Why did I love this book?
I love Wordsworthâs poetry (and his comments on the creative process) for its beauty and its importance to the history of the art form. His best poemsâespecially Tintern Abbey and his Intimations or Immortality Odeâtell psychological and spiritual tales about the gains and losses of growing up, and the role that nature can play in a personâs maturation.
His Preface to Lyrical Ballads lays out a Romantic program for poetry that has been hugely influential for two centuries. Wordsworthâs idea that poetry comes from âemotion recollected in tranquilityâ and captures the âspontaneous overflow of powerful feelingsâ encapsulates how, for me and countless other writers, reflecting on personal memories provides a storehouse of poetic material.
1 author picked The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
With an Introduction by Antonia Till.
William Wordsworth (1771-1850) is the foremost of the English Romantic poets. He was much influenced by the events of the French Revolution in his youth, and he deliberately broke away from the artificial diction of the Augustan and neo-classical tradition of the eighteenth century. He sought to write in the language of ordinary men and women, of ordinary thoughts, sights and sounds, and his early poetry represents this fresh approach to his art.
Wordsworth spent most of his adult life in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy and his wife Mary, by whomâŚ