Following the success of Lyrical Ballads and his subsequent poem The Prelude, a massive autobiography in verse form, Wordsworth moved to the stately house at Rydal Mount where he lived, with Dorothy, his wife Mary, and his children, until his death in 1850. Wordsworth became the dominant force in English poetry while still quite a young man, and he lived to be quite old; his later years were marked by an increasing aristocratic temperament and a general alienation from the younger Romantics whose work he had inspired. Byron--the only important poet more popular than Wordsworth during Wordsworth's lifetime--in particular saw him as a kind of sell-out, writing in his sardonic preface to Don Juan that the once-liberal Wordsworth had "turned out a Tory" at last. The last decades of Wordsworth's life, however, were spent as Poet Laureate of England, and until his death he was widely considered the most important author in England.
The writing style & Contributions of William Wordsworth/华兹华斯的写作风格和贡献 Writing style:
1) Influenced from the spirit of the French Revolution.
2) Theme: broke with tradition, seeking his subjects in the small happenings of country life and the talk of countrymen, children, and doings and feelings of humble people, and emotion from his inner heart.
3) Language: He stuck to emphasizing the purest by simplest words.
Contributions:
1) He is the representative poet of passive Romanticism.
2) He emphasized the liberating aesthetic.
Wordsworth is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry. To Wordsworth, nature acts as a substitute for imaginative and intellectual engagement with the development of embodied human beings in their diverse circumstances. It's nature that gives him strength and knowledge full of peace. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. He is a voice of searchingly comprehensive humanity and on that inspires his audience to see the world freshly, sympathetically and naturally. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry, the poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.
William Wordsworth and lake poets/威廉 华兹华斯和湖畔诗人的作品及风格
华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义
William Wordsworth
1 William Wordsworth, Samuel TAYLOR Coleridge and Robert Southey, the three man known as the “ Lake Poets”
2 Wordsworth is regarded as a “worshiper of nature”
3 Wordsworth thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest.
4 Wordsworth see the word freshly, sympathetically and naturally.
5 The most important contribution Wordsworth has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a reform to nature.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud《我好似一朵流云独自漫游》主题思想分析
《我好似一朵流云独自漫游》是华兹华斯抒情诗的代表作之一，写于1804年。据说此诗是根据诗人兄妹俩一起外出游玩时深深地被大自然的妩媚所吸引这一经历写成的，体现了诗人关于诗歌应描写“平静中回忆起来的情感”(emotion recollected in
tranquility)这一诗学主张。全诗可以分成两大部分：写景和抒情。诗的开篇以第一人称叙述，格调显得低沉忧郁。诗人一方面竭力捕捉回忆的渺茫信息，另一方面又觉得独自飘游，可以自由自在地欣赏大自然所赋予的美景。他把自己比作一朵流云，随意飘荡，富有想象的诗句暗示诗人有一种排遣孤独、向往自由的心情。在他的回忆中，水仙花缤纷茂密，如繁星点点在微风中轻盈飘舞。诗中的“舞”意象鲜明，几乎贯穿了整个诗篇：第一节出现了水仙花翩翩起舞的情景；第二节写出了水仙花的繁多；第三节中粼粼波光与水仙齐舞，交相辉映，共同绘制成一幅赏心悦目的情景。诗人力图在一种迷离、恍惚和模糊的瞬间感受中去领悟人生的真谛。记忆中那一望无际的、连绵不断的金黄色水仙花在湖边迎风舞蹈的姿态仿佛有一种精神力量令人振奋，给他孤独的心灵带来了欢乐：“水仙花在我的心灵闪现，使我在幽独中感到欣然”。在诗人的笔下，大自然的美景具有治愈人们心灵创伤的能力。华兹华斯正是凭着这样一种艺术的直觉，将自然美与人类之间的联系揭示得淋漓尽致。
Samuel Taylor Coleridge /塞缪尔 泰勒 柯勒律治作者简介
塞缪尔 泰勒 柯勒律治（Samuel Taylor Coleridge，1772-1834）生于一个牧师家庭，早年就读于剑桥大学。与同时代其他热血青年一样，他也曾受到法国大革命的影响，向往自由。但他很快就对法国革命中的流血事件感到失望而主张一种空想社会主义思想。柯勒律治秉性忧郁，常独自兀坐静观自然，但他善于言谈，思想活跃，把想象力看作文学的主导功能和灵魂，主张用想象来给世界注入活力。他一生创作不很多，但在文学史上却占有重要地位。主要诗作有《古舟子咏》（The Rime of the Ancient Mariner，1798）、《克丽斯塔贝尔》（Christabel, 1816）和《忽必烈汗》（Kubla Khan,1816）。这些作品融平凡的细节和富于诗意的象征于一体，其中也不乏超自然的神秘主义倾向。他的诗歌不仅体现了19世纪浪漫主义文学的特征，而且也反映了他个人的独特风格和高超的诗艺。作为文学评论家，柯勒律治享有很高的声誉。他的文学评论著作《文学传记》（Biographia Literaria,1817）全面总结了他与华兹华斯的文学实践和创作思想。他还作过一系列关于莎士比亚的讲演，并在讲演中充分发挥自己的批评观点，因而受到莎士比亚研究界的重视。作为“湖畔派”三诗人之一，柯勒律治是19世纪英国浪漫主义诗歌的杰出代表。