William Wordsworth - Paragraph

William Wordsworth - Paragraph

William Wordsworth was the second of his father's five sons. He was born at Cumberland on April 4, 1770. When he was eight years old, his mother died and in the same year he was sent to the Grammar School of Hawkshead. Wordsworth's father died five years after his mother's death. Wordsworth speaks of his father as having never recovered his usual cheerfulness after the loss of his mother. In 1787 he entered into St. John's College at the University of Cambridge where he studied four years until he took his B.A. Degree. In 1786 two sets of his verses were published and in 1789 he finished writing the "Evening Walk". Of his Cambridge friends the chief was Robert Jones with whom he undertook the walking tour in France and Switzerland in 1790. Forty years later, Jones looked back to that journey as golden spot of his life. At the end of November 1791, he went to France for learning French and stayed there till the end of November, 1792. Both "Descriptive Sketches" and "An Evening Walk" were published in 1793. In the same year England declared war upon France which shocked him much. In 1795 he began and in 1796 he finished "The Borderers". The publications of "Lyrical Ballads" in collaboration with Coleridge in 1798 constitute the most important event in the history of English poetry. A new edition of " The Lyrical Ballads" was called for in 1800. A third edition appeared in 1802 and fourth in 1805. The death of his brother John Wordsworth in the same year had affected him deeply. By 1807 in fact, his last work was done and after 1835 till his death Wordsworth published nothing new in poetry.