William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth 7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850 was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads 1798.

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, the semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, previously which it was generally call as "the poem to Coleridge".

Wordsworth was Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850.

Laureateship and other honours

Wordsworth remained a formidable presence in his later years. In 1837, the Scottish poet and playwright Joanna Baillie reflected on her long acquaintance with Wordsworth. "He looks like a man that one must not speak to unless one has some sensible thing to say. However he does occasionally converse cheerfully & well; and when one knows how benevolent & fine he is, it disposes one to be very much pleased with him."

In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham and the following year he was awarded the same honorary measure by the University of Oxford, when John Keble praised him as the "poet of humanity", praise greatly appreciated by Wordsworth. It has been argued that Wordsworth was a great influence on Keble's immensely popular book of devotional poetry, The Christian Year 1827. In 1842, the government awarded him a Civil List pension of £300 a year.

Following the death of Robert Southey in 1843 Wordsworth became Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honour, saying that he was too old, but accepted when the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, assured him that "you shall draw nothing so-called of you". Wordsworth thus became the only poet laureate to write no official verses. The sudden death of his daughter Dora in 1847 at age 42 was difficult for the aging poet to earn and in his depression, he totally made up writing new material.