BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM

WORDSWORTH
BY: Leon K. 8-2

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth, England.

Through connections of his father, the family lived in a mansion, and had many
resources. Williams father encouraged him in his reading, and set him to
memorize variety of poems including Shakespeare and Spenser. Having access to
his fathers library, William was often reading. First attending a local low quality
school, he was transferred to a better, upper class school, but in 1778, at the age of
7, on behalf of his mothers death, his father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar
School, and soon at the age of 13 leaving him an orphan. Despite his tough
childhood, he managed to do well in school where he wrote his first poetry. Soon
he went to Cambridge, where he did not do exceptional well, but graduated in
1791.
In 1790 Wordsworth took a trip to France during the French Revolution. There he
had taken side of the republicans ideals. Returning to France the very next year, he
fell in love with Annette Vallon. As he found out that she was pregnant, war
between England and France broke out, and it separated the two in different
countries. Back in England Wordsworth became influenced by people like William
Godwin, who gave him a more radical perspective on politics at that moment.
In 1795 William met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which was the begging of his
poetic future. Becoming friends, the two began to write poetry, and soon wrote
Lyrical Ballads in 1798. This contained poems of the two including
Wordsworths Tintern Abbey. This writing added to the current romantismic
state of art and writing in England.
In 1802, Wordsworth managed to see his Vallon and his daughter Caroline back in
France, but returning back to England he focused more on his personal life and got
married to Mary Hutchinson, who soon gave birth to 5 of their children.
Nevertheless he continued writing poetry and started writing The Prelude: an
epic autobiography, which he added too thought his life. In 1807 he published
another collection including poems like I wandered lonely as a Cloud and Ode:
Intimations of Immortality
Growing older, he finally started to reject his previous radically based point of
view, and became a supporter of the conservatives. Around 1808 he got a solid
reputation on which he managed to base the rest of his poetic career.

In 1843, he managed to become Englands poet laureate, which he held till his
death, at the age of 80. He passed away on April 23, 1850 in his home in Rydal
Mount, Westmorland England.

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