18 pages • 36 minutes read
William WordsworthA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
William Wordsworth is counted among the greatest poets of the English Romantic movement. Some scholars even mark the beginning of the Romantic movement with the publication of Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth, Coleridge (1772-1834), and William Blake (1757-1827) are referred to as the “first generation” of Romantics; their successors, Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), and John Keats (1795-1821) are the “second generation.” Felicia Hemans (1793-1834) was highly regarded among female Romantics, especially by Wordsworth, who mentioned her in a memorial verse published in 1835.
In Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth wrote in simple language about everyday people. He particularly emphasized the experience of the individual. This prioritization of emotion over reason as a means for discerning truth became a key element of Romanticism. John Keats, for example, would later declare his faith in “the holiness of the Heart’s affections” (Keats, John. “Letter to Benjamin Bailey.” November 24, 1817, Letters of John Keats, 1970, Oxford University Press, pp. 36-37). Because of their emphasis on subjectivity over objectivity, the Romantics favored lyric poetry (like “She Was a Phantom of Delight”) as a means to explore their personal thoughts and feelings.
By William Wordsworth
A Complaint
William Wordsworth
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
William Wordsworth
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
William Wordsworth
Daffodils
William Wordsworth
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey ...
William Wordsworth
London, 1802
William Wordsworth
Lyrical Ballads
William Wordsworth
My Heart Leaps Up
William Wordsworth
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
William Wordsworth
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
William Wordsworth
She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways
William Wordsworth
The Prelude
William Wordsworth
The Solitary Reaper
William Wordsworth
The World Is Too Much with Us
William Wordsworth
To the Skylark
William Wordsworth
We Are Seven
William Wordsworth