William Wordsworth We are Seven/Biography
Appearance
Biography
[edit | edit source]William Wordsworth
[edit | edit source](7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850)
- William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770
- He was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Colleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English Literature with the publication of Lyrical Ballads
- Wordsworth masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude
- Wordsworth was a Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death
Early Life
[edit | edit source]- He is the second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cockson
- Wordsworth father rarely taught him poetry including that of Milton, Shakespeare, and Spenser
- After the death of their mother in 1778 John Wordsworth sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire
- He had already learnt to read and write in a small school in Cockermouth when his mother was alive
- It was at the school that Wordsworth was to meet Mary who would be his future wife
First Publicationa and Lyrical Ballad
[edit | edit source]- The year 1793 saw Wordsworth's first published poetry with the collection "An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches"
- He received a legacy of 900 pounds from Raisley Calvert in 1795 so that he could pursue writing poetry
- That year, he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship
- Together they produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement
- Wordsworth's most famous poem "Tintern Abbey" was published in the work, along with Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
The Poet Laureate and other honours
[edit | edit source]- Wordsworth receives an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from Durham University, and the same honour from Oxford University
- The government awarded him a civil list pension amounting to 300 pounds a year
- With the death of Robert Southey, Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honour but later agreed
- When his daughter, Dora died, his production of poetry came to a standstill
William Wordsworth's Death
[edit | edit source]- He died by worsening a case of pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and was burried at St. Oswald's church in Grasmere
- His widow Mary published his lengthy autobiographical "poem to Coleridge" as The Prelude several months after his death
- Though this failed to arouse great interes in 1850, it has since come to be recognized as his masterpiece
Poems by Williams Wordsworth
[edit | edit source]- Lines written a few miles above Tintern abbey(1798)
- She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways(1798)
- The Prelude (1798)
- Tables Turned (1798)
- Lines Written In Early Spring (1798)
- Lucy Gray(1799)
- Composed Upon Westminster Bridge (1802)
- The World Is Too Much with Us (1802)
- Daffodils (I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud)(1804)