William Wordsworth was a major English romantic poet born in 1770 who helped launch the Romantic era in English literature with his publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 alongside S.T. Coleridge. Some of his most famous works included Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude, Tintern Abbey, and Lucy Poems. He spent much of his life in the Lake District of England and was considered one of the Lake Poets along with Coleridge and Robert Southey.

1. William Wordsworth
1770-1850
THE ENGLISH LOVERS

2. He was a major English romantic poet, who along with S. T. Coleridge helped to
launch Romantic age in English literature with their joint publication of lyrical
ballads in 1798.
Wordsworth’s ‘Magnum Opus’ in considered to be “The Prelude”, a semi-
autobiographical poem of his early years. It was subsequently titled and
published but before it was called “The Poem to Coleridge”.
He was 2nd among the 5 children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson on
7 Apr 1770, in Lake district.
His sister Dorothy Wordsworth was also a poet and diarist.
Wordsworth’s father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st duke of
Lonsdale.

3. Wordsworth made his first appearance as a writer in 1787 when he
published a sonnet in the European Magazine.
when he began attending St. John’s college, Cambridge for his
graduation.
In 1791 he visited Revolutionary France and there he fell in love with
‘Annette Vallon’ who gave birth to his daughter ‘Caroline’.
He could not marry her as he returned to England in lack of money.
Later he married Mary Hutchinson.
He wrote a sonnet “It’s a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”

4. The year 1793 saw the publication of poems by him in the collections “An
Evening Walk” and “Descriptive Sketches”.
In 1795 he met Coleridge.
In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge together published Lyrical Ballads.
None of the writers had the name on the first publication of Lyrical Ballads.
In the first edition (1798) were Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and Coleridge’s
Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It starts with Mariner and ends with Tintern
Abbey.
The second edition was published in 1800, and it listed Wordsworth as an
author and included a preface to the poem.

5. In the preface he has used “Real language of man rather than 18th century
verse”.
Between 1795-97 his only play “The Boarders, A Verse Tragedy” set during the
reign of Henry III of England.
He wrote number of famous poems including “The Lucy Poems”. It is a
collection of 5 poems which are
 Strange Fits of Passion have I Known
 She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
 I Travelled among Unknown Men
 Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
 A Slumber did My Spirit Seal.

6. He wrote “The Prelude” when he was in Germany with Coleridge and Dorothy.
Finally Wordsworth along with Southy and Coleridge settled in Lake district and
thus called Lake Poets.
He planned to write a larger philosophical poem called “The Recluse” so he
wrote “Poem to Coleridge” to make an appendix of “The Recluse”.
‘Poem to Coleridge’ is referred as the first version of ‘The Prelude’ completed in
1805.
He has also written a shorter work “Line Written above Tintern Abbey”.
In 1807, Wordsworth published “Poems in Two Volumes” including “Ode:
Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”.

7. He wrote a poetic prospectus to “The Recluse”.
In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law.
In 1842 he was awarded a civil list pension of £300, a year.
After the death of Southy in 1843, he became Poet Laureate.
He became the only poet laureate to write no official verses.

8. After death he was buried at St. Oswald Church, Grasmere.
His wife Mary Hutchinson published his lengthy
autobiographical poem “The Prelude” after his death in 1850.
The Prelude is also called “Growth of Poet’s Mind”.
“Grasmere Journal” is written by Dorothy Wordsworth.
Browning and Hazlitt called Wordsworth “A Lost Leader”.
Wordsworth is called giant of English poetry by J. C. Ransom.
Wordsworth wrote 523 sonnets.

9.  MAJOR WORKS OF WORDSWORTH
 Lyrical Ballads (1798)
 Lines Composed A Few Miles Above TinternAbbey
 Lyrical Ballads along with Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)
 Lucy Grey (Lucy Poems) or Solitude
 It is a collection of 5 poems.
 Poems in Two Volumes (1802).
 "The World Is Too Much with Us" is a sonnet by Wordsworth.
 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, also called Daffodils (1807, Poem in 2 vols).
 Ode: Intimation of Immortality
 The Solitary Reaper (1804, Poems in 2 Vols)
 “The world is too much with us”

10.  10. London, 1802 (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 To The Cuckoo
 The Excursion (1814) (written in 9 books)
 The Prelude (1850): in 14 books, autobiographical
 The Boarderers (only play): verse tragedy – 1842
 Michael: (a pastoral poem) a part of Lyrical Ballads 1800 edition
 Descriptive Sketches
 My Heart Leaps up When I Behold (1807, Poems in 2Vols)
 Repentance: A Pastoral Ballad
 Ode to Duty (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 To a Skylark
 The Recluse

11.  ‘Nuts Fret Not at their Convert’s Narrow Room’. (Prefatory sonnet, 1802)
Petrarchan sonnet
 The Tables Turned (1798, Published in Lyrical Ballads)
 Laodamia (1815, 1845)
 Peter Bell (1819)
 Guide to the Lakes (1810)
 Elegiac Stanzas (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 Resolution and Independence (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 The Leechgatherer: Resolution and Independence

12. THE ENGLISH LOVERS

13. THE ENGLISH LOVERS