William Wordsworth

Wordsworth

• Born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England.
• He went to Cambridge University and Gradurated in 1791
• He had visited France in 1790 and returned next year and fell in love with Annette Vallon who became pregnant.

Wordsworth

• Declaration of war in 1793 separated the two. He had no income and was alone so he was influenced by radicals one of which was William Godwin
• In 1795, he received an inheritance and was able to live with his sister Dorothy
• He also met Samuel Taylor Coleridge that same year and they worked on poems together

Wordsworth

• Their poems helped Romanticism take hold in English Poetry
• In 1802 a temporary lull in fighting between England and France allowed Wordsworth to see his daughter and wife
• He later married mary Hutchinson in 1803

Wordsworth

• As William grew older he began to reject Radicalism and later became a distributor of stamps in 1813 and moved his family to a new house in Lake District
• Continued to produce poetry but also mourned the death of his two children in 1812
• Between 1798 and 1808 his early work established him as an acclaimed writer

Basic Wordsworth Biography

Born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth Cumberland, William was born to a father, the legal agent to Sir James Lowther. Wordsworth and his sister became very close and this relationship lasted throughout their entire lives, even when they were separated.

This separation of William and his beloved sister, Dorothy, occurred when their Mother, Ann Cookson Wordsworth, died while visiting a friend in London in March of 1778.

From there, Dorothy was sent to live with Ann’s cousin Elizabeth Threlkeld and other relatives. Their father died five years later after having been exposed to the cold for too long.

Wordsworth went to College in Cambridge where his undergraduate studies were marked as uneventful. During his last summer as an undergraduate, Wordsworth and a colleague made a tour of the alps, in 1790. This dance with romanticism began during this trip.

He experienced different cultures, different ways of thinking, and was intimately exposed to nature. All of these exposures helped him form his political ideas and poetic style. After this experience, William continued his life as a very romantic poet.

It would be a three short years after this tour of Europe that Wordsworth published his earliest poetry in the volumes of, An Evening Walk, and Descriptive Sketches. Two years after these two volumes were published, William met another romantic poet, and soon to be life long friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Together they published Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth continued to live and write poetry, up until three years before his death. William died on April 23, 1850, and his best poem, The Prelude, was published three months post-mortem by his wife Mary.

Tintern Abbey

• Was founded by Lord of Chepstow, Walter de Clare
• It is situated on the Welsh Bank on the Wye River
• It feel into ruin in the 16th century
• It was the second Cistercian foundation in Britian

A Few Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey

• Wordsworth begins the poem by visiting Tintern Abbey and recalling in extreme detail the surrounding that used to be Tintern Abbey. As Wordsworth is standing there, he encounters a new and interesting feeling as he begins to think about what The Tintern Abbey used to be, what he is currently thinking, and what he will think about Tintern Abbey will be in the future.

A Few Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey

• This brings him to the epiphany that nature is broad and huge. His sister also accompanies Wordsworth during the entirety of the poem. He wonders what her transformation from seeing nature superficially to seeing it as he doe snow will be like.

The Daffodils

• The Speaker was walking around, depressed. As he walked, however, he noticed a large patch of daffodils near a lake that he was passing. A breeze blew the daffodils, and they all began to dance. As the daffodils danced, the spearkers depression turned to joy. This very romantic idea of recieving joy from nature lines up with the style of Wordsworth perfectly.

My Heart Leaps Up

• The speaker confesses his intense love for the beauty of the rainbow. The speaker states that she so much loves the rainbow that if he were to stop feeling this intense love and awe for the rainbow that she would want to die. Then he also talks about how he believe that the child if the father of the man.

My Heart Leaps up

• Our innocence as children is still an ideal that is held within our adult hearts and is preserved by our love of innocent and childish things, like rainbows. Again, this poem is very romantic as it epreses a deep revernce for nature.