William Wordsworth, the renowned poet from English Romanticism, revolutionised poetry by mastering the beauty of everyday language, and penning down the unheard whispers of nature. Born in the wild Cockermouth countryside in 1770, Wordsworth faced several personal tragedies including the loss of both of his parents at a very young age to become Poet Laureate in 1843.
- Early Life of William Wordsworth
- Beginning of William Wordsworth’s Poetic Career
- France and Early Publications of William Wordsworth
- William Wordsworth’s Family Life and Literary Works
- Later Career and Death of the Poet Laureate
- Major Quotes by William Wordsworth
- Saint Rampal Ji Maharaj Revolutionising Spirituality
Wordsworth along with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge co-authored the Lyrical Ballads (1798) that gave birth to the Romantic Movement. His all time masterpieces like “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (the eternal daffodils ode), The Prelude (his epic autobiographical journey), and Tintern Abbey illustrated the eternal bond of the human spirits with the natural world. Come along, to take a deep dive into the world of William Wordsworth.
Early Life of William Wordsworth
Born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, in the Lake district of northern England, William Wordsworth was the second of the five children born to John and Ann Wordsworth.
Wordsworth’s early years were shaped by the landscape of the region, which fostered in him a deep sense of love for nature. After his mother died in 1778 and his father in 1783, he was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School, in Lake District and lived there as a boarding pupil from 1779 to 1787.
Beginning of William Wordsworth’s Poetic Career
William Wordsworth then attended St.John’s College, Cambridge and lived there until his graduation in 1791. It was only during this time, William Wordsworth’s first poem was published in 1787, a sonnet in The European Magazine. This proved to be the formal start of Wordsworth’s literary career.
France and Early Publications of William Wordsworth
After the publishing of his first sonnet, William Wordsworth continued his studies at St. John’s College, Cambridge and started to take poetry more seriously. He decided to take a walking tour of France, Switzerland and Germany. After completing his graduation from St. John’s College in 1791, William Wordsworth went to France where he became involved in politics. He also had an affair with Annette Vallon, which resulted in the birth of his daughter Caroline in December, 1792.
After Wordsworth’s return from France in late 1792 his poetic career truly ignited, marked by a shift from youthful rationalism to profound nature mysticism amid personal guilt and family reconnection with sister Dorothy. In 1793, he published his debut volumes An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.
Reunited with Dorothy at Racedown Lodge, Dorset (1795–1797), their isolated rural duo life birthed dramatic fragments like The Borderers and early lyrics, financially precarious but creatively symbiotic. At Alfoxden House, Somerset (1797–1798) near Coleridge, the household remained sibling-focused under spy suspicions and poverty, yielding Lyrical Ballads (1798)—his Romantic manifesto with Tintern Abbey, Simon Lee, and We Are Seven.
William Wordsworth’s Family Life and Literary Works
Dove Cottage served as the home to a larger family beginning in 1802 with the marriage of the poet William Wordsworth to Mary Hutchinson, and added children John (1803), Dora (1804), Thomas (1806, who died in infancy), and then the sister of Mary, Sara, and with many guests including Coleridge.
This was the period of the poet’s “great decade,” producing such works as Poems, in Two Volumes (1807), which included I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, Resolution and Independence, The Solitary Reaper, and works that would compose The Prelude and the Lucy Poems.
Allan Bank was the next residence from 1808 to 1811 and contained the poet’s new children Catherine (1808, who died tragically) and William (1810), and guests Coleridge and De Quincey, who lived there during periods of plague in the home, which included the writing and publishing of The Convention of Cintra (1809) and the writing of sonnets.
Later Career and Death of the Poet Laureate
Following a brief period of residency at the Old Rectory (1811–1813), the family moved to Rydal Mount where he stayed until his death. He lived in the Rydal Mount with his surviving children, grandchildren, and Dorothy (who had become senile after 1835), and Mary until she died in 1859, though they continued to suffer through various deaths and destruction, including the death of Dora in 1847; and the family’s published works matured to include such works as The Excursion (1814), Peter Bell (1819), and The River Duddon (1820), Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822).
He was also increasingly conservative in attitude through the process of revising The Prelude. He lived in the house with his three children (John, William, and Dora, who died in 1847), grandchildren, sister (Dorothy Wordsworth), and wife (Mary), and all went through hardship, but held jobs (Administrator of Stamp Office; Poet Laureate, 1843) to help with the family’s finances. He died of a chest ailment on April 23, 1850, as a result of a cold, and is buried in Grasmere. The Prelude was published shortly after his death.
Major Quotes by William Wordsworth
Have a look at some of the best quotes by the Poet Laureate.
- The best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love
- Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart
- My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky
- The Child is father of the Man
- I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills, / When all at once I saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils
- Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower
- Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility
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