WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM Au English poet, born at Cockermouth, in Cumber land, April 7, 1770. lIe came from a family that had long been settled in the north country. William was the second son. His sister Dorothy f 1771-1855), a remarkable woman. was the poet's companion through mature life. William was sent to the schools at Cockermonth and Pen rill], and. after the death of his mother (177A), he was transferred to the grammar school at Hawkshead, a picturesque by Esthwaite Water, where he remained till The years passed at Hawkshead were 'the seed time' of his soul. Left to himself, he read a good deal, joined in the society and sports of the country folk. took long solitary strolls, and first had those mystic visions in which nature seemed to palpitate with a life of its own. William studied at Saint John's College, Cambridge, in 1791. In 1790 he interrupted his studies to take a tour through France and Switz erland with Robert Jones, a college friend, after wards fellow of Saint John's. Unsettled in his plans, he again went to France. staying a full year (November. 1791, to December, 1792). He embraced with enthusiasm the principles of the llevolution, and. in spite of its excesses, his re publicanism was not wholly dissipated till the French invasion of Switzerland (1798). As time went on he became a stanch conservative, if not a Tory. For this change, as sincere as it was natural, he was severely eritieised by many of his republiean contemporaries, for example by Byron: and in The Lost Leader, Browning, while not intending it directly for Wordsworth, yet used him "as a sort of painter's model" in de scribing the effect upon ardent young Liberals of the defection of an admired leader. Returning to England, Wordsworth made his first appearance as poet in An Evening Thalk (1793), and De scriptive Sketches taken. during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps (1793). The poet's mas ters were then Pope, Goldsmith, and COW per. These two poems, composed in the heroic couplet. contain nevertheless many refined and de lightful sketches taken from nature at first hand.
Coleridge saw in the second volume "the emer gence of an original poetical genius." In 1795 Wordsworth settled with his sister at Racedown, neat- Crcwkerne, moving (1797) to Alfoxden, three miles from Nether Stowey, where Cole ridge was then living. At Racedown Words worth wrote several poems, in which the heroic couplet was abandoned. Among them were Guilt and Sorrow in the Spenserian stanza, and a tragedy in blank verse ealled The Borderers. But the main outcome of the period was a joint pub lication of the two poets entitled Lyrical Bal lads (1798), a memorable volume, which, though severely criticised by the reviewers and neg lected by the public. definitely marks an epoch in the history of English poetry. Coleridge con tributed The Ancient Mariner and three other poems. Wordsworth's poems. Simon Lee, We Ire Scren. Expost ulat io» and Reply, "were written" (so runs the advertisement) "with a view to ascertain how far the language of con versation in the middle and lower classes of so ciety is adapted to the purposes of poetie pleas ure." The volume closed with the beautiful Lines on Tintern Abbey. commemorating; a tour with Dorothy up the Wye Valley. The Lyrical Ballads, with an additional volume, were re published in 1800. In his Preface Wordsworth elaborated the thesis that there is no "essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition." The thesis was ably criticised by Coleridge in his Biographia Lit eraria (1S171, and is now generally regarded as an extreme position. To it Wordsworth always held in theory, but, to his good fortune, he often forgot it in practice. The famous Pre( are, though needing many quaRfieations, was most salutary. It eventually put an end to the con ventional poetic diction of the cen tury: in fact, the publication of the little honk is generally taken to mark the definite begin wing of the Romantic movement in England, and of the glories of nineteenth-century English poetry.