CONTEXT:
- Born 1770 in Cumberland, England.
- Young William’s parents, John and Ann, died during his boyhood.
- Raised amid the mountains of Cumberland alongside the River Derwent, Wordsworth grew up in a
rustic society, and spent a great deal of his time playing outdoors, in what he would later remember
as a pure communion with nature.
- Much of his poetry was inspired by the dramatic landscape of the Lake District.
- Central figure in Romanticism, reacting against the Enlightenment’s focus on reason. His
collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads is often seen as the starting point of
Romanticism, opening the gates for later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord
Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America.
- Writing during the Industrial Revolution, Wordsworth saw rapid urbanisation and social change. He
reacted against industrialisation, idealising rural life and nature as spiritually restorative. Nature
becomes a moral teacher and refuge from modern corruption.
- Initially inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution (liberty, equality), he was later disillusioned
by its violence. This shift shaped his concern with human suffering into his retreat into nature and
personal reflection.
Subject matter
- Nature: A teacher, A healer, A spiritual presence
- Childhood & Innocence: Children are closer to truth and nature than adults. Famous idea: “The
Child is father of the Man”
- The Individual and Emotion
- Memory and time
- Rural and ordinary life
Poetic Style:
1. Language of “common men.” Wordsworth rejected elevated poetic diction, advocating for everyday
speech in poetry (poetry should be accessible and sincere).
2. Emotion Recollected in Tranquillity (His famous definition of poetry)
3. Meditative & Reflective Tone. Often begins with observation, moves into deep philosophical
reflection
4. Simplicity & Musicality. Regular rhythms (often iambic pentameter), calm, flowing structures to
mirror natural processes.
Key devices:
- Natural imagery
- Personification of nature
- Nature symbolism: Light → knowledge / truth Rivers → passage of time Mountains →
permanence / awe
- Blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter = natural yet elevated speech
- Born 1770 in Cumberland, England.
- Young William’s parents, John and Ann, died during his boyhood.
- Raised amid the mountains of Cumberland alongside the River Derwent, Wordsworth grew up in a
rustic society, and spent a great deal of his time playing outdoors, in what he would later remember
as a pure communion with nature.
- Much of his poetry was inspired by the dramatic landscape of the Lake District.
- Central figure in Romanticism, reacting against the Enlightenment’s focus on reason. His
collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads is often seen as the starting point of
Romanticism, opening the gates for later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord
Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America.
- Writing during the Industrial Revolution, Wordsworth saw rapid urbanisation and social change. He
reacted against industrialisation, idealising rural life and nature as spiritually restorative. Nature
becomes a moral teacher and refuge from modern corruption.
- Initially inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution (liberty, equality), he was later disillusioned
by its violence. This shift shaped his concern with human suffering into his retreat into nature and
personal reflection.
Subject matter
- Nature: A teacher, A healer, A spiritual presence
- Childhood & Innocence: Children are closer to truth and nature than adults. Famous idea: “The
Child is father of the Man”
- The Individual and Emotion
- Memory and time
- Rural and ordinary life
Poetic Style:
1. Language of “common men.” Wordsworth rejected elevated poetic diction, advocating for everyday
speech in poetry (poetry should be accessible and sincere).
2. Emotion Recollected in Tranquillity (His famous definition of poetry)
3. Meditative & Reflective Tone. Often begins with observation, moves into deep philosophical
reflection
4. Simplicity & Musicality. Regular rhythms (often iambic pentameter), calm, flowing structures to
mirror natural processes.
Key devices:
- Natural imagery
- Personification of nature
- Nature symbolism: Light → knowledge / truth Rivers → passage of time Mountains →
permanence / awe
- Blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter = natural yet elevated speech
