WORDSWORTH

It's the birthday of the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, (books by this author) born in Cockermouth, England (1770). He studied at Cambridge, and during a vacation, he and a friend sailed to France for a 12-week walking tour of the Alps, during which they covered about 3,000 miles. He wrote letters home to his sister, Dorothy, trying to describe the beautiful sights he'd seen, and he later said, "Perhaps scarce a day of my life will pass by in which I shall not derive some happiness from those images."


At the time, most poets were writing poetry about broad topics of history and religion and philosophy. Wordsworth wrote about ordinary things and private thoughts, the view from a bridge, daffodils. Critics thought he was wasting his time on uninteresting subjects. But by the time he had reached middle age, he became a cult sensation and his collections of poetry became best-sellers. Tourists from London would take day trips up to the Lake District where Wordsworth lived and gawk at him through the window of his house. His wife once wrote in a letter, "At this moment, a group of young Tourists are standing before the window. ... William is reading a newspaper and on lifting up his head a profound bow greeted him from each."