William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, the son of an attorney. He was educated at Hawkshead grammar school and at St. John's College, Cambridge. Both his parents died by the time he was thirteen and he was brought up by relatives.

He spent some time in France shortly after the French Revolution whose cause he espoused and in 1797 moved to Somerset with his favourite sister, Dorothy, where he developed a close association with Coleridge.

Generally considered the greatest of the Romantic poets, Wordsworth's most creative poetry is his early work with its main themes of the English countryside and the revolutionary spirit of the age. Of his later work, The Prelude, published posthumously, is the most significant. He became Poet Laureate in 1843.

Desideria
Upon Westminster Bridge
The Reaper
Daffodils
Lucy (i)
Lucy (ii) a.k.a. The Lost Love
Lucy (iii)
Lucy (iv)
Lucy (v)
Evening on Calais Beach
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, 1802
England, 1802 (i)
England, 1802 (ii)
England, 1802 (iii)

England, 1802 (iv)
England, 1802 (v)
Perfect Woman
Ode to Duty
The Rainbow
The Sonnet (i)
The Sonnet (ii)
The World
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon
Mutability
The Trosachs
Speak!

Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in Their Time
A. S. Byatt

Selected Poetry (Oxford World's Classics)
William Wordsworth, Stephen Gill (Editor), Duncan Wu (Editor)

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