The Life and Poetry of William Wordsworth

Did you ever read a poem and feel a connection to it? Did the author touch you and make you feel his pain, sadness, or happiness? William Wordsworth seems to write about his emotions in his poems and touches his readers. He writes about things people can relate to like family and nature. William Wordsworth uses common words in his poetry and expresses his emotions by comparing hardships in life to occurances and features found in nature. 

William Wordsworth came into this world on April 7th, 1770 in Cumberland, England. His parents raised him in an upper-middle-class family. He lived with his mother, father, and four siblings. His father was a steward and an electioneering agent. His mother died when Wordsworth is eight. He didn't spend much time with his father since he died after Wordsworth turned thirteen. After his dad dies, his uncles become guardians of him and his siblings. William Wordsworth received an education at Hawkshead Grammar School. He attended there from 1779 to 1787. He furthered his education at St. John’s College. He went to France during the French Revolution and later became an enthusiastically radical politician. He wanted to get rid of the Monarchy by dissolving the churches. He became a student of the philosopher William Godwin. In 1802, he married Mary Hutchinson and they had five children. He became very sad when his brother drowned. He wrote about his sadness in the poem Elegiac Stanza. This poem shows that he lost his youthful creative mind. He also wrote the poem Tintern Abbey, where he seems to lose his optimistic belief when the poem states “nature never did betray the heart that loved her”.

William Wordsworth met a man named Raisley Calvert who seemed sick. Calvert said he would share his money with Wordsworth. Raisley died shortly after that and Wordsworth didn't have to worry about money for a while. William Wordsworth wrote tons of poems. He believed that poems could be written in a plain style using everyday words that were easy to understand. He believed that serious poems may describe “Situations from common life” and have normal writing styles. He also seemed to have a great description of nature and he focused on the “ Mind of the Man”. Many of William Wordsworth’s poems were about nature such as The Prelude, which compared a mother’s love to nature (Bloom 28). William Wordsworth believed in writing in ways where people understood what they were reading. In fact, he even said, “Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to snuggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness”. The theme of his books usually was related to his emotions. For example, the poem The Ruined Cottage was about a woman who had loved ones die around the time of his brother’s death. Wordsworth and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge made a book called Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth wrote Tintern Abbey. Thomas De Quincy basically said that Wordsworth appeals to people's emotions and tries to get people to think about their own lives. William Wordsworth passed away in Rydal Mount, Westmoreland, England on May 23, 1850 (Bateson 5). He seems to have created an effect of having all poems classified as subjective, even if the author of the poems tries to make the poems about subjects.

William Wordsworth came into this world on April 7th, 1770 in Cumberland, England. His parents raised him in an upper-middle-class family. He believed that poems can be written the normal way so that people will understand them and relate to them. He wrote poems based on his emotions and his poems tend to have an emotional impact on the people who read them, making them subjective. 

Works Cited 

1. Bateson, F. W. 'Wordsworth, William (1770-1850).' Scholastic GO!, go.scholastic.com/content/schgo/L/article/042/393/0423930-00.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018. 
2. Bloom, Harold. William Wordsworth: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide. ser. PR588.W454, Chelsea House Publishers, 1999. 
3. Shilstone W. Fredrick. Wordsworth, William The World Book Encyclopedia, E,C Paul Kobasa W.X.Y.Z 21 The World Book Inn., 2017 404.