William Wordsworth
/ˌwɪljəm ˈwɜːdzwəθ/, /ˌwɪljəm ˈwɜːdzwɜːθ/
/ˌwɪljəm ˈwɜːrdzwərθ/
- (1770-1850) one of the most popular of all English poets who, together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, started the Romantic Movement in English poetry. His poems are mainly about the beauty of nature and its relationship with all human beings. Many of them describe the countryside of the Lake District in north-west England, where he was born and spent most of his life. His best-known works include Lyrical Ballads (1798), a collection of poems by himself and Coleridge, Poems (1807), which includes the poems Daffodils and Intimations of Mortality, and The Prelude, a long poem about his early life and his intense experiences of nature then, which was published in 1850 after his death. For much of his life he lived in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy (1771-1855), who had a great influence on him and kept a journal (= written record) about their life together. He wrote many of his best-known poems while they were living in Dove Cottage in Grasmere. The house is now a museum and a popular tourist attraction.“Earth has not anything to show more fair;Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty.This city now doth like a garment wearThe beauty of the morning: silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lieOpen unto the fields, and to the sky.All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.”