William Wordsworth We are Seven/Biography

William Wordsworth
(7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850)


 * William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770
 * He was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Colleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English Literature with the publication of Lyrical Ballads
 * Wordsworth masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude
 * Wordsworth was a Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death

Early Life

 * He is the second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cockson
 * Wordsworth father rarely taught him poetry including that of Milton, Shakespeare, and Spenser
 * After the death of their mother in 1778 John Wordsworth sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire
 * He had already learnt to read and write in a small school in Cockermouth when his mother was alive
 * It was at the school that Wordsworth was to meet Mary who would be his future wife

First Publicationa and Lyrical Ballad

 * The year 1793 saw Wordsworth's first published poetry with the collection "An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches"
 * He received a legacy of 900 pounds from 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
 * Together they produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic movement
 * Wordsworth's most famous poem "Tintern Abbey" was published in the work, along with Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The Poet Laureate and other honours

 * Wordsworth receives an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from Durham University, and the same honour from Oxford University
 * The government awarded him a civil list pension amounting to 300 pounds a year
 * With the death of Robert Southey, Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honour but later agreed
 * When his daughter, Dora died, his production of poetry came to a standstill

William Wordsworth's Death

 * He died by worsening a case of pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and was burried 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 interes in 1850, it has since come to be recognized as his masterpiece

Poems by Williams Wordsworth

 * 1) Lines written a few miles above Tintern abbey(1798)
 * 2) She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways(1798)
 * 3) The Prelude (1798)
 * 4) Tables Turned (1798)
 * 5) Lines Written In Early Spring (1798)
 * 6) Lucy Gray(1799)
 * 7) Composed Upon Westminster Bridge (1802)
 * 8) The World Is Too Much with Us (1802)
 * 9) Daffodils (I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud)(1804)