled by 1828 when they toured the Rhineland
The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...
together.[ Dorothy suffered from a severe illness in 1829 and she remained ill for the remainder of her life. Coleridge and ]Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764� ...
both died in 1834, their loss being a difficult blow to Wordsworth. The following year saw the passing of James Hogg
James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots language, Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a ...
. 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.
Religious and philosophical beliefs
Wordsworth's youthful political radicalism, unlike Coleridge's, never led him to rebel against his religious upbringing. He remarked in 1812 that he was willing to shed his blood for the established Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
, reflected in his ''Ecclesiastical Sketches'' of 1822. This religious conservatism also colours '' The Excursion'' (1814), a long poem that became extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It features three central characters: the Wanderer, the Solitary, who has experienced the hopes and miseries of the French Revolution, and the Pastor, who dominates the last third of the poem.
Wordsworth's poetic philosophy
Behler has pointed out the fact that Wordsworth wanted to invoke the basic feeling that a human heart possesses and expresses. He had reversed the philosophical standpoint expressed by his friend S. T. Coleridge, of 'creating the characters in such an environment so that the public feels them belonging to the distant place and time'. And this philosophical realisation by Wordsworth indeed allowed him to choose the language and structural patterning of the poetry that a common person used every day. Kurland wrote that the conversational aspect of a language emerges through social necessity. Social necessity posits the theme of possessing the proper knowledge, interest and biases also among the speakers. William Wordsworth has used conversation in his poetry to let the poet 'I' merge into 'We'. The poem "Farewell" exposes the identical emotion that the poet and his sister nourish:
"We leave you here in solitude to dwell/ With these our latest gifts of tender thought;
Thou, like the morning, in thy saffron coat,/ Bright gowan, and marsh-marigold, farewell!" (L. 19–22).
This kind of conversational tone persists throughout the poet's poetic journey, which positions him as a man in society who speaks to the purpose of communion with the very common mass of that society. Again; ''"Preface to Lyrical Ballads"'' is the evidence where the poet expresses why he is writing and what he is writing and what purpose it will serve humanity.
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."
In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham
Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to ...
. The following year he was awarded the same honorary degree by the University of Oxford, when John Keble praised him as the "poet of humanity", praise greatly appreciated by Wordsworth.[ (It has been argued that Wordsworth was a significant influence on Keble's immensely popular book of devotional poetry, ''The Christian Year'' (1827).) 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 age 42 was difficult for the ageing poet to take, and in his depression, he ultimately gave up writing new material.
]
Death
William Wordsworth died at home at Rydal Mount from an aggravated case of pleurisy
Pleurisy, also known as pleuritis, is inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the chest cavity (Pulmonary pleurae, pleurae). This can result in a sharp chest pain while breathing. Occasionally the pain may be a constant d ...
on 23 April 1850, 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 interest people at the time, it has since come to be widely recognised as his masterpiece.
Musical settings
* Dominick Argento set eight Wordsworth poems in his song cycle ''To be Sung Upon the Water'' (1973).
* Arnold Bax set the poem "To the Cuckoo" in 1900 while a student.
* Richard Rodney Bennett set ''Intimations of Immortality'' for a cappella chorus and one instrument in 2000.
*Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...
set a passage from ''The Prelude'' (beginning "But that night, When on my bed I lay") in his song cycle '' Nocturne'' (1958).
* Alicia Van Buren (1860–1922) used the text of "Lines Written in Early Spring" for her song "In Early Spring".
* Ronald Corp has set passages from ''The Prelude'' within his cantata ''Laudamus'' (1994) and various poems in his song cycles ''The Music of Wordsworth'' and ''Flower of Cities''.
* George Dyson's '' Quo Vadis'' for chorus and orchestra, written between 1936 and 1945, includes a setting of "Our birth is but a sleep" (from ''Intimations of Immortality'').
* Gerald Finzi set the ode '' Intimations of Immortality'' for tenor, chorus, and orchestra in 1950.
*Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...
set "I travelled among unknown men" in 1901. His work ''The Rainbow'' (1914) for chamber orchestra is described as "after the poem by William Wordsworth". He also set the text as a song.
* Frederick Kelly set "The daffodils" in 1913.
* Elisabeth Lutyens set "I travelled among unknown men" in her ''Voice of Quiet Waters'', op. 84 for mixec choir and ensemble (1973).
* Arthur Somervell set eight sections from "On the Power of Sound" as a cantata for chorus and orchestra in 1894. His ''Meditation on Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality'' for baritone solo and chorus, was first premiered in 1907 but re-written in 1934.
* William Walton set "Remembrance of Collins" in his song cycle '' A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table'' in 1962.
In popular culture
Margaret Louisa Woods portrayed the young Wordsworth in her novel ''A Poet's Youth'' (1923).
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films were mainly liberal adaptations of ...
's 1978 film '' William and Dorothy'' portrays the relationship between William and his sister Dorothy.
Wordsworth and Coleridge's friendship is examined by Julien Temple in his 2000 film ''Pandaemonium''.
Wordsworth has appeared as a character in works of fiction, including:
* William Kinsolving – ''Mister Christian''. 1996
* Jasper Fforde – ''The Eyre Affair''. 2001
* Val McDermid
Valarie McDermid (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and his collaborators in the police department. Her work is considered to be part of a sub-genre k ...
– ''The Grave Tattoo''. 2006
* Sue Limb – ''The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere''. 2008
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...
's 1966 novelisation of the 1966 film ''Fantastic Voyage
''Fantastic Voyage'' is a 1966 American science fiction adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The film is about a submarine crew who is shrunk to microsco ...
'' sees Dr. Peter Duval quoting Wordsworth's '' The Prelude'' as the miniaturised submarine sails through the cerebral fluid surrounding a human brain, comparing it to the "strange seas of thought".
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
's 2020 album ''Folklore
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
'' alludes to Wordsworth in her bonus track " The Lakes", which is thought to be about the Lake District
The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...
.
Commemoration
In April 2020, the Royal Mail
Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels) ...
issued a series of postage stamps to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wordsworth. Ten 1st class stamps were issued featuring Wordsworth and all the major British poets of the Romantic era: William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
, John Keats, Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...
, John Clare
John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and his sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20t ...
, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
, Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who served as the president of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997. She was the country's first female president. Robinson had previously served as a senato ...
, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
and Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...
. Each stamp included an extract from one of their most popular and enduring works, with Wordsworth's " The Rainbow" selected for the poet.
Major works
References
Further reading
* Juliet Barker. ''Wordsworth: A Life'', HarperCollins, New York, 2000,
* Jeffrey Cox, ''William Wordsworth, Second-Generation Romantic: Contesting Poetry After Waterloo,'' 2021,
*Hunter Davies, ''William Wordsworth: A Biography'', Frances Lincoln, London, 2009,
* Stephen Gill, ''William Wordsworth: A Life'', Oxford University Press, 1989,
* 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,
* Mary Moorman, ''William Wordsworth: A Biography: The Later Years, 1803–1850 v. 2'', Oxford University Press, 1965,
* M. R. Tewari, ''One Interior LifeA 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"
*Daniel Robinson, ''The Oxford Handbook of William Wordsworth,'' Oxford University Press, 2015,
Duncan Wu, “William Wordsworth,” in ''Then & Now: Romantic-Era Poets in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1910–1911,'' ed. G. Kim Blank (2023)
External links
Internet archive of Volume 1 of Christopher Wordsworth's 1851 biography
Internet archive of Volume 2 of Christopher Wordsworth's 1851 biography
*
*
*
* William Wordsworth Collection. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book andManuscript Library, Yale University.
Cornelius Patton (AC 1883) William Wordsworth Manuscript Collection
at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wordsworth, William
1770 births
1850 deaths
18th-century Christian mystics
18th-century English poets
18th-century English writers
18th-century English male writers
19th-century Christian mystics
19th-century English poets
19th-century English writers
19th-century English male writers
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
Anglican poets
Anglican writers
Burials in Cumbria
English Anglicans
English male poets
19th-century mystics
People associated with Durham University
People educated at Hawkshead Grammar School
People from Cockermouth
People from Grasmere (village)
Protestant mystics
Romantic poets
Sonneteers
William
William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...