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William Wordsworth and the book of poetry that changed everything
April 7, 2020, marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the great English poet William Wordsworth, and April 23, the 170th anniversary of his death. He and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge were instrumental in launching the Romantic period of English literature
In 1797, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxden House in the Quantock Hills of north-west Somerset so as to be near the home of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was living just a few miles away in the village of Nether Stowey.
Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge, then 28 and 26 years old respectively (with, it must be said, insights from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads with a few other poems, to give the full 1798 title, the key work which gave birth to the English Romantic movement and was to change everything, in literature, art and politics — which is why it’s the main Wordsworthian subject in this essay.
The book was published anonymously which, although not unusual for such works at the time, was at the insistence of Wordsworth who appeared to be in two minds about publication. Anonymity would give the impression of a single author…
