William Wordsworth
(1770–1850)

Biographical Note...

English Romantic poet, considered one of the four or five greatest poets to have ever written in the English language. After leaving Cambridge he went on a walking tour in Europe and was sympathetic with the ideals of the French Revolution. In 1795 Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together they produced "Lyrical Ballads" (1798).

Perhaps Wordsworth's greatest poems are "Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey..." (aka "Tintern Abbey") and "Ode: Intimations of Immortality..." (aka "Immortality Ode," "Intimations Ode"). The latter includes the famous "Splendour in the Grass" line, which became the title of a 1961 movie, starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty.

Wordsworth settled with his wife and his sister in the English Lake district, where he lived the rest of his life. Here he wrote "The Prelude" (a long, autobiographical epic), not published until after his death.

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