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    William Wordsworth

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    Shavel Kumar
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet who was influential in the Romantic movement. He was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland and attended Hawkshead Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. Wordsworth had an affair with Annette Vallon in France in 1792 which resulted in a child. He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on the influential collection of poems titled Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802 and went on to have five children while settling in the Lake District of England where he spent most of his life until his death in 1850.

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    William Wordsworth

    Uploaded by

    Shavel Kumar
    668 views2 pages
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet who was influential in the Romantic movement. He was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland and attended Hawkshead Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. Wordsworth had an affair with Annette Vallon in France in 1792 which resulted in a child. He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on the influential collection of poems titled Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802 and went on to have five children while settling in the Lake District of England where he spent most of his life until his death in 1850.

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    William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet who was influential in the Romantic movement. He was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland and attended Hawkshead Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. Wordsworth had an affair with Annette Vallon in France in 1792 which resulted in a child. He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on the influential collection of poems titled Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802 and went on to have five children while settling in the Lake District of England where he spent most of his life until his death in 1850.

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    668 views2 pages

    William Wordsworth

    Uploaded by

    Shavel Kumar
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet who was influential in the Romantic movement. He was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland and attended Hawkshead Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. Wordsworth had an affair with Annette Vallon in France in 1792 which resulted in a child. He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on the influential collection of poems titled Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802 and went on to have five children while settling in the Lake District of England where he spent most of his life until his death in 1850.

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    William Wordsworth

    (1770 - 1850)
    Short Biography


    Birth
    William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland, son of John
    Wordsworth, who worked as an agent and rent collector for Sir James Lowther.
    Childhood and education
    His mother died in 1778 (8), and in the same year he was sent as a boarder
    to Hawkshead Grammar School. His father died in 1783 (13), at which time Sir
    James owed him some 4000, but he refused to honour the debt. Responsibility for
    William and his brothers passed to his mothers brother, Christopher Cookson, an
    unhappy arrangement for the children, who found their guardian unsympathetic.
    Hawkshead School, on the other hand, under the headship of William Taylor, was a
    progressive and liberally oriented establishment, where reading in mathematics and
    the sciences was encouraged. He attended St Johns College, Cambridge, from 1787
    (17) to 1791 (21), visiting France, at that time in the midst of revolutionary turmoil,
    and Switzerland in 1790 (20) with his friendRobert Jones.
    Second visit to France and affair with Annette Vallon
    He visited France again after graduation, and during this second visit was befriended
    byMichel Beaupuy, through whom he came to share the ideals of the French
    Revolution. Whilst in Orlans he had an affair with Annette Vallon, who bore him a
    child.
    He returns to England and radical ideas
    Financial problems and the political situation forced him to return to England, where
    he began to give wholehearted support to the radical philosophy of Thomas
    Paine and William Godwin, openly expressing their ideas in his own poetry.
    Wordsworth, Coleridge and Lyrical Ballads
    At the invitation of John and Azariah Pinney he moved with his sister Dorothy to
    Racedown Lodge on the Devon / Somerset border, and here met the poet Samuel
    Taylor Coleridge. He then moved closer to Coleridge at Alfoxden House, and they
    collaborated on and published Lyrical Ballads (1798, 28), which began with
    Coleridges Rime of the Ancient Mariner and ended with Wordsworths Tintern
    Abbey. Wordsworth later wrote a preface for the Ballads, which set out his theory of
    poetry, and progressively marginalised and finally eliminated Coleridges work.
    Germany and the Lake District
    Later that year the Wordsworths made a trip to Germany with Coleridge, and, on
    their return, moved to Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake District. From about

    1798 Wordsworth worked on a large philosophical and autobiographical poem, The
    Prelude, which was not published until 1850 (d).
    Marriage
    He married Mary Hutchinson in 1802 (32), and acquired two patrons in Sir George
    Beaumont and Sir William Lowther, the latter settling his cousins debt to
    Wordsworth.
    His brother drowns at sea
    His brother John was drowned at sea in 1805 (35).
    His mnage quatre
    His sister Dorothy continued to live with Wordsworth, along with his new wife and
    her sister, Sara Hutchinson. They were often visited by Coleridge, who had moved to
    the Lake District with his wife, and who had become emotionally involved with Sara
    Hutchinson.
    Poems in Two Volumes
    Wordsworth published Poems in Two Volumes in 1807 (37) in an edition of 1000,
    230 of which were still unsold in 1814. The volume received a critical drubbing from
    the Edinburgh Review.
    He argues with Coleridge
    He severed his connection with Coleridge in 1810 (40), partly because of that poets
    continued addiction to opium.
    Wordsworth the family man and distributor of stamps
    He now had five children, two of whom died in 1812 (42). In 1813 (43) he moved to
    Rydal Mount, Ambleside, and was appointed the official distributor of stamps for
    Westmoreland with a salary of 400 a year.
    The Excursion and other poetry
    In 1814 (44) he published The Excursion, 9000 lines of poetry in nine volumes,
    which aroused little interest, followed by The White Doe of Rylstone (1815,
    45), Peter Bell(1819, 49) and Benjamin the Waggoner (1819, 49). He continued to
    be criticised for his low subjects and simplicity. Thereafter he became more
    interested in reworking, ordering and anthologising his work in various collected
    editions.
    Poet Laureate
    He became Poet Laureate in 1843 (73).
    Death
    He died in 1850 (80) and was buried in Grasmere churchyard.

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