If you’ve been interested in William Wordsworth and his works, you may want to learn more about him. He’s an English poet and a member of the Romantic movement. His work includes the Lyrical Ballads, which he co-wrote with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In addition, several interesting facts about Wordsworth include his anarchist political background and his conflicts with the English aristocracy.
English poet
William Wordsworth is a well-known poet whose most well-known poem is “The Daffodils.” He was a significant figure in the English Romantic movement and one of the most popular English poets. His Lyrical Ballads (1798) are widely regarded as the launching pad for the English Romantic movement. The Lyrical Ballads aimed to unite nature’s calmness with men’s inner emotional life. Wordsworth felt that the world was advancing too quickly and wanted to create poetry that would reunite readers with genuine emotions.
“The Prelude” is a poem by William Wordsworth that explores the changing stages of a man’s life. This poem is divided into fourteen sections and reflects his personal and spiritual development over time. Wordsworth’s poem was a huge hit when it was first published and had a lasting legacy in British literature.
Political anarchist
Political anarchism is a movement for social change and equality. Historically, political anarchism has been regarded as a radical ideology by several writers and thinkers. It is rooted in the idea that power corrupts and property is incompatible with freedom. In other words, political anarchism would be a society where everyone shares the same amount of work.
In the 1790s, Godwin became a celebrity and influenced other writers such as Robert Owen and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Godwin, an anarchist, published his most famous work, Political Justice (1793). In it, Godwin presented the classic anarchist argument against authority and argued that social evils are caused by the fact that men are not free to act on their principles. Godwin also sketched out the concept of a decentralized society made up of autonomous communities.
Idle
William Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy, dedicated her life to the poet. Another important figure in the poet’s life was Raisley Calvert, the son of the duke of Norfolk and steward of the Duchy of Norfolk’s legacy. Wordsworth was the beneficiary of this legacy, which Calvert left to the poet when he died early in 1795. Sadly, when he died, Calvert had just been concluding his engagement as a journalist in London.
Idle, the poet’s last undergraduate summer, inspired Wordsworth to take his first trip to the Alps with his college friend Robert Jones. Both poets had been influenced by William Coxe’s Sketches of the Natural, Civil, and Political State of Swisserland (1779). The two departed Dover on July 13, 1790, and traveled to the Alps together.
Conflicts with aristocracy
William Wordsworth’s conflicts with aristocracy are evident in his biography. Wordsworth had radical ideas when he was a young man. Wordsworth’s father sent him to a grammar school in Lancashire after his mother died in 1778. His mother lived in Yorkshire, and Wordsworth had never met her for nine years.
Wordsworth was jealous of radical John Thelwall and his retreat to mid-Wales. Although he did not pursue a radical lifestyle, he continued to produce poetry and farm. He eventually became a cultural guru and an ‘environmental’ icon, living on a legacy from his family and aristocratic patronage. His conflicted views were exposed in Anecdote for Fathers, published in 1798.
Wordsworth was also conscious of the social transformations in England at the time. He witnessed displacement and homelessness. But he suppressed these signs of social discord. As a result, many of his poems evoke the pre-Industrial lifestyle. In particular, “The Solitary Reaper” contributes to this sentiment, showing an old-fashioned reaper working in a landscape without railways or factories.
Relationship with Sir William Lowther
William Wordsworth and Sir William Lowther had a close economic relationship. Lowther’s heirs financed Wordsworth’s marriage to Dorothy. The close relationship impacted Wordsworth’s political philosophy. Wordsworth’s poems often dealt with death, separation, and grief.
Wordsworth had been in the Lonsdale family’s pay since 1813. In the 1830s, Lowther’s interests in the northwest of England were growing. Wordsworth also maintained a relationship with Annette Vallon, who was pregnant with his first child. However, the riots of 1813 forced the poet to postpone his plans to marry Annette.
Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth. His father was a landowner and an attorney for the Lowther family. The family home served as a campaign center. His childhood was very uncertain. His mother died when he was eight years old, and his father died five years later. This further exacerbated his sense of dislocation.
