Critical Appreciation Of William Wordsworth

Instrumental Romantic

William Wordsworth was one of the most influential of all the Romantic poets. To most people Wordsworth did not look like a poet. He had nothing of a delicate feature. He almost had a rugged look. His facial expression still could be romanticized. There was something powerful about his facial expression, the wide slash of mouth, the commanding nose, and the fierce eyes, “half burning, and half smoldering, with a bitter fixture of regard.” Though capable of utmost delicacy in feeling and affection, his character was independent, craggy, intense, brooding, and inward. He was stubborn in effort, reflection, proud of his work, and immensely high-minded in aspiration. To William Wordsworth, the “getting and spending” in which we consume time and ourselves are the escape, the avoidance, the dream on which we float out of existence, having cheated ourselves of life. Poetry is a way of confronting ultimate questions, and hence of living with the depth and passion that come only in their presence (Perkins 169).

He was second child to John and Ann Wordsworth. Wordsworth’s father was an attorney to Sir James Lowther. He had a younger sister Dorothy, who did not marry because she preferred to become Wordsworth’s informal biographer and his lifelong companion. Dorothy

Buxani 2 was a very important person in his life. William manifested and showed interests that were to be considered advanced for a given age. He was self-willed and often displayed such a violent temper that his mother was more worried about his future than of the other children (Cliff Notes - The Perlude). His mother Ann Wordsworth died in 1778, when William was eight. His father John Wordsworth died five years later in 1783. This left him and his brothers and sister in much financial