Historical figure · Pearson Edexcel International GCSE revision on Incandio

William Wordsworth

Who Was Followed Home By A Mountain · Poet · 1770–1850

The Lake District poet who, with Coleridge, launched English Romanticism in Lyrical Ballads, and spent fifty years writing the autobiographical poem we call The Prelude — including the night a stolen boat and a mountain taught a boy fear.

Defend these ideas against Wordsworth

Incandio is a free revision platform for the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE, and on it a topic counts as mastered only once you have learned it, proved it in questions, taught it back and defended it against the person with the strongest claim on it. William Wordsworth is that person for 2 topics on the course:

• Extract from The Prelude in Extract from The Prelude — English Literature
• Lines Written in Early Spring in Lines Written in Early Spring — English Literature

Who was Wordsworth?

Born in Cockermouth in 1770, Wordsworth lost his mother at seven and his father at thirteen and grew up at Hawkshead school roaming the fells. After Cambridge he lived in revolutionary France, where he fell in love with Annette Vallon; their daughter Caroline was born in December 1792 after he had returned to England, and war kept them apart. Disillusioned by the Terror, he settled with his sister Dorothy in the West Country, befriended Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and in 1798 published Lyrical Ballads with him. In Germany in 1798–99 he began a long poem about his own childhood, addressed to Coleridge; a thirteen-book version was complete by 1805, but he kept revising it and never published it. He lived at Dove Cottage in Grasmere and later Rydal Mount, married Mary Hutchinson in 1802, and grew politically conservative. He became Poet Laureate in 1843 and died on 23 April 1850; his widow published the long poem that July as The Prelude.

Major achievements

• Co-wrote Lyrical Ballads (1798) with Coleridge, a founding book of English Romanticism
• Argued in the Preface of 1800 for poetry in the real language of ordinary people
• Wrote The Prelude, the first great English autobiographical poem
• Wrote Tintern Abbey, the Immortality Ode and many of the best-known sonnets in English
• Poet Laureate from 1843 to 1850

Life in brief

• 1770 — Born in Cockermouth: Second son of John Wordsworth, a lawyer's agent.
• 1791 — France: Lives in Orléans and Blois; meets Annette Vallon.
• 1792 — Caroline born: His daughter is born in December after his return to England.
• 1798 — Lyrical Ballads: Published anonymously with Coleridge.
• 1799 — Dove Cottage: Settles in Grasmere with Dorothy; the first two-part version of the long poem is complete.
• 1805 — The long poem complete: Thirteen books, addressed to Coleridge; his brother John drowns.
• 1843 — Poet Laureate: Succeeds Southey.
• 1850 — Dies at Rydal Mount: 23 April; The Prelude is published in July.

Explore the life of Wordsworth — five chapters

1. Beauty and Fear — An orphan loose on the fells
2. France and Annette — A revolution, a love affair and a daughter he could not reach
3. Lyrical Ballads — A sister, a friend and the real language of men
4. The Stolen Boat — A long poem to Coleridge and a mountain that would not stop
5. The Lost Leader — Marriage, grief, a stamp office and the Laureateship

Read the five-chapter life of William Wordsworth →

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