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Definition: Wordsworth from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary

William Wordsworth 1770–1850 Eng. poet; poet laureate (1843–50)

Words•worth•ian \॑wərdz-॑wər-thē-ən, -thē-

\ adj

Wordsworth, William

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
English poet. A leader of Romanticism , Wordsworth is best known as the poet who reawakened his readers to the beauty of nature, describing the emotions and perceptive insights which natural beauty arouses in the sensitive observer. He advocated a poetry of simple feeling and the use of the language of ordinary speech, demonstrated in the unadorned simplicity of lyrics such as ‘To the cuckoo’ and ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’. He collaborated with English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads (1798) (which included ‘Tintern Abbey’, a meditation on his response to nature). His most notable individual poems were published in Poems (1807) (including ‘Intimations of Immortality’). At intervals between then and 1839 he revised The Prelude (posthumously published in 1850), the first part of his uncompleted philosophical, creative, and spiritual autobiography in verse. He was appointed poet laureate in 1843. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland. Orphaned at age 13, he was…
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Full text Article Wordsworth, William

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
William has always been regarded as the keystone in the arch of English Romantic poetry. His influence has been extensive and was powerful on his contemporaries, including Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE , Lord BYRON , Percy Bysshe SHELLEY , and John KEATS . He eventually became poet laureate, a figure of…
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Full text Article Wordsworth, William

From Philip's Encyclopedia
English poet, a leading figure of Romanticism . He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads (1798). The collection concluded with Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'. His preface to the second edition (1800) outlined the aims of English Romanticism, which through the use of everyday…
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Full text Article WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM 1770-1850

From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
William Wordsworth is so synonymous with “Romanticism” that literary histories and anthologies used to designate the era “The Age of Wordsworth.” Wordsworth's eighty-year span of life supports the designation: he concludes with the generations “Romantic” as no other next does, born in the year of…
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English poet. At first given to agnosticism and a revolutionary passion for social justice, he then turned to exploring the lives of humble people living in contact with nature. He succeeded Robert Southey as Poet Laureate in 1843. Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt, and…
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Full text Article Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

From Environmental History and Global Change: A Dictionary of Environmental History
Romantic poet, born in Cockermouth on edge of Lake District , he moved to Dove Cottage in Grasmere with sister Dorothy in 1799 and continued to live at various locations in the area for the rest of his life. One of the foremost, most influential protagonists of the Romantic movement in which nature…
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Full text Article Wordsworth, William (1770–1850).

From The Oxford Companion to British History
Greatest of the Romantic poets for ‘the union of deep feeling with profound thought’ his friend *Coleridge admired in his work. From Cambridge a visit to France on the first anniversary of the Revolution fired his enthusiasm for the people's cause: ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be…
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Full text Article William Wordsworth 1770–1850

From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
English poet; brother of Dorothy wordsworth . On Wordsworth: see arnold , arnold , bagehot , browning , bulwer-lytton , byron , …
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Full text Article William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
And much it grieved my heart to think / What man has made of man. ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’ Behold her, single in the field, / Yon solitary Highland lass! Memorials of a Tour in Scotland , ix ‘The Solitary Reaper’ Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven! The…
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Full text Article DAFFODIL

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English poet When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs And the shining daffodil dies … The Complete Poetical Works of Tennyson Maud Part III, Stanza 1 Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston Massachusetts USA . 1898. English poet I wandered lone... …
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Full text Article PRIMROSE

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English prime minister, founder of Conservative Party, and novelist “I could have brought you some primroses, but I do not like to mix violets with anything.” “They say primroses make a capital salad,” said Lord St. Jerome. Lothair Chapter XIII (p. 57 ) Longmans, Green & Company. London England…
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