William Wordsworth's life, poetry, and literary legacy

William Wordsworth: A Wordsmith for All Time

Harold Bloom in his book Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds says "Wordsworth remains, in the twenty-first century, what he has been these last two hundred years: the inventor of a poetry that has been called, at intervals, Romantic, post Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern, yet essentially is one phenomenon: the replacement of subject matter by the poet's subjectivity" (377). It is for this reason that Wordsworth was chosen as the subject of this paper.

This paper will focus on some of the important events in Wordsworth's life as well as analyze two of his works, The World is Too Much with Us (1807) and It is a beauteous evening, calm and free (1807). Furthermore, the paper will examine Woodworth's reputation over time.

Biography

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 in Cumberland, a place in the Lake District of England. He was the second of the five children of his father John Wordsworth, a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, and his mother Ann Cookson. Throughout his life, William remained close to his sister Dorothy, who was one-year-older and shared the same passion for nature and poetry. His other siblings were Richard, a lawyer, John, a poet, and Christopher a researcher. Wordsworth lost his mother in 1778 at the age of eight and five years later in 1783, he lost his father (Burra). After his mother died, Wordsworth was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School for his primary education though he had attended a few local schools where the educational emphasis was on the Bible. While at Hawkshead he met Mary Hutchinson who would later become his wife. Wordsworth published his first sonnet in 1787 and in that same year, enrolled in St. John's College in Cambridge. He was awarded a B.A. degree in 1791, and subsequently returned to Hawkshead (Gill).

In 1791, Wordsworth visited France, which was engaged in war with Britain at that time. During his stay there, he fell in love with a French woman Annette Vallon and in 1792 their daughter Caroline was born. Because of the ongoing war between the two countries Wordsworth returned alone to England and the two could not see each other for the next ten years. There are indications that Wordsworth was depressed over the separation and in 1802 he and his sister Dorothy traveled to France to see them. Wordsworth continued to support both child and mother in the best possibly way for the remainder of his life.

In 1793, Wordsworth's first poetry collection was published. Though his poetry was well received his financial condition remained suspect. In 1795, he received a legacy from Raisley Calvert which lessened his hard pressed financial situation. That same year he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another poet, and the two developed a life-long association. Together they published Lyrical Ballads, a collection of romantic poems, in 1798. The collection met with a remarkable success however, Coleridge, who intimately doubted not his poetic genius but whether he could sustain it, invariably hailed Wordsworth as his master. Wordsworth, who required the admiration, agreed. So much so that when they collaborated in Lyrical Ballads, he insisted on appearing as the sole name on the title page and retained sole copyright, even though five poems, including "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," were Coleridge's.

In his later life, Wordsworth began working on his philosophical poems, which he intended to publish in three parts. Meanwhile, he had started working on his autobiographical poem which was known as poem to Coleridge, though it was published posthumously as The Prelude. In 1807, his Poems in Two Volumes was published which gave him further recognition. In 1813, Wordsworth was appointed as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland making him financially secure. That same year he moved with his family to Royal Mount in Ambleside where he spent the rest of his life (Gill).

In 1838, Wordsworth was awarded an honorary Doctor of Civil Law Degree from Durham University. He received the same honor from Oxford University in 1839. In 1842, he was awarded a civil list pension from the government which ensured an annual income. In 1843 he was made Poet Laureate of England. Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850 and was buried at St. Oswald's church in Grasmere. His Poem to Coleridge was published posthumously as The Prelude ("William Wordsworth").

Two Poems

Poem One: The World is Too Much With Us

The World is Too Much With Us (Wordsworth 206) was published 1807 is thought to have been composed around 1802. This sonnet is one of a number written in the early 1800s that are critical of what Wordsworth saw as the material cynicism. This sonnet is an angry account of the poet's theme of communion with nature, and demonstrates how far the early nineteenth century was from living out his ideal. The sonnet is important for its rhetorical force. It shows Wordsworth's increasing confidence with language as an implement of dramatic power and is representative of other poems of Wordsworth's.

This was a time when the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take hold throughout Europe. It was a time of new machines and factories as well as new technologies and new ways of thinking. In the poem Wordsworth asserts these new things are working to make people forget about their spirituality. He believed that people could find this spirituality in nature (Cummings).

The poem is written in first-person in the first eight lines and part of the ninth, using we, ours, and us. At the end of the ninth line first person singular is used. Wordsworth uses this technique cleverly to allow him to make his point without seeming either preachy or sanctimonious as he includes himself in the reprimand. The message endures after two hundred years: when the world becomes too hectic one must stop and smell the flowers. The modern world with its literalism and consumerism holds no charm for this latter-day pagan who watches the roiling waves and remembers a young earth long before the coming of factories, steam engines, big cities, and mammon (Thompson 180).

The poem refers to many examples in nature; the sea, a meadow, the moon, and flowers. Wordsworth intent is to infer that we have lost touch with nature, "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature is ours; / We have given our hearts away…" (Lines 2-4). He is alluding to the fact people are too involved with buying things and have become greedy and wanting. This quest for material gain and preoccupation with worldly affairs has usurped our ability to perceive what is truly important. Lines ten to twelve, "A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; / So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, / Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn…" suggest Wordsworth feels he would be happier as a pagan than in the modern world.

Discussion

While both of these poems are similarly constructed each evokes quite different feelings in the reader. The World is Too Much With Us has an angry tone as it indicts the modern age, alleging it has lost its connection to nature and everything that has meaning and seems wistful for another, simpler time. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free is thought provoking and operates on many levels if the reader is willing to look a little deeper. The poem demonstrates that Wordsworth is more than just a poet of nature.

Literary Legacy

"William Wordsworth was among the most revolutionary figures in the history of English Poetry. Pope and the other major writers of the age of reason had built a citadel of literacy taste based on what we would now call sophistication: their poems were typically formal, emotionally cool, and skeptical about human nature" (Hunt). The poets that proceeded were distinctly the products of the city and the university. Wordsworth, on the other hand, introduced, or reintroduced England to poetry that rejected sophistication, looked to nature for inspiration, and attempted a more direct expression of basic human emotions. The impetus for this Romantic revolution was political and psychological as well as artistic.

In 1798 William Wordsworth, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads launching the Romantic Movement in English literature. Romanticism emerged in the late eighteenth century as a response to the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Wordsworth and other romantics emphasized the vitality of everyday life, the importance of human emotions, and the illuminating power of nature. In later years, Wordsworth attained preeminence among poets of the Romantic Movement and served as poet laureate of England from 1843 until his death in 1850. Wordsworth, more than any English writer, influenced the Victorian poets of the subsequent half of the nineteenth century (Side).

Some modern critics recognize a decline in his works beginning around the mid-1810s. Harold Bloom asserts that "everything that matters by Wordsworth was written in one decade, 1797 -1807. The last forty-three years of his poetry were lamentable" (378). However others attribute this to more of a change in his lifestyle and beliefs, since most of the issues that characterize his early poetry, loss, death, endurance, separation, and abandonment were resolved in his writings. Nonetheless, by 1820 he enjoyed the success accompanying a reversal in the contemporary critical opinion of his earlier works.

John Mahoney in his book Wordsworth and the Critics: The development of a Critical Reputation notes that the Victorian view of Wordsworth continued well into the twentieth century. In the 1930s and 1940s brought on the period of the "New Criticism" which emphasized close reading, analysis, concrete language and vivid imagery. Wordsworth's reputation did not hold up as well with these critics because his language was too symbolic and suggestive.

By the early 1950s the "New Criticism had given way to the "History of Ideas" movement. It was during this period critics moved away from the close scrutiny of text and sought to focus more on the ideas Wordsworth presented. He was well received in this time by those who viewed him as a poet-philosopher (Mahoney).

Modern deconstructionist critics denigrate Wordsworth for writing about the beauty around him in the face of social problems like poverty and gender discrimination. However, Mahoney feels "Wordsworth's poetry still has the ability to engage, provoke, even entertain and therefore continues to have a place in the literary canon."

Wordsworth's love and respect for nature would resonate among later generations of environmentalists, who enacted laws protecting the environment and began a worldwide movement to establish national parks. The Romantic affirmation of subjective feeling and experience would also be renewed in modernist literature, which would advance a more radical skepticism of established religious and social institutions and explore experience through subjective, often existential perception.

Although Wordsworth was revered in the nineteenth century, his reputation declined in the twentieth century. His poetry was criticized as sentimental and self-indulgent. In recent years, however, Wordsworth's reputation has again risen and he is widely recognized as a great English poet and original thinker whose stylistic and thematic innovations have had lasting influence on later literature.

Conclusion

The Romantics, and preeminently William Wordsworth, expressed a devout love of nature and reverence for the human imagination, which could discern beauty and truth in nature. This Romantic sensibility coincided with the Industrial Revolution in England, which effectively diminished nature and often crushed human creativity in the machinery of progress. A profoundly introspective thinker, Wordsworth expressed an enduring regard for the natural environment and influenced later Victorian poets and novelists with his deep sympathy for common people and identification with universal human experiences and emotions.

I found Wordsworth's poetry to be more complex and more relevant than I originally believed it to be. His style and use of language and imagery produced a better understanding of the man and his concerns. Some of the social issues that were of importance to him have once again become prevalent as evidenced by Enron, Bernie Madoff, and the recent down turn in the economy brought on by the home mortgage industry; the new materialism.