William Wordsworth
(1770 - 1850)
Timothy H. Wilson
Embedded Files
Portrait of William Wordsworthby Benjamin Robert HaydonNational Portrait Gallery, London
William Wordsworth revolutionized English poetry with the publication, along with his friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Most scholars agree that the Romantic movement in England can be seen as starting with this publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. In 1800, Wordsworth released a second edition of Lyrical Ballads and included a long, theoretical "Preface". This "Preface" has become a landmark in terms of the articulation of the Romantic aesthetic.
He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1843 until his death in 1850. The following texts by Wordsworth are included in my list of 1001 Great Books of the Western Canon:
Selected Poems (1798 - 1850)
Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)
Prelude (1850)
Course Materials
Course Materials
On Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey"
Lecture notes from a course on "Time and History in Literature" (Winter 2021)
Romantic Responses to the Battle of Waterloo
An exploration of various Romantic responses to the culmination of the Napoleonic Wars in the Battle of Waterloo, with particular emphasis on Wordsworth's "Thanksgiving Ode". Lecture notes from a course on "War in Literature" (Winter 2023)
Reflections on the Great Books
Reflections on the Great Books
Selected Poems (1798 - 1850)
Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)
Prelude (1850)
External Links
External Links
On-line Texts by William Wordsworth (at Project Gutenberg)
William Wordsworth (at Wikipedia)
lyricalballads@SFU, a digital remediation of the original, 1798, version of the Lyrical Ballads
David S. Miall, "Locating Wordsworth: "Tintern Abbey" and the Community with Nature"
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