William Wordsworth Biography

William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth

Full Name: William Wordsworth
Birth Date: April 07, 1770
Birthplace: Cumberland, England
Died: April 23, 1850 (aged 80)
Occupation: Poet
Literary movement: Romanticism
prominent work(s): Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth had the deepest admiration for nature and his whole work was an attempt to establish a relationship between man and nature. He entered the world of English poetry when the literary taste of the people was already violated by the barren and artificial poetic diction of the neoclassic poets.

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland part of the scenic region in northwest England, the Lake District. Wordsworth spent much of his boyhood among the pastoral people, and in the midst of the beauty of nature.

Living away from the corruption of civilized life and under the influence of the picturesque countryside, Wordsworth learned faith in humanity and developed a love for the elemental things of life. He was the second of five children to John and Anne Cookson Wordsworth.

He was educated at the little Grammar School of Hawkshead, Lancashire, and at Cambridge, and when he graduated, he had a little sense of his future vocation.

William Wordsworth visited France twice, in 1790 and 1791, and his second visit continued up to 1792. While in France, he was filled with enthusiasm for the Revolution and the love of France.

These feelings persisted in him for a time after his return to England, but the Reign of Terror and the spirit of conquest, displayed by the French Revolution shook his faith in the Revolution and he devoted himself as a disciple of the philosopher William Godwin to the study of abstract, political systems.

Gradually his imaginative faculty, mixed up with moral ardor led him to the study of nature and the cultivation of poetry. His friendship with Coleridge, which developed during this period, did a lot to stimulate his genius.

In 1798, the two poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly published The Lyrical Ballads a small volume of poems, and in the same year, they visited Germany.

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