WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1770-1850)

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Contents  

 

1. Introduction

2. Early life and education

3. Relationship with Annette Vallon

4. First publication and Lyrical Ballads

5. Germany and move to the Lake District

6. Marriage and children

7. Autobiographical work and poems in Two Volumes

8. The Prospectus

9. The Poet Laureate and other honors

10. Death

11. Major Works

12. References

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Introduction

William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was one of the great

Romantic poets of 19th-century England. His poems celebrated the glories of nature

and the human spirit while using the simple language of the "common man" -- a radical

idea for the time. Wordsworth studied at Cambridge University and then traveled in

France during the Revolution, an experience which affected deeply his own political

leanings. On his return to England he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and in 1798 they

published the collection Lyrical Ballads. It included both Coleridge's "The Rime of the

Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey’’, a rumination on man and nature

inspired by the "steep and lofty cliffs" and "pastoral farms" around the stone ruins of the

ancient church. Critics hooted at Wordworth's poems and his politics early in his career,

but in later years he became accepted as a key voice in the Romantic movement. His

other works include Poems in Two Volumes (1807) and The Excursion (1814). He

was Poet Laureate of England from 1843 until his death in 1850. His autobiographical

epic, "The Prelude," was published by his wife after his death.

Wordsworth's younger sister and close confidante Dorothy (1771-1855) was also an

accomplished writer; he praised her lavishly in "Tintern Abbey". While traveling in

France, Wordsworth fathered a daughter, Caroline (b. 1792) with a woman named

Annette Vallon, they were never married. In 1802 Wordsworth married a childhood

friend, Mary Hutchinson. The title of the 1961 movie Splendor in the Grass (starring

Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty) was taken from a line in Wordsworth's ode

"Intimations of Immortality," which reads: "Though nothing can bring back the hour of

splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower."

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Early life and Education

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). All of his siblings were destined to have successful

careers. His elder brother Richard became a lawyer in London; John Wordsworth rose to the rank

of Captain on a merchantman of the East India Company; and the youngest of the family,

Christopher, became Master of Trinity College at Cambridge. After the death of their mother in

1778, their father sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School and sent Dorothy to live with

relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for another nine years. His father died

when he was 13.

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. He was fascinated by "the divine John Milton,"

impressed by George Crabbe's descriptions of poverty, and repelled by the "falsehood"

and "spurious imagery" in Ossian's nature poetry.

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Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The

European Magazine. That same year he began attending St. John's College, and

received his B.A. degree in 1791 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 being’s heart

and home."

Sojourn in France

Revolutionary fervor in France made a powerful impact on the young idealist, who

returned there in November 1791 allegedly to improve his knowledge of the French

language. Wordsworth's stay in Paris, Orléans, and Blois proved decisive in three

important respects. First, his understanding of politics at the time was slight, but his

French experience was a powerful factor in turning his inbred sympathy for plain

common people, among whom he had spent the happiest years of his life, into articulate

radicalism. Second, in 1792 Wordsworth composed his most ambitious poem to date,

the Descriptive Sketches. An admittedly juvenile, derivative work, it was in fact less

descriptive of nature than the earlier An Evening Walk, composed at Cambridge. But it

better illustrated his vein of protest and his belief in political freedom.

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Relationship with Annette Valon

Finally, while Wordsworth's political ideas and poetic talent were thus beginning to take

shape, he fell passionately in love with a French girl, Annette Valon, who in 1792 gave

birth to their child, Caroline. Because of lack of money and Britain's tensions with

France, he returned alone to England the next year. The circumstances of his return

and his subsequent behavior raise doubts as to his declared wish to marry Annette but

he supported her and his daughter as best he could in later life. During this period, he

wrote his acclaimed "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free," recalling his seaside

walk with his wife, whom he had not seen for ten years. At the conception of this poem,

he had never seen his daughter before. The occurring lines reveal his deep love for

both child and mother. The Reign of Terror estranged him from the Republican

movement, and war between France and Britain prevented him from seeing Annette

and Caroline again for several years. There are also strong suggestions that

Wordsworth may have been depressed and emotionally unsettled in the mid 1790s.

With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister,

Dorothy visited Annette and Caroline in France and arrived at a mutually agreeable settlement

regarding Wordsworth's obligations.

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First publication and Lyrical Ballads 

In his "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" which is called

the 'manifesto' of English Romantic criticism, Wordsworth calls his poems '

experimental'. 1793 saw Wordsworth's first published poetry with the collections An

Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. By then, Wordsworth's wretchedness over

Annette and their child had been aggravated by a tragic sense of torn loyalties as war

broke out between England and the French Republic. This conflict precipitated his

republicanism, which he expounded with almost religious zeal and eloquence in A Letter

to the Bishop of Llandaff, while his new imaginative insight into human sorrow and

fortitude found poetic expression in "Salisbury Plain." The influence of William Godwin's

ideas in Political Justice prompted Wordsworth to write "Guilt and Sorrow," and this

influence is also perceptible in his unactable drama, The Borderers (1796). This Sturm

und Drang composition, however, also testified to the poet's humanitarian

disappointment with the French Revolution, which had lately engaged in the terrorist

regime of Maximilien de Robespierre.

The year 1797, he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly

developed a close friendship. In 1797, Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, moved

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to Alfoxton House, Somerset, just a few miles away from Coleridge's home in Nether

Stowey. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights from Dorothy)

produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic

Movement. The volume had neither the name of Wordsworth nor Coleridge as the

author. One of Wordsworth's most famous poems, "Tintern Abbey", was published in

the work, along with Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". The second edition,

published in 1800, had only Wordsworth listed as the author, and included a preface to

the poems, which was significantly augmented in the 1802 edition. This Preface

to Lyrical Ballads is considered a central work of Romantic literary theory. In it,

Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the elements of a new type of poetry, one

based on the "real language of men" and which avoids the poetic diction of much

eighteenth-century poetry. Here, Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry

askeets "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in

tranquility." A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.

Tintern Abbey:

Wordsworth's most memorable contribution to this volume was "Tintern Abbey," which

he wrote just in time for inclusion in it. This poem is the first major piece to illustrate his

original talent at its best. A lyrical summing up of the poet's experiences and

expectations, it skillfully combines matter-of-factness in natural description with a

genuinely mystical sense of infinity, joining self-exploration to philosophical speculation.

While tracing the poet's ascent from unthinking enjoyment of nature to the most exalted

perception of cosmic oneness, it also voices his gnawing perplexity as the writer -

prophetically, as it turned out - wonders whether his exhilarating vision of universal

harmony may not be a transient delusion. The poem closes on a subdued but confident

reassertion of nature's healing power, even though mystical insight may be withdrawn

from the poet.

In its successful blending of inner and outer experience, of sense perception, feeling,

and thought, "Tintern Abbey" is a poem in which the writer's self becomes an adequate

symbol of mankind; undisguisedly subjective reminiscences lead to imaginative

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speculations about man and the universe. This cosmic outlook rooted in egocentricity is

a central feature of romanticism, and Wordsworth's poetry is undoubtedly the most

impressive exponent of this view in English literature.

The writing of "Tintern Abbey" anticipated the later spiritual evolution of Wordsworth; it

clarified the direction that his best work took in the next few years; and it heralded the

period in which he made his imperishable contribution to the development of English

romanticism. Significantly, this period was also the time of his closest intimacy with

Dorothy - who kept the records of their experiences and thus supplied him with an

unceasing flow of motifs, characters, and incidents on which to base his poetry - and

with Coleridge, whose constant encouragement and criticism provided the incentive to

ever deeper searching and to more articulate thinking. The three lived at Nether

Stowey, Somerset, in 1797-1798; took a trip to Germany in 1798-1799, which left little

impression on Wordsworth's mind; and then settled in Grasmere in the Lake District.

Germany and move to the Lake District

Wordsworth, Dorothy, and Coleridge then traveled to Germany in the autumn of 1798.

While Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the trip, its main effect on Wordsworth

was to produce homesickness. During the harsh winter of 1798–1799, Wordsworth lived

with Dorothy in Goslar, and despite extreme stress and loneliness, he began work on an

autobiographical piece later titled The Prelude. He also wrote a number of famous

poems, including "the Lucy poems". He and his sister moved back to England, now

to Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the Lake District, and this time with fellow poet Robert

Southey nearby. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey came to be known as the "Lake

Poets". Through this period, many of his poems revolve around themes of death,

endurance, separation, and grief.

The prelude:

Nevertheless, it was the direction suggested in "Intimations of Immortality" that, in the

view of later criticism, enabled Wordsworth to produce perhaps the most outstanding

achievement of English romanticism: The Prelude. He worked on it, on and off, for

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several years and completed the first version in May 1805. The Prelude can claim to be

the only true romantic epic because it deals in narrative terms with the spiritual growth

of the only true romantic hero, the poet. Thus Wordsworth evolved a new genre

peculiarly suited to his temperament. In this poem as in most of his best poetry - but

here on a larger scale - the egocentricity for which he has often been rebuked was

validated through symbolism. The inward odyssey of the poet was not described for its

own sake but as a sample and as an adequate image of man at his most sensitive.

Wordsworth shared the general romantic notion that personal experience is the only way to gain

living knowledge. The purpose of The Prelude was to recapture and interpret, with detailed

thoroughness, the whole range of experiences that had contributed to the shaping of his own

mind. Such a procedure enabled him to rekindle the dying embers of his earlier vision; it also

enabled him to reassess the transient truth and the lasting value of his earlier glorious insights

in the light of mature wisdom. It lies in the nature of such an extended process of reminiscence

and revaluation that only death can end it, and Wordsworth wisely refrained from publishing the

poem in his lifetime, revising it continuously. The posthumously printed version differs in

several ways from the text he read to Coleridge in 1807. It is surprising, however, that the

changes from the early version should not be more radical than they are. Most of them are

improvements in style and structure. Wordsworth's youthful enthusiasm for the French

Revolution has been slightly toned down. Most important and, perhaps, most to be regretted, the

poet also tried to give a more orthodox tinge to his early mystical faith in nature.

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Marriage and Children

In 1802, after returning from his trip to France with Dorothy to visit Annette and

Caroline, Wordsworth received the inheritance owed by Lord Lonsdale since John

Wordsworth's death in 1783. Later that year, he married a childhood friend, Mary

Hutchinson. Dorothy continued to live with the couple and grew close to Mary. The

following year, Mary gave birth to the first of five children.

John Wordsworth: June 18th 1803 - 1875. Married four times: 1) Isabella Curwen (d.

1848) had six children: Jane, Henry, William, John, Charles and Edward. 2) Helen Ross

(d. 1854) no issue. 3) Mary Ann Dolan (d. after 1856) had 1 daughter Dora (b.1858).

4) Mary Gamble. No issue

Dora Wordsworth - August 16th 1804 - July 9th 1847. She married Edward Quillinan

Thomas Wordsworth - June 15th 1806 - December 1st 1812

Catherine Wordsworth - September 6th 1808 - June 4th 1812

William "Willy" Wordsworth - May 12th 1810 - 1883. He married Fanny Graham and had four

children: Mary Louisa, William, Reginald and Gordon.

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Autobiographical work and Poems in Two Volumes

Wordsworth had for years been making plans to write a long philosophical poem in

three parts, which he intended to call The Recluse. He had in 1798–99 started an

autobiographical poem, which he never named but called the "poem to Coleridge",

which would serve as an appendix to The Recluse. In 1804 he began expanding this

autobiographical work, having decided to make it a prologue rather than an appendix to

the larger work he planned. By 1805, he had completed it, but refused to publish such a

Personal work until he had completed the whole of The Recluse. The death of his

brother, John, in 1805 affected him strongly.

The source of Wordsworth's philosophical allegiances as articulated in The Prelude and

in such shorter works as "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey" has been

the source of much critical debate. While it had long been supposed that Wordsworth

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relied chiefly on Coleridge for philosophical guidance, more recent scholarship has

suggested that Wordsworth's ideas may have been formed years before he and

Coleridge became friends in the mid 1790s. While in Revolutionary Paris in 1792, the

twenty-two year old Wordsworth made the acquaintance of the mysterious traveler John

"Walking" Stewart (1747-1822), who was nearing the end of a thirty-years' peregrination

from Madras, India, through Persia and Arabia, across Africa and all of Europe, and up

through the fledgling United States. By the time of their association, Stewart had

published an ambitious work of original materialist philosophy entitled

The Apocalypse of Nature (London, 1791), to which many of Wordsworth's

philosophical sentiments are likely indebted.

In 1807, his Poems in Two Volumes were published, including "Ode: Intimations of

Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". Up to this point Wordsworth was

known publicly only for Lyrical Ballads, and he hoped this collection would cement his

reputation. Its reception was lukewarm, however. For a time (starting in 1810),

Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction. Two of his

children, Thomas and Catherine, died in 1812. The following year, he received an

appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and the £400 per year income

from the post made him financially secure. His family, including Dorothy, moved

to Rydal Mount, Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water) in 1813, where he

spent the rest of his life.

The Prospectus

In 1814 he published The Excursion as the second part of the three-part The Recluse.

He had not completed the first and third parts, and never would complete them.

However, he did write a poetic Prospectus to "The Recluse" in which he lays out the

structure and intent of the poem. The Prospectus contains some of Wordsworth's most

famous lines on the relation between the human mind and nature:

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My voice proclaims

How exquisitely the individual Mind

(And the progressive powers perhaps no less

Of the whole species) to the external World

Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too,

Theme this but little heard of among Men,

The external World is fitted to the Mind…

Some modern critics recognize a decline in his works beginning around the mid-1810s.

But this decline was perhaps more a change in his lifestyle and beliefs, since most of

the issues that characterize his early poetry (loss, death, endurance, separation,

abandonment) were resolved in his writings. But, by 1820 he enjoyed the success

accompanying a reversal in the contemporary critical opinion of his earlier works. The

death of his friend painter William Green in 1823 led to Wordsworth mending

relations and by 1828, Wordsworth had become fully reconciled to Coleridge, and the

two toured the Rhineland together that year. Dorothy suffered from a severe illness in

1829 that rendered her an invalid for the remainder of her life. In 1835, Wordsworth

gave Annette and Caroline the money they needed for support.

The poet laureate and other honors

Wordsworth received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1838 from Durham

University, and the same honor from Oxford University the next year. In 1842 the

government awarded him a civil list pension amounting to £300 a year. With the death

in 1843 of Robert Southey, Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate. When his daughter,

Dora, died in 1847, his production of poetry came to a standstill.

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Death

William Wordsworth died of pneumonia on the 23rd April 1850 and was buried at St.

Oswald's church in Grasmere. His widow Mary published his lengthy autobiographical

"poem to Coleridge" as The Prelude several months after his death. Though this failed

to arouse great interest in 1850, it has since come to be recognized as his masterpiece.

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Quotes of William Wordsworth

"But Man is thy most awful instrument

In working out a pure intent,

Thou cloth’s the wicked in their dazzling mail,

And for thy righteous purpose they prevail."

"In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind."

"Not seldom clad in radiant vest

Deceitfully goes forth the dawn,

Not seldom evening in the west

Sinks smilingly forsworn."

 

"The very flowers are sacred to the poor." 

- "Admonition" 

 

"Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,  

Through words and things, a dim and perilous way." 

- "Borderers" 

 

"He knows but from its shade the present hour."  

- "An Evening Walk"

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Major works

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)

"Simon Lee"

"We Are Seven"

"Lines Written in Early Spring"

"Expostulation and Reply"

"The Tables Turned"

"The Thorn"

"Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"

"The Daffodils"

Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800)

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

"Strange fits of passion have I known"

"She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways"

"Three years she grew"

"A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal"

"I travelled among unknown men"

"Lucy Gray"

"The Two April Mornings"

"Nutting"

"The Ruined Cottage"

"Michael"

Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)

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"Resolution and Independence"

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

"My Heart Leaps Up"

"Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

"Ode to Duty"

"The Solitary Reaper"

"Elegiac Stanzas"

"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"

"London, 1802"

"The world is too much with us"

The Excursion (1814)

"Prospectus to The Recluse"

Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822)

"Mutability"

The Prelude (1850, posthumous)

The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind  

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