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The purpose of this report is to examine the life of the author, the sources and analogues

of his poems, the circumstances and progress of their composition, and the biographical facts as

they unfold in a meaningful pattern to show Wordsworth’s development and achievement as a

poet. William Wordsworth was the most truly original genius of his age and exerted a power over

the poetic destinies of his century unequaled by any of his contemporaries. Wordsworth’s love of

Nature was reflected in his poems and he professed that happiness comes from noticing and

enjoying the little things in life.

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland on April 7th, 1770, the

second son of John Wordsworth, attorney at law and agent to Sir James Lowther, afterwards the

Earl of Lonsdale, and of Anne, the daughter of William Cookson of Penrith. In 1776 the

Declaration of Independence by the United States came about. His mother died when he was only

eight years old, and he was then sent with his brothers to Hawkshead, a little town on Esthwaite

Water, where was the best school of that district.

The conditions of Wordsworth’s school-life were very different from those which prevail

at the present time. The boys did not board at the school, but lodged in the cottages of village

dames, who looked after their physical requirements. There was very little supervision, and they

were free to roam about the hills. In spite of these adventures, a good deal of work was done.

The boy became a good Latin scholar, and, when he went to Cambridge, was so well advanced in

mathematics that he was able to dispense with some of the instruction given there. He didn’t just

read books confined to what he learned at school;...