William Words Worth Was Born April 7
William Words Worth Was Born April 7
William Words Worth Was Born April 7
of their five children. His father was law agent and rent collector for Lord Lonsdale, and the family was fairly well off. After his mother's death in 1778 he was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School, near Windermere; in 1787 he went up to St. John's College, Cambridge. He enjoyed hiking: during the "long" (i.e., summer) vacation of 1788 he tramped around Cumberland county; two years later went on a walking tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany; and in 1791, after graduation, trekked through Wales. Although Hawkshead was Wordsworth's 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 upperclass families and taught by Ann Birkett, a woman who insisted on 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 Hutchinsons, including Mary, who would be his future wife.
The Poet's birthplace and childhood home the Wordsworth House, Cockermouth
Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for his first two summer 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. Wordsworth's literary career began with Descriptive Sketches (1793) and reached an early climax before the turn of the century, with Lyrical Ballads. His powers peaked with Poems in Two Volumes (1807), and his reputation continued to grow; even his harshest reviewers recognized his popularity and the originality.
William and Mary Wordsworth's Grave Gravestone of William Wordsworth, Grasmere, Cumbria. He died in 1850, and his wife published the much-revised Prelude that summer.
Major works
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798) o "Simon Lee" o "We are Seven" o "Lines Written in Early Spring" o "Expostulation and Reply" o "The Tables Turned" o "The Thorn" o "Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800) o Preface to the Lyrical Ballads [14] o "Strange fits of passion have I known" [14] o "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" [14] o "Three years she grew" [14] o "A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal" [14] o "I travelled among unknown men" o "Lucy Gray" o "The Two April Mornings" o "Nutting" o "The Ruined Cottage" o "Michael" o "The Kitten At Play" Poems, in Two Volumes (1807) o "Resolution and Independence" o "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" Also known as "Daffodils" o "My Heart Leaps Up" o "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" o "Ode to Duty" o "The Solitary Reaper" o "Elegiac Stanzas" o "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" o "London, 1802" o "The World Is Too Much with Us" The Excursion (1814) Laodamia (1815, 1845) The Prelude (1850) Guide to the Lakes (1810)