Lake School of Poets

the group of English romantic poets of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who lived in northern England, in the Lake District (Westmorland and Cumberland counties).

The Lake Poets, W. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, and R. Southey, in opposing the classicist and Enlightenment traditions of the 18th century, began the romantic movement in English poetry. They warmly welcomed the French Revolution but later renounced it, rejecting the Jacobin terror. With time, the political views of the Lake Poets became increasingly reactionary; having rejected the rationalist ideals of the Enlightenment, they espoused belief in the irrational, in traditional Christian values, and in an idealized medieval past. The quality of their poetry also declined. However, their early, and best, works are to this day the pride of English poetry.

The Lake School greatly influenced the younger generation of English romantic poets, including Byron, Shelley, and Keats, who were, nevertheless, resolute critics of the political views of the Lake Poets. The Lake Poets influenced the development of all English poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries.