ENGLISH POETRY 1579-1830: SPENSER AND THE TRADITION

William Wordsworth

(1770-1850)

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The son of an attorney, William Wordsworth studied at Hawkshead Grammar School and St. John's College Cambridge (B.A. 1791) before traveling in France (1791-92). In 1794 he received a legacy of #900 which enabled him to live independently; about 1795 he met Coleridge, with whom he collaborated on Lyrical Ballads (1798) and traveled in Germany (1798-99). In 1799 Wordsworth retired to Grasmere where he spent the remainder of his life, supported in his later years by a place in the Stamp Office and a government pension. In 1843 succeeded Robert Southey as Poet Laureate.


TEXT RECORDS:

1794 ca.A Night on Salisbury Plain.
1798The Female Vagrant.
1799 ca.Adventures on Salisbury Plain.
1800The Oak and the Broom, a Pastoral.
1802Stanzas written in my Pocket-Copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
1805 ca.The Prelude.
1807I am not one, &c.
1807Miscellaneous Sonnets 18. ["The world is too much with us; late and soon."]
1807Ode to Duty.
1807Resolution and Independence.
1810Letter to Mathetes.
1815Essay Supplementary to the Preface.
1815Preface to Poems.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto II.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto III.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto IV.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto V.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto VI.
1815The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto VII.
1815White Doe of Rylstone: Dedication.
1816Letter to Robert Southey; on Spenser's Stanza.
1820Artegal and Elidure.
1822Desultory Stanzas upon receiving the preceding Sheets from the Press.
1822Ecclesiastical Sketches XXV. Missions and Travels.
1822Engelberg.
1822Processions. Suggested on a Sabbath Morning in the Vale of Chamouny.
1822[Effusion in presence of the Painted Tower of Tell, at Altdorf.]
1827["Scorn not the Sonnet."]
1829 ca.[To Catherine Grace Godwin; on the Spenserian Stanza.]

PUBLICATIONS:

An evening walk: an epistle in verse. 1793.
Descriptive sketches in verse. 1793.
Lyrical ballads. 1798, 1800.
Poems in two volumes. 1807.
The excursion, being a portion of the Recluse: a poem. 1814.
Poems. 2 vols, 1815.
The white doe of Rylstone. 1815.
Peter Bell: a tale in verse. 1819.
The waggoner: a poem, to which are added sonnets. 1819.
The miscellaneous poems. 4 vols, 1820.
The river Duddon: a series of sonnets; Vaudracour and Julia, and other poems, to which is annexed A topographical description of the country of the lakes. 1820.
A description of the scenery of the lakes in the north of England. 1822.
Ecclesiastical sketches. 1822.
Memorials of a tour on the Continent, 1820. 1822.
Poetical works. 5 vols, 1827.
Poetical works. 4 vols, 1832.
Yarrow revisited, and other poems. 1835.
Poetical works. 6 vols, 1836.
The sonnets. 1838.
England in 1840! 1840?
Poems, chiefly of early and late years, including the Borderers. 1842.
Poems. 1845.
Poetical works. 7 vols, 1846.
The prelude, or growth of a poet's mind; an autobiographical poem. 1850.
The recluse. 1888.
Letters of the Wordsworth family, ed. W. Knight. 3 vols, 1907.
The letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, ed. Ernest de Selincourt. 5 vols, 1935-39; revised by Chester L. Shaver, 4 vols, 1967-78.
Poetical works, ed. Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire. 5 vols, 1940-49.
Prose works, ed. W. J. B. Owen. 3 vols, 1974.
The Cornell Wordsworth, ed. Stephen Parrish. 1975- .
Complete poems, ed. John O. Hayden. 2 vols, 1976.