Wordsworth, William - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, p. 1059

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM. – English Romantic poet, b. at Cockermouth in Cumberland on 7 April 1770, d. at Rydal Mount on 23 April 1850.

He was in France in 1792 and there supported the Girondins; but, disappointed by the course of the Revolution, he later repudiated his youthful enthusiasms.

In 1798 he collaborated with Coleridge in composing that introduction to the Lyrical Ballads (1798), a collection of their poems, which is the manifesto of English Romanticism, calling, in reaction against academicism and formalism, for a return to contemplation of nature and to spontaneous and essential language. If Milton had wished to “testify to the ways of God,” it might be said of W. that he wished to testify to the ways of Nature; and the characters in his work, too, are preferably humble beings who live in intimate contact with the earth. The most original and vital part of his poetic output belongs to his youth and the beginning of his maturity. Subsequently, his verse progressively declined in its more properly lyrical and imaginative quality. His official reputation, however, continued to rise, and was consecrated in 1843 by his appointment as poet laureate.

Some of W.’s short lyrics, such as A slumber did my spirit seal (1799), She dwelt among the untrodden ways (1799), I wandered lonely as a cloud (1804), and The Solitary reaper (1805), are to be counted among the greatest achievements of European Romantic poetry; among the longer compositions, the most representative and original are The prelude (completed in 1805, but publ. after the poet’s death), The Excursion (publ. in 1814), and the famous Ode on intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood (1802-1804), poems in which the note of spiritual autobiography and absorbed, almost mystical contemplation of nature predominates.

BIBL.: among the best eds. of the Poems, V. that edited by N. C. Smith, 3 vols., Londra 1908; the exemplary editions of W.’s and his sister Dorothy’s Letters in 6 vols., Oxford 1935-36, and of The Prelude, there 1926, both edited by E. de Selincourt. Studies: G. M. Harper, W. W. his life works and influence, 2 vols., Londra 1916; E. Legouis, The early life of W. W., there 1921; id., W. W. in a new light, Harvard 1933; C. H. Herford, W., there 1930; H. J. C. Grierson, Milton and W. poets and prophets, there 1937; H. Read, W., there 1930 and 1949; J. C. Smith, A study of W., Edimburgo 1946; among the Italian studies: P. Bardi, La poesia di W., Bari 1922; I. Bustice, Il sentimento della natura in W. W., Vercelli 1930; E. Cecchi, Il giovane W. e la poesia di paesaggio, in English Miscellany, no. 1, Roma 1950, pp. 71-91; M. Praz, La crisi dell'eroe nel romanzo vittoriano, Firenze 1952, pp. 39-50; S. Rossi, W. e l'Italia, in Letterature moderne, 4 (1953), pp. 532-547.