Poem hunter william wordsworth biography

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude , a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "The Poem to Coleridge".

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Wordsworth was Poet Laureate from until his death from pleurisy on 23 April He remains one of the most recognizable names in English poetry and was a key figure of the Romantic poets. The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April in what is now named Wordsworth House in Cockermouth , Cumberland now in Cumbria , [ 1 ] part of the scenic region in northwestern England known as the Lake District.

William's sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth , to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. They had three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John Wordsworth, born after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in when the ship of which he was captain, the Earl of Abergavenny , was wrecked off the south coast of England; and Christopher , the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Wordsworth's father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections, lived in a large mansion in the small town. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant until he died in William also spent time at his mother's parents' house in Penrith , Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors but did not get along with his grandparents or uncle, who also lived there.

His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide. Wordsworth was taught to read by his mother, and he first attended a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families. He was taught there by Ann Birkett, who instilled in her students traditions that included pursuing scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and Shrove Tuesday.

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Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator , but little else. At the school in Penrith, he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary Hutchinson, who later became his wife. After the death of Wordsworth's mother, in , his father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire now in Cumbria and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire.