William Wordsworth was born April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, to John and Anne (Cookson) Wordsworth, the second of their five children. His father was law agent.After his mother's death in 1778 he was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School.1787 he went up to St. John's College, Cambridge.Two years later went on a walking tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany; and in 1791, after graduation, trekked through Wales.His enthusiasm for the French Revolution took him to France again in 1791, where he had an affair with Annette Vallon, who bore him an illegitimate daughter, Caroline, in 1792.In 1794 he was reunited with his sister Dorothy, who became his companion, close friend, moral support, and housekeeper until her physical and mental decline in the 1830s.The next year he met Coleridge, and the three of them grew very close, the two men meeting daily in 1797-98 to talk about poetry and to plan Lyrical Ballads, which came out in 1798.The Peace of Amiens in 1802 allowed Wordsworth and his sister to visit France again to see Annette and Caroline.They arrived at a mutually agreeable settlement, and a few months later, after receiving an inheritance owed by Lord Lonsdale since John Wordsworth's death in 1783, William married Mary Hutchinson.By 1810 they had five children, but their happiness was tempered by the loss at sea of William's brother John (1805), the alienation from Coleridge in 1810, and the death of two children in 1812.In 1813 Wordsworth received an appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and the £400 per year which went with this post made him financially secure. The whole family, which included Dorothy, moved to Rydal Mount, between Grasmere and Rydal Water).Wordsworth's literary career began with Descriptive Sketches (1793) and reached an early climax before the turn of the century, with Lyrical Ballads.His powers peaked with Poems in Two Volumes (1807).His success with shorter forms made him the more eager to succeed with longer, specifically with a long, three-part "philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society. The 17,000 lines which were eventually published made up only a part of this mammoth project. The second section, The Excursion, was completed (pub. 1814), as was the first book of the first part, The Recluse. During his lifetime he refused to print The Prelude, which he had completed by 1805, because he thought it was unprecedented for a poet to talk as much about himself — unless he could put it in its proper setting, which was as an introduction to the complete three-part Recluse.
SOME POEMS WROTTEN BY “WILLIAM WORDSWORTH”:-
The second photo is Tennyson
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