John Milton was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including over ten books, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.
William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a radical but became steadily more conservative as he gained respect for Britain and its institutions. Other romantics such as Byron accused him of siding with the establishment for money and status. He is remembered especially for the poem "After Blenheim" and the original version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their adult lives. Dorothy Wordsworth had no ambitions to be a public author, yet she left behind numerous letters, diary entries, topographical descriptions, poems, and other writings.
The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem is an autobiographical poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Intended as the introduction to the more philosophical poem The Recluse, which Wordsworth never finished, The Prelude is an extremely personal work and reveals many details of Wordsworth's life.
Poetic diction is the term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry. In the Western tradition, all these elements were thought of as properly different in poetry and prose up to the time of the Romantic revolution, when William Wordsworth challenged the distinction in his Romantic manifesto, the Preface to the second (1800) edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798). Wordsworth proposed that a "language near to the language of men" was as appropriate for poetry as it was for prose. This idea was very influential, though more in theory than practice: a special "poetic" vocabulary and mode of metaphor persisted in 19th century poetry. It was deplored by the Modernist poets of the 20th century, who again proposed that there is no such thing as a "prosaic" word unsuitable for poetry.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" is a Petrarchan sonnet by William Wordsworth describing London and the River Thames, viewed from Westminster Bridge in the early morning. It was first published in the collection Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807.
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, "Dejection: An Ode", in April. The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a question, and Wordsworth was finally able to answer it with seven additional stanzas completed in early 1804. It was first printed as "Ode" in 1807, and it was not until 1815 that it was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality".
"Resolution and Independence" is a lyric poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, composed in 1802 and published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes. The poem contains twenty stanzas written in modified rhyme royal, and describes Wordsworth’s encounter with a leech-gatherer near his home in the Lake District of England.
The "Matthew" poems are a series of poems, composed by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, that describe the character Matthew in Wordsworth's poetry.
The conversation poems are a group of at least eight poems composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) between 1795 and 1807. Each details a particular life experience which led to the poet's examination of nature and the role of poetry. They describe virtuous conduct and man's obligation to God, nature and society, and ask as if there is a place for simple appreciation of nature without having to actively dedicate one's life to altruism.
"Dejection: An Ode" is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1802 and was published the same year in The Morning Post, a London daily newspaper. The poem in its original form was written to Sara Hutchinson, a woman who was not his wife, and discusses his feelings of love for her. The various versions of the poem describe Coleridge's inability to write poetry and living in a state of paralysis, but published editions remove his personal feelings and mention of Hutchinson.
To William Wordsworth is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge written in 1807 as a response to poet William Wordsworth's autobiographical poem The Prelude, called here "that prophetic lay". Wordsworth had recited that poem to his friend Coleridge personally. In his poem, Coleridge praises Wordsworth's understanding of both external and human nature, at the same time emphasizing Wordsworth's poetic achievement and downplaying his own.
Hymn Before Sunrise is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1802. Originally published in The Morning Post, it describes feelings that Coleridge claimed to have experienced on his own. However, it was later revealed that parts of the poem were heavily influenced by a poem by Friederike Brun, which led to criticism against Coleridge for not acknowledging his sources. Aspects of the poem did have direct origin in Coleridge's own life and experiences, and the work represents one of the last times a poem captured his feelings of joy during that period of his life.
Poems, in Two Volumes is a collection of poetry by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, published in 1807.
The sonnet was a popular form of poetry during the Romantic period: William Wordsworth wrote 523, John Keats 67, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 48, and Percy Bysshe Shelley 18. But in the opinion of Lord Byron sonnets were “the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions”, at least as a vehicle for love poetry, and he wrote no more than five.
Henry John Todd (1763–1845) was an English Anglican cleric, librarian, and scholar, known as an editor of John Milton.
"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free" is a sonnet by William Wordsworth written at Calais in August 1802. It was first published in the collection Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807, appearing as the nineteenth poem in a section entitled 'Miscellaneous sonnets'.
Beachy Head is a long blank verse poem by the English Romantic poet and novelist Charlotte Turner Smith, published in 1807, the year after her death, as part of the volume Beachy Head and Other Poems. The poem imagines events at the coastal cliffs of Beachy Head from across England's history, to meditate on what Smith saw as the modern corruption caused by commerce and nationalism. It was her last poetic work, and has been described as her most poetically ambitious work. As a Romantic poem, it is notable for its naturalist rather than sublime presentation of the natural world.
