Wordsworth
Published on Nov 23, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), an early leader of romanticism in English poetry, ranks as one of the greatest lyric poets in the history of English literature. William Wordsworth was born in Cookermouth, Cumberland, on April 7, 1770, the second child of an attorney. Unlike the other major English romantic poets, he enjoyed a happy childhood under the loving care of his mother and in close intimacy with his younger sister Dorothy (1771-1855). As a child, he wandered exuberantly through the lovely natural scenery of Cumberland. At Hawkshead Grammar School, Wordsworth showed keen and precociously discriminating interest in poetry.
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From 1787 to 1790 Wordsworth attended St. John's College, Cambridge, always returning with breathless delight to the north and to nature during his summer vacations. Before graduating from Cambridge, he took a walking tour through France, Switzerland, and Italy in 1790. The Alps gave him an ecstatic impression that he was not to recognize until 14 years later as a mystical "sense of usurpation, when the light of sense/ Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed/ The invisible world"--the world of "infinitude" that is "our beings's heart and home."
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Critical Review
McCulloch, Andrew. "The pulse of the infinite: 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', with its
famousline 'A host of golden daffodils', represents the popular face of Wordsworth. Yet what is this familiar lyric really about?" The English Review 19.3 (2009): 13+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 May 2014
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Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) ranks as one of the greatest lyric poets in the history of English literature. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place near Horsham, Sussex, on August 4, 1792. He was the first son of a wealthy country squire. Shelley as a boy felt persecuted by his hardheaded and practical-minded father, and this abuse may have first sparked the flame of protest which, during his Eton years (1804-1810), earned him the name of "Mad Shelley."
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In the course of his first and only year at Oxford (1810-1811), Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg issued a pamphlet provocatively entitled The Necessity of Atheism. Their "atheism" was little more than a hieroglyph connoting their general revulsion against establishment authoritarianism. However, both students were expelled from the university.
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Wordsworth and Shelley
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