1. Wordsworth:
Pioneer
of
Romantic Era
Name: Baraiya Saryu D.
Subject: Literary Theory and Criticism(Paper-III)
Roll no: 30
Study: MA
Year: Semester – I
Submitted To: Department of English
University: MKBU

2. William Wordsworth
1770-1850

3. Life:
o A British poet
o Born: 1770, in Cockermouth
o Continued his study at Cambridge
o Made his debut as writer in 1786
o At very first he published his sonnet in The European Magazine
o Completed his BA from Cambridge in 1791
o His life‟s fist turning point: Met with Coleridge in 1795
o He started writing large and philosophical autobiographical poem in
1798
o He was appointed as official distributor of stamps for Westmoreland.
o Died: 1885

4. Wordsworth‟s Legacy:
o The start of the Romantic movement.
o Rural life is considered to be a haven
o Celebrated the immediate, the emotional and the
personal
o A valuing of personal experience and reaction
o His contemporaries: Coleridge
Byron
Keats
and Shelley

5. Wordsworth‟s Style of Poetry:
o Focus = the simple miracle of perception and
experience.
o“thought long and deeply.”
o Vivid, direct images and descriptions.
o Lyrical blank verse
o Inspiration should come from the direct experience of the
senses.
o Wordsworth exploited especially the sensibility of the eye
and ear by his poetry.

6. Wordsworth‟s Views About Poetry:
o Poetry, he wrote in the Preface, originates from,
“the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings‟ which is
filtered through „emotion recollected in tranquillity”
oMemory plays a fundamental role in the creative process of
poetry.
oPoetry results from the active relationship of present to past
experience.
oThrough the re-creative power of memory, the emotion is
reproduced and purified in poetic form so that a second
emotion, „kindred‟ to the first one, is generated.

7. Society and Influences:

A reaction to the world

The Industrial Revolution
and Nature

Lyrical Ballads, with
Coleridge, in 1798.

A break with the
Renaissance

Pioneer of Romantic Era
with Lyrical Ballads

8. His Other Major Works:
An Evening Walk (1793)
 Descriptive Sketches (1793)
 Lyrical Ballads (1798)
 Poems in Two Volumes (1807)
 The Excursion (1814)
 The Prelude (1850)


9. Thank you…