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The Essential Wordsworth
Offers a brief description of the themes of Wordsworth's poetry and gathers a selection of his work
177 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
26 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
William Wordsworth
2,168 books1,372 followersWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.
Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
November 15, 2013
William Wordsworth was greatly inspired by nature. No wonder his poems were the most beautiful of all times. He was a smart, shrewd kid. He learned quickly the importance and significance of early experiences. By his twenties he knew this truth and he developed his greatest works in the next ten years.
The poems I loved -
Expostulations and Reply - I must've read this a dozen times and yet it never fades in its rhythmic and philosophical beauty.
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood - I've read this twice. To sum it up in a word, this is 'life'.
My heart leaps when I behold - Short and sweet, his love for nature.
Three years she grew in sun and shower - Poetry and sadness. Beauty at its best.
All the 'Lucy' poems
The Tables Turned - This seems to me as a reply to Expostulations and Reply. It's witty.
And, of course The Ruined Cottage - There's only one word for this - EPIC.
"As a poet, he was always at his best while struggling to become a whole person, to reconcile the sense of incoherence and disappointment forced upon him by time and circumstance with those intimations of harmonious communion promised by his childhood visions..." - Seamus Heaney
The poems I loved -
Expostulations and Reply - I must've read this a dozen times and yet it never fades in its rhythmic and philosophical beauty.
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood - I've read this twice. To sum it up in a word, this is 'life'.
My heart leaps when I behold - Short and sweet, his love for nature.
Three years she grew in sun and shower - Poetry and sadness. Beauty at its best.
All the 'Lucy' poems
The Tables Turned - This seems to me as a reply to Expostulations and Reply. It's witty.
And, of course The Ruined Cottage - There's only one word for this - EPIC.
January 14, 2023
sylvia plath had more talent in her toenails. can someone please explain to me why one poem “two part prelude” was 30 pages long? in the words of wendy williams, death. you too mrs spears. death, to all of them.
June 22, 2024
This is a really beautiful book. The cover and the inside cover are gorgeous and the layout of the poetry is beautiful.
There will always be the most famous poems like wandered lonely as a cloud but I was surprised by this collection. Many poems that I have never heard of have become my new favourite.
A couple I love:
Michael
Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.
Goody Blake and Harry Gill
There will always be the most famous poems like wandered lonely as a cloud but I was surprised by this collection. Many poems that I have never heard of have become my new favourite.
A couple I love:
Michael
Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont.
Goody Blake and Harry Gill
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2022
Wordsworth really doing God’s work, bringing pantheism to those entitled, individualistic 17th Century Brits
October 22, 2020
Wordsworth view of the world is from a natural perspective. He took a trip to the Alps on holiday in 1790 in the French Revolution. I like his views on poetry. I must agree that true poetry is emmotional and is reflected by an emmotional outburts from the author. Science plays its role but life is not complete without looking at the world from a number of perspectives. I can see his characters, the places, the storms, the night. He view of the sublime is one to be considered.
September 9, 2016
Beautiful!
April 9, 2021
I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge poetry fan. The Ruined Cottage and I wandered lonely as a cloud were standouts.
Also a celebrity bookshelf read, shout out to Taylor Swift's The Lakes
Also a celebrity bookshelf read, shout out to Taylor Swift's The Lakes
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June 8, 2024Graceful poetry, full of pastoral, nature themes and sometimes people’s stories. I had a hard time keeping focus through the long, narrative poems. I enjoyed a few of the shorter poems. I don’t feel up to rating this one because I think the experience depends on the kind of poetry reader you are—and I’m just feeling my way around at this point.
October 2, 2022
While I appreciate the rhythm and language of Wordsworth's poems, it is far too easy for my mind to wander while my brain "reads" words. The most successful poems (at least in maintaining my attention) were by far the narrative poems. It will be joining the forensics library, not my personal one.
July 7, 2022
The highlights for me were:
- Expostulation and Reply
- The Tables Turned
- *The Two-Part Prelude* (excellent!)
- Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
- Expostulation and Reply
- The Tables Turned
- *The Two-Part Prelude* (excellent!)
- Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
November 7, 2022
For the most part joyous and uplifting.
January 27, 2023
Great selections on Heaney's part. I'm glad I picked Wordsworth back up. "Michael" remains my favorite of his poems and revisiting the "Ode" was a marvelous experience.
March 24, 2023
forget all the shit i talked about not liking poetry guys this lowkey slaps
May 3, 2023
dont we love reading poem books for english
November 22, 2023
Nature lover. Some sad tales of lonely people also.
October 28, 2024
Mostly sad and melacholic - I wandered lonely as a cloud still stands out as far the best
November 1, 2024
def see the good moments of his pieces through my own analysis ha but big part of me just thinks this guy didn’t have as much thought behind his poetry that we give him credit for.
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February 11, 2025This and a rocking chair overlooking Windermere lakes
August 5, 2025
Read the classics!
June 7, 2020
Gorgeous book, and informative intro from Heaney.
(Second review)
On this read through, I enjoyed spending more time with The Ruined Cottage, Michael (A Pastoral Poem), and Independence and Resolution. It is through these that you find Wordsworth reflecting most upon the impoverished, rural individuals dotted around the Lake District, and the small tragedies that fall upon them. Combined with their tales are rich and moving evocations of the natural landscape in Cumbria.
Unlike Keats, Wordsworth possesses the ability to connect the physicality of mountains, water and sky, and the incumbent fauna, to the intense spirituality he feels for it, rending his almost mystical vision of nature and his position within it richly palpable. This is made all the more authentic because, although on occasion he drops in the odd allusion, Wordsworth refers to real places around him. It's easy to parody his magnificently long titles and subtitles (one of his most well-known poems, Tintern Abbey, is actually written far away from it) but they situate his writing in the real world. They seem more concrete than Keats's imaginative wanderings. Wordsworth also, in contrast, eschews the artifice of poetic language: figurative language does feature, especially in his personification of Liberty, but it doesn't dominate. His diction is straightforward and simple, rendering his work a little bit more accessible.
In many ways, Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads (co-written with Coleridge in Alfoxden, Somerset), precipitated today's modern lyricism in poetry, namely the focus upon how the self is realised and the individual consciousness formed. Wordsworth radically hearkens back to his childhood - radical because, up until this point, children were views as merely smaller, less developed adults - as a way of determining and realising how he, as a poet, formed. What's amazing is that, in the Two-Part Prelude, he even recognises that his memories aren't easily delineated, and that the narrative he builds of them is, like any kind of memory, unreliably formed. From that, it's easy to see why his longer version of the Prelude took the majority of his life to write - with such careful thought and philosophic consideration on the nature of memory, he's not going to be publishing at great haste! In Yarrow Unvisited , Wordsworth also suggests that some places are not worth revisiting: if the memory of such a place is left in a pristine and wonderful state, then it can actually prove to be a source of comfort and restoration in the future when visiting it is not an option; to visit it unnecessarily now is to potentially spoil that future potentiality.
Such a view is slightly problematic. If you were to not revisit anywhere because you didn't want to spoil how you say that place, then you'd never leave home! I suppose that one of my other take homes from this reading of this gorgeous collection of well-selected and gorgeously presented poems, is that Wordsworth's views aren't always quite so straight-forward. There is a kind of 'orientalism' simmering underneath his description of the solitary reaper, for example. His underlying conservatism comes forth in his description of London's inherent avarice and greed; this sonnet comes across not so much as critical and poignant, but more as a bit of a whine Contrast his criticisms to the powerful words of Blake's London, and it's world apart. Decrying materialism is one thing; damning the role of national institutions that impoverish and wretch its own citizens is another. I feel like, in his return to London, Wordsworth secretly wished he was wealthy like those around him; indeed, later in life, as Poet Laureate and semi-aristocrat of Rydal Mount, he proved to be quite the figure of the establishment.
Overall, this is a worthy introduction into Wordsworth's poetry.
(Second review)
On this read through, I enjoyed spending more time with The Ruined Cottage, Michael (A Pastoral Poem), and Independence and Resolution. It is through these that you find Wordsworth reflecting most upon the impoverished, rural individuals dotted around the Lake District, and the small tragedies that fall upon them. Combined with their tales are rich and moving evocations of the natural landscape in Cumbria.
Unlike Keats, Wordsworth possesses the ability to connect the physicality of mountains, water and sky, and the incumbent fauna, to the intense spirituality he feels for it, rending his almost mystical vision of nature and his position within it richly palpable. This is made all the more authentic because, although on occasion he drops in the odd allusion, Wordsworth refers to real places around him. It's easy to parody his magnificently long titles and subtitles (one of his most well-known poems, Tintern Abbey, is actually written far away from it) but they situate his writing in the real world. They seem more concrete than Keats's imaginative wanderings. Wordsworth also, in contrast, eschews the artifice of poetic language: figurative language does feature, especially in his personification of Liberty, but it doesn't dominate. His diction is straightforward and simple, rendering his work a little bit more accessible.
In many ways, Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads (co-written with Coleridge in Alfoxden, Somerset), precipitated today's modern lyricism in poetry, namely the focus upon how the self is realised and the individual consciousness formed. Wordsworth radically hearkens back to his childhood - radical because, up until this point, children were views as merely smaller, less developed adults - as a way of determining and realising how he, as a poet, formed. What's amazing is that, in the Two-Part Prelude, he even recognises that his memories aren't easily delineated, and that the narrative he builds of them is, like any kind of memory, unreliably formed. From that, it's easy to see why his longer version of the Prelude took the majority of his life to write - with such careful thought and philosophic consideration on the nature of memory, he's not going to be publishing at great haste! In Yarrow Unvisited , Wordsworth also suggests that some places are not worth revisiting: if the memory of such a place is left in a pristine and wonderful state, then it can actually prove to be a source of comfort and restoration in the future when visiting it is not an option; to visit it unnecessarily now is to potentially spoil that future potentiality.
Such a view is slightly problematic. If you were to not revisit anywhere because you didn't want to spoil how you say that place, then you'd never leave home! I suppose that one of my other take homes from this reading of this gorgeous collection of well-selected and gorgeously presented poems, is that Wordsworth's views aren't always quite so straight-forward. There is a kind of 'orientalism' simmering underneath his description of the solitary reaper, for example. His underlying conservatism comes forth in his description of London's inherent avarice and greed; this sonnet comes across not so much as critical and poignant, but more as a bit of a whine Contrast his criticisms to the powerful words of Blake's London, and it's world apart. Decrying materialism is one thing; damning the role of national institutions that impoverish and wretch its own citizens is another. I feel like, in his return to London, Wordsworth secretly wished he was wealthy like those around him; indeed, later in life, as Poet Laureate and semi-aristocrat of Rydal Mount, he proved to be quite the figure of the establishment.
Overall, this is a worthy introduction into Wordsworth's poetry.
April 16, 2022
Andrew Peterson recommends this collection:
“…This little pocket edition lived in my backpack for about a year, and is the reason the chapters of The God of the Garden were structured around Wordsworth’s ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality.’”
“…This little pocket edition lived in my backpack for about a year, and is the reason the chapters of The God of the Garden were structured around Wordsworth’s ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality.’”
March 28, 2023
Usually I enjoy reading very long poems, but this time skipping them felt like self - care.
August 30, 2013
Much as I love Wordsworth's poetry, I found this anthology somewhat wanting. To be sure, it contains most of the great English poet's best work, but, like many slender volumes, fails to include notes. Perhaps, this is so the poetry will speak to the individual reader unencumbered by explanation.
Sometimes, however, historical context is necessary so that we know the friend with whom Wordsworth is walking or the historical figures he references.
Not just that, Seamus Heaney, a great poet in his own right, who selected the poems for this anthology, failed to include any verses from the First Book of the 1805 version of the Prelude wherein we found some of Wordsworth's most beautiful lines.
That said, for those un- or less familiar with Wordsworth's works, it is a decent introduction. And hopefully will inspire the reader to seek out more information about the sources of the poet's inspiration.
Sometimes, however, historical context is necessary so that we know the friend with whom Wordsworth is walking or the historical figures he references.
Not just that, Seamus Heaney, a great poet in his own right, who selected the poems for this anthology, failed to include any verses from the First Book of the 1805 version of the Prelude wherein we found some of Wordsworth's most beautiful lines.
That said, for those un- or less familiar with Wordsworth's works, it is a decent introduction. And hopefully will inspire the reader to seek out more information about the sources of the poet's inspiration.
August 1, 2012
Eloquent and intelligent introduction by the renown Seamus Heaney. This is a collection of some of Wordsworth's best known shorter poems (aside form the inclusion of the longer, The Ruined Cottage. Beautiful prose by a master wordsmith.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
February 18, 2014
Not my favorite poet, I enjoy his naturalism but not his introversion. I loved his quiet midnight voyage on a skiff described at the first part of 'The Two Part Prelude', as well as his trip through the woods stumbling across the 'Ruined Cottage'. There are also some short pieces I really enjoyed, such as 'To My Sister' and 'Expostulation and Reply'. But I think poems like 'Personal Talk' and 'I traveled among unknown men' that reveal Wordsworth to be a guy who doesn't really speak to me.
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September 19, 2012A useful collection of many of Wordsworth's finest poems as well as an excerpt from the Introduction to the Lyrical Ballads. Heaney's introductory essay provides an excellent introduction to the pleasures and singular accomplishment of one of the greatest poets in the language.
February 7, 2020
Beautiful, nature poems. They can seem sentimental at first, but once you actually read them critically and analytically, you realise the depth of meaning Wordsworth is packing into them. Some are very long, which can be tiring to read however.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
July 8, 2021
While Seamus Hegney’s introductory essay is brief it does flesh out some biographical details that make “getting” these poems a little easier (I know a lot of people decry it but I find context to be a wonderful thing). I’ve never been a huge fan of Wordsworth but when he moves me, he is superb.
September 2, 2020
Some beautiful verses that bring nature to life.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews