Poet · 1770 – 1850
William Wordsworth
Key Takeaways
- Wordsworth helped launch English Romanticism with the 1798 Lyrical Ballads.
- He celebrated nature, childhood and memory in everyday language.
- His long autobiographical poem The Prelude traces the growth of his own mind.
- He became Britain's Poet Laureate late in life.
William Wordsworth changed what poetry was for. Turning from grand classical subjects to nature, memory and the lives of ordinary people, he helped launch the Romantic movement in Britain and taught poetry to speak in a more natural voice.
The Lyrical Ballads
In 1798, with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth published the Lyrical Ballads, a collection that deliberately used everyday language and humble subjects. He defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings… recollected in tranquillity” — a manifesto for a new age of verse.
Poet of nature and memory
His great autobiographical poem The Prelude traced the growth of his own mind, while shorter works like “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” made his beloved Lake District famous. An elder statesman of Romanticism who became Poet Laureate, this poet of the modern era shaped the younger generation of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley — and the modern love of nature itself.
Influence
Wordsworth redirected poetry toward nature, emotion and the lives of ordinary people, and his belief in 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings' defined Romanticism.
Legacy
His vision of nature as a source of moral and spiritual renewal shaped not only poetry but the modern love of the natural world.
Major Works
- Lyrical Ballads (with Coleridge)
- The Prelude
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Connections
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was William Wordsworth?
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English poet who helped found Romanticism with the Lyrical Ballads and celebrated nature and memory in his verse.
What are the Lyrical Ballads?
The Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is a landmark collection that helped launch the Romantic movement by using everyday language and ordinary subjects.
Citations & Sources
People Like William
John Keats
79John Keats was an English Romantic poet who, despite dying at just 25, produced some of the most beautiful and enduring poetry in the language, including a series of great odes that secured his place among the immortals of English verse.
Why A younger Romantic poet influenced by Wordsworth's example.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
79Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet, among the greatest lyric poets in the language, whose visionary and politically radical verse — including Ozymandias and Prometheus Unbound — influenced generations of poets and reformers.
Why A second-generation Romantic poet who both admired and reacted against Wordsworth.
Lord Byron
80Lord Byron was an English Romantic poet, one of the most famous and scandalous figures of his age, whose works such as Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage created the brooding "Byronic hero" and made him a celebrity across Europe.
Why A fellow leading figure of the English Romantic movement.
Rabindranath Tagore
81Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, composer and polymath who reshaped Indian literature and music and, in 1913, became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Why Also a poet & writer · Active in the same era
Rudyard Kipling
79Rudyard Kipling was a British writer and poet, author of The Jungle Book and the poem "If—", who became the first English-language winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, though his association with British imperialism has made his legacy contested.
Why Also a writer & poet · Active in the same era
Lewis Carroll
80Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, an English writer and mathematician whose Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass revolutionized children's literature with their playful logic, nonsense and imagination.
Why Also a writer & poet · Active in the same era