William Wordsworth/Romanticism

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who helped Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads which was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850 .He was second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson. 

           In 1795 he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. In 1797, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved from Racedown in Dorset, where they had lived for two years, to Alfoxton House, Somerset, just a few miles away from Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey. Together Wordsworth and Coleridge produced Lyrical Ballads in 1798, which is an important work in the English Romantic movement. The volume gave neither Wordsworth's nor Coleridge's name as author. One of Wordsworth's most famous poems, "Tintern Abbey", was published in this collection, 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. It was big significantly in the next edition, published in 1802. In this preface, which some scholars consider a central work of Romantic literary theory, Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the elements of a new type of verse, one that is based on the ordinary language "really used by men" while avoiding the poetic diction of much 18th-century verse. Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility", and calls his own poems in the book "experimental". A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805. 

        Wordsworth remained a horrifying presence in his later years.He had great appearence and personality. In 1837, the Scottish poet and playwright Joanna Baillie reflected on her long acquaintance with Wordsworth ."He looks like a man that one must not speak to unless one has some sensible thing to say. However, he does occasionally converse cheerfully & well; and when one knows how benevolent & excellent.  

           In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham and the following year he was awarded the same honorary degree by the University of Oxford, when John Keble praised him as the "poet of humanity", praise greatly appreciated by Wordsworth.   

       Following the death of Robert Southey in 1843 Wordsworth became Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honor, saying that he was too old, but later accepted when the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, assured him that "you shall have nothing required of you". Wordsworth thus became the only poet laureate to write no official verses. The sudden death of his daughter Dora in 1847 at age 42 was difficult for the aging poet to take and in his depression, he completely gave up writing new material. 

          William Wordsworth died at home at Rydal Mount from an aggravated case of pleurisy on 23 April 1850, and was buried at St Oswald's Church, Grasmere. His wife, Mary, published his lengthy autobiographical "Poem to Coleridge" as The Prelude several months after his death. Though it failed to interest people at the time, it has since come to be widely recognized as his masterpiece.re: wiki/William_WordswortH