When researching William Wordsworth, it’s easy to see the influence he had on what would become the Romantic Period. He wrote during the 18th century and help create the Romantic period. Wordsworth wrote both prose and poetry, and poetry was his way of expressing himself (as the Romantic Period was known for). Wordsworth is mostly remembered for being a poet and one of his main inspirations was nature. Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, they wrote Lyrical Ballads that were full of poems that are still read and interpreted today. Lyrical Ballads introduced Romanticism to English poetry. Wordsworth used nature around him to inspire his mind when writing his poetry. This emerged from his dwelling in the Lake District. One of the websites I visited …show more content…
I was able to learn more about Wordsworth and see that not only was he one of the creators of the Romantic period but was his muses were. Learning how important nature was to Wordsworth (along with how it is a theme of the period as well) helped me understand more his poetry and pick out the more so the presence of nature in it. In our text it states that “modern critics call Wordsworth’s ‘myth of nature’: his presentation of the ‘growth’ of his mind to maturity, a process unfolding through the interaction between the inner world of the mind and the shaping force of external Nature.” (Greenblatt 271) Seeing the pictures and learning about Grasmere and the Lake District, I could see how that land could inspire anyone (and read that Wordsworth wasn’t the only poet inspired by these …show more content…
I especially felt it helped me understand more so how Wordsworth used the idea of nature in his poems. Like in “We are Seven,” he describes the little girl as follows: She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair; Her beauty made me glad. (9-12) This little girl has a very nature-like appearance to her, especially by the use of the words ‘rustic’, ‘woodland’, and ‘wildly.’ I thought the wildness was supposed to represent the innocence she possesses along with her relationship with nature. I felt like Wordsworth painted the image of the girl with his words. I could picture the little girl with wild hair and possessing a child-like innocence. He also uses nature to describe the time the little girl has spent with the siblings that have passed away how he describes “dry grass” and then snow covering the ground: “So in the church-yard she was laid; And, when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I. And when the ground was white with