Wordsworth and Romanticism

Wordsworths Life
born in 1770 English Lake District. when he was 8, his mother died. his father died, when William was 13

Cockermouth, Cumbria

Wordsworths Earliest House

Home Life
father was an estate manager The family lived well

View of the kitchen and fine china

Williams Schooling

local Grammar school poetry

Undergraduate Years
St Johns College, Cambridge In the summer of 1790 landscape & Revolution

The French Alps

The Savoie region of the Alps, through which Wordsworth and Jones traveled in the summer of 1791

Settling in England
average quality degree anti-Monarchist ideas. Annette Vallon War

Dove Cottage, Wordsworths home from 1799-1809

Dorothy Mary
Hutchinson Home

Wordsworths Mature Years

the Lake District Poet Laureate Died in 1850

Society and Influences

a reaction to the world the Industrial Revolution and Nature Lyrical Ballads, with Coleridge, in 1798. a break with the Renaissance

His Own Poetry

focus = the simple miracle of perception and experience. thought long and deeply. vivid, direct images and descriptions. lyrical blank verse

London, 1802
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

10

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed---and gazed---but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

10

15

20

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

The Romantics Influence

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, Born a poor young country boy--Mother Nature's son All day long I'm sitting singing songs for everyone. Sit beside a mountain stream--see her waters rise

Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies.

Find me in my field of grass--Mother Nature's son Swaying daisies sing a lazy song beneath the sun. Paul McCartney (Beatles 376)

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. William Wordsworth

(Poetical Works 311)

Wordsworths Legacy

the start of the Romantic movement. rural life is considered to be a haven celebrated the immediate, the emotional and the personal a valuing of personal experience and reaction His contemporaries: Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and Shelley

Works Cited Page

Cambridge 2000: St. Johns College: First Court: chapel. Cambridge 2000: photos of Cambridge, England. 1/8/07. www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/html/0009/P911249.html. 1/10/07. county map of England. Pictures of England.com.

http://www.picturesofengland.com/mapofengland/counties-map.html. 2/18/09.
Fraistat, Neil et al Lyrical Ballads London 1798 Full Text. Lyrical Ballads: an electronic scholarly edition. www.dal.ca/~etc/lballads/London98/frames.html. 1/10/07.

Graveyard at Oswald Church. Poets Graves.

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/wordsworth.htm. 2/18/09.

Wordsworth and the Romantics. The Wordsworth Trust. www.wordsworth.org.uk/Default.asp?page=16. 1/10/07.

Sources I cannot cite because they are from a British Internet site that Mr. Shaw was a member of sorry! Dont
use this as an example of what you should do http://www.btinternet.com/~lake.district/cm/wordhse.htm http://www.btinternet.com/~lake.district/wilword.htm