William Wordsworth
The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
The second creative period of English literature
Introduction-
Romanticism is an international artistic and philosophical movement that re-defined the ways in which humans in western civilization thought about themselves and their world.
Officially Romantic period start in 1798 at that time "Lyrical Ballads" published by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Neo-classical poets to write on urban lifestyle but Romantic poets focus on rural life or nature. In the Nineteenth century poetry bubbles with Romanticism. Subjectivity, love for supernatural ,love for nature,melancholy, dignity and mobility of an individual, simplicity, spontanely, a revolt against artificiality. At that time famous poets:-
1) William Blake
2) William Wordsworth
3) Walter Scott
4) S.T.Coleridge
5) Robert Southey
6) Lord Byron
7) P.B.Shelley
8) John Keats
Lord Byron, P.B.Shelley and John Keats are youngest romantic poets. Here I focus on Wordsworth.
William Wordsworth Life :
Outwardly his long and uneventful life divides itself naturally into four periods:-
1) His childhood and youth in the Cumberland Hills from 1770 to 1787.
2) A period of uncertainty, of storm and stress, including his University life at Cambridge, his travels abroad, and his revolutionary experience from 1787 to 1797.
3) A short but significant period of finding himself and his work from 1797 to 1799.
4) A long period of retirement in the northern lake region ,where he was born, and where for a full half century he lived so close to nature that her influence is reflected in all his poetry.
Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth,where the Derwent. He lost his mother when he was only eight years and five years later his father was like domestic behaviour so he lived separate from his father. But his neurotic sister Dorothy ,she was a very important person in his life. He had never been serious about his formal education. William Taylor was his teacher who inspired him to compose poems. Then he started to write Sonnet and published in The European Magazine.He also inspired with Coleridge and Robert Southey, he was known as a lake poet.
Wordsworth with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge revolted against the pseudo artificial diction of the Neo-classical poets represented by Alexander pope. He revolted against "gaudiness and inane phraseology" employed in the 18th century poetry. Nature is the centre of Wordsworth's poetry and his Imagination made him a romantic poet of high order. Wordsworth gave more importance to feelings than thoughts. His adoption of various lyrics form like ode and Sonnet, use of blank verse, distance from conventional subjects and manner became the solid bricks in constructing the structure of romanticism in his poetry.
The publication of the Lyrical Ballads marked the beginning of the Romantic movement. The Lyrical Ballads contained 23 poems 19 by Wordsworth and 4 by Coleridge. Most of he follows his definition -
" Poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling and it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." And other definition " poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, it is the impassioned of all science. It may be safely affirmed that there neither is nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition". He also gave poetic process.
1) Observation- Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
2) Recollection - Emotions recollected in tranquility.
3) Contemplation - Imaginative exploitation of the emotiona of emotions which were experienced either.
He gave qualifications of a poet:-
If We read his record " The Prelude" it is appreciate this three things in this poem must impress even the casual reader : first Wordsworth loves to be alone and is never lonely, with nature, second like every other child who spends much time alone in the woods and fields, he feels the presence of some living spirit, real though unseen and companionable though silent, third his impressions are exactly like our own and delightfully familiar.
The second creative period of English literature
Introduction-
Romanticism is an international artistic and philosophical movement that re-defined the ways in which humans in western civilization thought about themselves and their world.
Officially Romantic period start in 1798 at that time "Lyrical Ballads" published by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Neo-classical poets to write on urban lifestyle but Romantic poets focus on rural life or nature. In the Nineteenth century poetry bubbles with Romanticism. Subjectivity, love for supernatural ,love for nature,melancholy, dignity and mobility of an individual, simplicity, spontanely, a revolt against artificiality. At that time famous poets:-
1) William Blake
2) William Wordsworth
3) Walter Scott
4) S.T.Coleridge
5) Robert Southey
6) Lord Byron
7) P.B.Shelley
8) John Keats
Lord Byron, P.B.Shelley and John Keats are youngest romantic poets. Here I focus on Wordsworth.
William Wordsworth Life :
- Birth - April 7, 1770 at Cockermouth, Cumberland
- Death - April 23, 1850
- Father - John Wordsworth
- Mother - Anne Cookson
- Wife - Mary Hutchinson
- Sister - Dorothy Wordsworth
Outwardly his long and uneventful life divides itself naturally into four periods:-
1) His childhood and youth in the Cumberland Hills from 1770 to 1787.
2) A period of uncertainty, of storm and stress, including his University life at Cambridge, his travels abroad, and his revolutionary experience from 1787 to 1797.
3) A short but significant period of finding himself and his work from 1797 to 1799.
4) A long period of retirement in the northern lake region ,where he was born, and where for a full half century he lived so close to nature that her influence is reflected in all his poetry.
Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth,where the Derwent. He lost his mother when he was only eight years and five years later his father was like domestic behaviour so he lived separate from his father. But his neurotic sister Dorothy ,she was a very important person in his life. He had never been serious about his formal education. William Taylor was his teacher who inspired him to compose poems. Then he started to write Sonnet and published in The European Magazine.He also inspired with Coleridge and Robert Southey, he was known as a lake poet.
- Wordsworth as Romantic poet
Wordsworth with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge revolted against the pseudo artificial diction of the Neo-classical poets represented by Alexander pope. He revolted against "gaudiness and inane phraseology" employed in the 18th century poetry. Nature is the centre of Wordsworth's poetry and his Imagination made him a romantic poet of high order. Wordsworth gave more importance to feelings than thoughts. His adoption of various lyrics form like ode and Sonnet, use of blank verse, distance from conventional subjects and manner became the solid bricks in constructing the structure of romanticism in his poetry.
The publication of the Lyrical Ballads marked the beginning of the Romantic movement. The Lyrical Ballads contained 23 poems 19 by Wordsworth and 4 by Coleridge. Most of he follows his definition -
" Poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling and it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." And other definition " poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, it is the impassioned of all science. It may be safely affirmed that there neither is nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition". He also gave poetic process.
1) Observation- Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
2) Recollection - Emotions recollected in tranquility.
3) Contemplation - Imaginative exploitation of the emotiona of emotions which were experienced either.
He gave qualifications of a poet:-
- Poet is a man speaking to men.
- Poet should try to identify with his characterd to make his language more lively and forceful.
- Poet is man who has greater and more than usual organic sensibility, greater power of imagination, greater knowledge of human nature, great power of communication.
If We read his record " The Prelude" it is appreciate this three things in this poem must impress even the casual reader : first Wordsworth loves to be alone and is never lonely, with nature, second like every other child who spends much time alone in the woods and fields, he feels the presence of some living spirit, real though unseen and companionable though silent, third his impressions are exactly like our own and delightfully familiar.
- His famous work and its details:-
His famous poem like Daffodils, The Solitary Reapers, To a highland girl, Michael, Stepping Westward , The Rainbow etc.
He added the famous "Preface" to the second edition of 1800. An appendix on "Poetic Diction" was also added in the third edition of 1802. He wrote more than 500 Sonnets. The Prelude is the most revealing and personal poem in blank verse. He started composing it in 1799 and continue to pen it throughout his life. It was published in 1850 after Wordsworth's death. The little " The Prelude" was given by his wife. It is in 14 books, fused with the spirit of romanticism. It is known as " growth of a poet's mind. It is better known as the poetical autobiography which explores the poet's soul progress through the process of self- discovery.
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