Selected Poetry (World's Classics) - Softcover

Wordsworth, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192832808 ISBN 13: 9780192832801

Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is one of the most significant poets of English Romanticism. Wordsworth's declaration was a belief in the power of poetry to teach by appealing to the imagination and to the `grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which man knows, and feels, and lives, and moves'. His unique relationship with the poet and political activist, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, founded in the political and social ferment of 1795, produced a revolution in literature, and the annus mirabilis of 1797-8 was one of intense creativity resulting in the joint volume, Lyrical Ballads (1798-1805) - a landmark in the history of English Romanticism. Wordsworth's radical innovations in poetic diction embodied the convictions by which he was struggling to live, and his thought through lyrical utterance and dramatic narrative everywhere asserts the vital significance of feeling both as a bond between men and as a means of discovering the unity of the individual consciousness with the divine, in a coherent and unified vision. This selection, chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition, includes Wordsworth's finest verse, and a large sample of The Prelude and his autobiographical poem in blank verse. This collection is aimed at lovers of English poetry and literature, English A-level students and English literature undergraduates.

About this title

About the Author:

William Wordsworth was born in the Lake District in April 1770, and died there eighty years later on 23 April 1850. In his youth Wordsworth experienced the French Revolution first hand and spent his twenties wandering throughout Europe. In 1794 Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge with whom he wrote Lyrical Ballads in 1798 and to whom he addressed his epic work, The Prelude. Wordsworth gradually established himself as the great poet of the Romantic period and in 1843 he became Poet Laureate.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0192832808
• ISBN 13: 9780192832801
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270