"Faith is a passionate intuition."
"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."
This above are two quotes from William Wordsworth. They can pretty much sum up his attitude towards his works.
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) was born in in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. Throught his life, he would have many influences on his work. The first to shape his later works was the death of his mother when he was just eight. He attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love of poetry was firmly established and it is believed that he made his first attempts at verse there. Before his final semester at St. John's College in Cambridge, Wordsworth set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities. While touring Europe, he came into contact with the French Revolution. This, together with his stay in France, brought about Wordsworth's interest and sympathy for the life, troubles and speech of the "common man". These issues proved to be of paramount importance to Wordsworth's work.
We now move on to 1795, when Wordsworth had a meeting with the poet, Samuel Talyor Coleridge, his future publisher of his works(Lyrical Ballads in 1798). Wordsworth's poems were a great influence in Western literature, but it did contain his views on both his craft and his place in the world. Wordsworth wrote on the need for "common speech" within poems and argues against the hierarchy of the period which valued epic poetry above the lyric. Wordsworth wanted his poems to be of social or psychological influence. However, some exerted aesthetic influence.
Wordsworth's most famous work, The Prelude (1850), gives an insight into his spiritual life and marks the birth of a new genre of poetry. It is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism.
In 1874, Wordsworth seemingly lost his will to compose poems after the death of his daughter, Dora. His wife, Mary, published The Prelude three months after his death.
Below are three poems are three poems by William Wordsworth that I like. Happy reading!
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 leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but 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.
Lines Written In Early SpringI heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
Written In March The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!
Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping—anon-anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!
Sources1.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/quotes2.
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/2963.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/poems/109514.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/poems/109535.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/poems/109566.
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/wordsworth/section6.rhtml7.
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/wordsworth/section7.rhtmlCJ
