William Wordsworth.docx

1、William WordsworthWilliam WordsworthFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWordsworth redirects here. For other uses, see Wordsworth (disambiguation).For the Scottish composer, see William Wordsworth (composer).William WordsworthPortrait of William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon (National Portra

2、it Gallery).Born 7 April 1770Wordsworth House, Cockermouth, EnglandDied 23 April 1850 (aged 80)Cumberland, EnglandOccupation PoetLiterary movement RomanticismNotable work(s) Lyrical Ballads, Poems in Two Volumes, The ExcursionWilliam Wordsworth (7 April 1770 23 April 1850) was a major English Romant

3、ic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads.Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobiographical poem of his early years which he revised and expanded a number

4、of times. It was posthumously titled and published, prior to which it was generally known as the poem to Coleridge. Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.Contents hide 1 Early life2 Relationship with Annette Vallon3 First publication and Lyrical Ballads4 The Bordere

5、rs5 Germany and move to the Lake District6 Marriage and children7 Autobiographical work and Poems in Two Volumes8 The Prospectus9 The Poet Laureate and other honours10 Death11 Major works12 Further reading13 See also14 References15 External linkseditEarly lifeMain article: Early life of William Word

6、sworthThe second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland1part of the scenic region in northwest England, the Lake District. His sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was

7、 close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. They had three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John, born after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in 1805 when the ship of which he was Master, Earl of Abergavenny was wrecked off the sout

8、h coast of England; and Christopher, the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.2 Their father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections, lived in a large mansion in the small town. Wordsworth, as with

9、 his siblings, had little involvement with their father, and they would be distant from him until his death in 1783.3Wordsworths father, although rarely present, did teach him poetry, including that of Milton, Shakespeare and Spenser, in addition to allowing his son to rely on his own fathers librar

10、y. Along with spending time reading in Cockermouth, Wordsworth would also stay at his mothers parents house in Penrith, Cumberland. At Penrith, Wordsworth was exposed to the moors. Wordsworth could not get along with his grandparents and his uncle, and his hostile interactions with them distressed h

11、im to the point of contemplating suicide.4After the death of their mother, in 1778, John Wordsworth sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire; she and William would not meet again for another nine years. Although Hawkshead was Wordsworths

12、first serious experience with education, he had been taught to read by his mother and had attended a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth. After the Cockermouth school, he was sent to a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families and taught by Ann Birkett, a woman who insisted on

13、 instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day, and Shrove Tuesday. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school that Wordsworth was to meet the Hutchi

14、nsons, including Mary, who would be his future wife.5Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St Johns College, Cambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791.6 He returned to Hawkshead for his first two sum

15、mer holidays, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790, he took a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy.editRelationship with Annette Va

16、llonIn November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enthralled with the Republican movement. He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their child, Caroline. Because of lack of money and Britains tensions with France, he returned alone to Eng

17、land the next year.7 The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raise doubts as to his declared wish to marry Annette, but he supported her and his daughter as best he could in later life. The Reign of Terror estranged him from the Republican movement, and war between France and Br

18、itain prevented him from seeing Annette and Caroline again for several years. There are strong suggestions that Wordsworth may have been depressed and emotionally unsettled in the mid-1790s.citation neededWith the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister, Do

19、rothy, visited Annette and Caroline in Calais. The purpose of the visit was to pave the way for his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson, and a mutually agreeable settlement was reached regarding Wordsworths obligations.7 Afterwards he wrote the poem It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, reca

20、lling his seaside walk with his daughter, 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.editFirst publication and Lyrical BalladsWordsworth in 1798, about the time he began

21、 The Prelude.8In his Preface to Lyrical Ballads, which is called the manifesto of English Romantic criticism, Wordsworth calls his poems experimental. The year 1793 saw Wordsworths first published poetry with the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. He received a legacy of 900 from

22、Raisley Calvert in 1795 so that he could pursue writing poetry. That year, he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. In 1797, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxton House, Somerset, just a few miles away from Coleridges home in Nethe

23、r Stowey. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement. The volume gave neither Wordsworths nor Coleridges name as author. One of Wordsworths most famous poems, Tintern Abbey, was published in the

24、work, along with Coleridges 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 augmented significantly in the 1802 edition. This Preface to Lyrical Ballads is considered a central work of Ro

25、mantic 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 18th-century poetry. Here, Wordsworth gives his famous definition of poetry as the spontaneous overflow of power

26、ful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.editThe BorderersFrom 1795 to 1797, he wrote his only play, The Borderers, a verse tragedy during the reign of King Henry III of England when Englishmen of t

27、he north country were in conflict with Scottish rovers. Wordsworth attempted to get the play staged in November 1797, but it was rejected by Thomas Harris, theatre manager of Covent Garden, who proclaimed it impossible that the play should succeed in the representation. The rebuff was not received l

28、ightly by Wordsworth, and the play was not published until 1842, after substantial revision.9editGermany and move to the Lake DistrictWordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1798. While Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the trip, its main effect on Wordsworth

29、 was to produce homesickness.7 During the harsh winter of 179899, Wordsworth lived with Dorothy in Goslar, and, despite extreme stress and loneliness, he began work on an autobiographical piece later titled The Prelude. He wrote a number of famous poems, including The Lucy poems. He and his sister m

30、oved 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.10 Through this period, many of his poems revolve around themes of death, endurance, separation and g

31、rief.editMarriage and childrenIn 1802, after Wordsworths return from his trip to France with Dorothy to visit Annette and Caroline, Lowthers heir, William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, paid the 4,000 debt owed to Wordsworths father incurred through Lowthers failure to pay his aide.11 Later that yea

32、r, Wordsworth married a childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson.7 Dorothy continued to live with the couple and grew close to Mary. The following year, Mary gave birth to the first of five children, two of whom predeceased William and Mary:John Wordsworth (18 June 18031875). Married four times:Isabella Curwen (d. 1848) had six children: Jane, Henry, William, John, Charles and Edward.Helen Ross (d. 1854). No childrenMary Ann Dolan (d. after 1858) had one daughter Dora (b.1858).Mary Gamble. No child