Jamie Johnson
A Critical Introduction to the Poetry of Wordsworth
Wordsworth’s poetry reflects upon the many exciting changes that occurred in society during his era and upon aspects of his own history. He originates from the Lake District, bring born on 7 April 1770 in the Cumbrian town of Cockermouth. He was the second child of four boys and one girl in a family that suffered much financial hardship as his father John Wordsworth (an attorney) was owed money by the Earl of Lowther. When his mother died in 1778, he attended a grammar school in Hawkshead in the centre of the Lake District. It was here that Wordsworth experienced a time of intense exploration of the countryside, exploration which provided much of the inspiration for his poetry for example The Nutting and The Prelude. In 1787 Wordsworth went up to Cambridge where he discovered that academic study was not for him, ‘I was not for that hour, Nor for that Place’, and he began to write poetry and read for pleasure. Through his poetry he attempted to combine the knowledge he gained from books with the emotion ands sensitivity to Nature he gained from his early life. I feel this to be vividly expressed in the poem Expostulation and Reply and The Tables Turned as he conveys there importance of learning through experience, such as that of nature, rather than through intellect.
