The Lake Poets And The Romantic Era

By | September 28, 2019

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House of the English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Cockermouth, Lake District, England, United Kingdom. Source: (gettyimages.com)

Three poets had something in common who met and joined up together. Because of their comradery and combined works, they were called the Lake Poets.

William Wordsworth

Born in 1770, William Wordsworth was an English poet, born in Great Britain, and was best known for his romantic poems during the Romantic Era.

His father, John Wordsworth was a great influence on him by encouraging him in the area of poetry. He developed a passion for the beauty of nature which he was surrounded by in the area where he lived as a child. Wordsworth had three brothers and one sister. His sister, Dorothy was born on Christmas Day in 1771. They were very close and remained friends until death. Their mother passed away in 1778 when he was only eight years old and their father passed away in 1783 when he was 13 years old. After their deaths, the children were separated with his sister being placed with relatives and him being sent to a school in Hawkshead, which is a village in the Lake District of England. The two of them were separated for nine years.

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William Wordsworth. Source: (www.thefamouspeople.com)

Wordsworth attended St. John’s College in Cambridge in 1787, where he wrote his first sonnet in The European Magazine. Just before he finished his education there, he decided to go on a walking tour of Europe which provided fresh material to his poetry writing. He also had been influenced by the French Revolution while on this tour.

While living in France, he met and fell in love with Annette Vallon. They had a daughter together named Caroline but they never married. Even though he did not see her, he still supported her. Later, he married Mary Hutchinson, a friend of his during his childhood. Together they had five children although three of them died prematurely.

Some of his literary works include: Lyrical Ballads (1798) with Samuel Taylor Coleridge; An Evening Walk And Descriptive Sketches poetry collections; Excursion; The Borderers which was a play; and The Prelude which he had not given a title to before his death but afterward his wife added a title and had it published. The Recluse was a work he had started but never finished. He died in 1850 of pleurisy.