Wordsworth

by Juliet Barker

William Wordsworth's early life reads like a novel. Orphaned at a young age and dependent on the charity of unsympathetic relatives, he became the archetypal teenage rebel. Refusing to enter the Church, he went instead to Revolutionary France, where he fathered an illegitimate daughter and became a committed Republican. His poetry was as revolutionary as his politics, challenging convention in form, style, and subject, and earning him the universal derision and contempt of critics. Only the unfailing encouragement of a tightly knit group of supporters, his family, and, above all, Coleridge kept him true to his poetic vocation. In the half-century that followed his reputation was transformed. His advocacy of the importance of imagination and feeling touched a chord in an increasingly industrial, mechanistic age, and his influence was profoundly and widely felt in every sphere of life. In the last decade of his life, Rydal Mount, his home for thirty-seven years, became a place of pilgrimage, not just for the great and powerful in Church and state, but also, more touchingly, for the hundreds of ordinary people who came to pay their respects to his genius. In what is, astonishingly, the first biography of Wordsworth to treat the latter part of his life as fully as the first, Juliet Barker balances meticulous research with a readable style, and scrupulous objectivity with an understanding of her subject. She reveals not only the public figure who was courted and reviled in equal measure but also the complex, elusive, private man behind that image. Drawing on unpublished sources, she vividly re-creates the intimacy of Wordsworth's domestic circle, showing the love, laughter, loyalty, and tragedies that bound them together. Far from being the remote, cold, solitary figure of legend, Wordsworth emerges from his biography as a passionate, vibrant man who lived for his family, his poetry, and his beloved Lakeland. His legacy, as a poet and as the spiritual founder of the conservation movement, remains with us today.

Genres: Biography, Poetry, Nonfiction, History, 19th Century, British Literature

548 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Juliet R. V. Barker (born 1958) is a British historian, specialising in the Middle Ages and literary biography. She is the author of a number of well-regarded works on the Brontës, William Wordsworth, and medieval tournaments. From 1983 to 1989 she was the curator and librarian of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Barker was educated at Bradford Girls' Grammar School and St Anne's College, Oxford, where she gained her doctorate in medieval history. In 1999 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Bradford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reviews

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took me close to a month to read because of life events. I read about two chapters a day so that I could savour this biography.

What was most fascinating about this work, was the way how Barker wrote about Wordsworth's relationship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It started out as a mutual realationship that morphed into an odd parasitic one. And in the end Wordsworth ended up supporting the Coleridge family to his dying day.

I learned more about the lake poet movement and the early Romantics than I did before. And now I have a greater appreciation for Wordsworth's poetry.

Thank you Juliet Barker for writing this book.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly enjoyed the prose style which made the 525 pages float along like a cloud. This is probably the best full biography of Wordsworth, superseding the one by expert Stephen Gill, while incorporating and expanding the superb work by Johnston in The Hidden Wordsworth, which unearthed the whole story of Wordsworth's illegitimate daughter in France during the French Revolution. Although I feel Barker makes the same mistake of all Wordsworth biographies, which is to gloss over or even apologize for his failings as a human being (he is the Romantic poet I would probably least like to meet, and that includes the superciliousness of Byron). This is probably most apparent with how easily Coleridge is brushed away here, and even simplistically given the literary eye roll at several points. This is probably the Wordsworth biography with the least amount of time devoted to STC.

Nonetheless, Wordsworth's poetry comes into tight focus with great integration into his life, and I have never read a better account of how tightly Wordsworth was integrated into the Lake District, which is of course the whole point of his poetry. The story remains the same: by the 1820s, Wordsworth did little of lasting poetic value and his best work was behind him. He abandoned his life project well before his death and admitted to a lack of poetic powers in his middle age. Instead, he returned to sonnet composition, rather than the psychological epics of the mind and nature that he had innovated. I see no reason not to believe his contemporaries, who were disappointed in his conservatism in later years, renouncing progressive policies that would have been at home in his early Revolution days. His personal relationships are frankly bizarre. He lived most of his life with his sister, then his wife, and then his daughter, in a household that was centered around his wants and needs. He prevented that daughter from marrying for quite some time, ostensibly because he didn't like how it was handled, but it is very hard to believe that it wasn't for selfish reasons. When that daughter died, he couldn't bring himself to attend the funeral. He ruthlessly cut off friends who overstayed their welcome and their help to his career (Coleridge is only one example), and he left bad impressions with many of his associates. I don't think he was a bad person, but rather that his approach to poetry, which enlarged the literary world, was detrimental to personal interactions other than the most intimate familial ones. He was a man trapped in his mind, for better and for worse. This accounts for the egoism he exuded in public literary occasions.

For those who love Wordsworth's work, but perhaps don't know much about his life, this is a great place to start. It will open your mind to some of his lesser known works.

[Patricia Fawcett · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, deep account of possibly the greatest of the Romantic poets. We all cut our teeth on 'The Daffodils' at primary school. There is so much more to Wordsworth. I have read much of his work over the years; dip in and out of 'The Prelude' and you get parts of his life in his own words. Juliet Barker's extensive research fleshes out what we know about Wordsworth and emerges with an almost-living, three-dimensional picture. As a lifelong lover of the poetry of William Wordsworth, a visit to Dove cottage with my family whilst on holiday in the Lake District in 2010 was a red-letter day. It was here that I bought the book. Having read and enjoyed it immensely - and it's one of those rare books, one which you will keep, treasure, and re-read - I have moved on to Barker's 'The Brontes' and look forward to reading other works by this author.

[Zandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Barker's clever interpretation of writings, characters and situations. Barker is overly kind to Wordsworth, turning a blind eye to his faults and weaknesses (what exactly was the nature of his relationship with the bevy of females who lived with him throughout his life?) but it is true we got a sense of his greatness, not just as a poet but also for his sense of public vocation and his personal generosity towards (many, many) friends. I read this book quite slowly to begin with, and felt there were rather too many characters and life-stories being presented, but towards the end I found the book gripping. There was a mounting sense of tragedy about the decline and end of Wordsworth's life. Yet this is surely a sign of a life well lived? I loved Wordsworth's early dedication to getting his words' worth, even at the cost of earning a living. His sense of vocation was amazingly strong, and it was satisfying to know that towards the end of his life he got due reward and recognition. But this made the falling away of his last years, of poetic powers, of physical strength and friends and family, all the more moving.

[John Vanderslice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a readable and insightful biography. Occasionally it gets down into the weeds of the poet's day to day activities, more than one might think it needs to, and it also can be a tad jingoistic in spots--especially when the author refuses to tolerate any of the likely justified criticisms of Wordsworth by American Ralph Waldo Emerson--but on the whole I liked it very much. Barker displays a comprehensive knowledge of Wordsworth's life and work, with a fair evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the latter. She follows his curious publishing career with helpful attention. She also displays a great sensitivity to his family life and the tremendous importance it played for him. The book is an elegantly written and engaging study, which is not always the case with esteemed-author biographies.

[Julia Koncurat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Officially a Samuel Taylor Coleridge hater

[Peter Turnbull · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since my grad school days 40+ years ago I've always been interested in Wordsworth. This book is a bit of a slog and covers a huge number of details--it took me a long time to get through. It filled in a lot of details about WW's trip to France in the 1790s, which included a romance, an illegitimate daughter and his bearing witness to the chaos and atrocities of the French revolution and its aftermath. This latter point affected his thinking about government as he moved through life--he feared chaos and mob rule. Also, lots of detail about his long and eventually troubled relationship with Coleridge. Good, balanced account of his relationship with his wife (Mary) and sister (Dorothy), and how those two helped him with his writing. Great accounts of WW's vigor, which lasted well into late middle age: here is a passage from one of his walking tour, this time in Ireland, in 1829, at age 59: "breakfasted at 5, set off from Kenmare at half past, rode 10 Irish miles, took to our feet, ascended 1500 feet, descended as much ascended another ridge as high, descended as much, and then went to the top of Carrantuohill, 3000 feet, the mountain being the highest in Ireland, 3410 feet above the level of the sea. We then descended, walked nearly two hours, and rode on bad horses an hour and a half or more, and reached Killarney at ten at night, having eaten nothing but a poor broadcast of spongy bread without eggs and one crust . . . and drink milk during the whole day. I reached Killarney neither tired nor exhausted after all this. We were richly recompensed by a fine day, and most sublime views."

All in all, probably not a book for the casual reader, but a detailed account of the whole of WW's life and pursuits.

[Steve Courson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up for $2.00 at a used bookstore. I knew Wordsworth was a poet and as poetry is lost on me I thought “should I get it?” I’m glad I did. It failed to increase my appreciation of poetry though I find Dr. Seuss charming and easy to understand and who doesn’t love Billy Collins? It was however an extremely well written biography of not just William, but his extended family. There are lots of quotes from his poetry giving the background behind their creation, two sections of photos and an incredible story of his life. It was engaging. The font is small (6 pt. maybe) so I had to read it with a bright overhead light and the 525 pages would be almost 1,000 in a decent sized font. So it took me 8 days to finish, but it was eight days of reading pleasure. Two things surprised me: they walked a lot and they had way too much company, some staying for months. I can’t say enough about the author. Poetry in Prose.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this slowly across two months, but really enjoyed my time with it. The first third of it was particularly compelling as it dealt with so much of the material that I had already read through The Prelude, which I now want to go back and re-read. I really also appreciated getting new insights on Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth and learning about Dora Wordsworth. I wish Barker had a notes section and gave a more scholarly reference section to her quotes. I also found her use of pronouns sometimes made its antecedent frustratingly obscure. Nonetheless, her writing is otherwise strong and a pleasure to read.

[Charles Puskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading through the family life and friends of William Wordsworth. I wanted to find here more on his poetry and the great romantic movement he helped to found. Snippets of his poetry are inserted, however, and an exciting story is told of the tragic death of his brother, Captain John Wordsworth, as John's ship sank in an English harbor with feeble efforts at rescue from the nearby residents. William Wordsworth appears in this biography as a more responsible family man (and more productive poet) than his free-wheeling and opiate-dependent friend, Coleridge.

[Robert Goulding · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Finished" this book, as in "kind of gave up somewhere after halfway." Reasons: (1) Wordsworth doesn't give up much of himself in his personal correspondence -- you don't get to know him, as you do from reading the Prelude, say -- so a life in letters is a bit of a challenge; and (2) after an exciting youth (about which Wordsworth left surprisingly few epistolary remains -- see (1)), he didn't such a very exciting life, and got more boring as he got older.

[Lorna Metcalfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't give it five stars as Barker's regular personal opinion comments are irritating. She couldn't know, she wasn't there. The responsibility of a biographer is to relay all known facts as lucidly and intelligibly as possible, not to attempt to take ownership of the subject with private assumptions. I'm carrying on reading the book but fed up with these regular irritations.

[Sandra D]

I cracked open this book and nearly screamed in horror. Almost 500 pages of text, which is not so bad, but the typeface is microscopic. Hmm, do I really want to know that much about Wordsworth?

This one might accidentally slip back to the bottom of my to-read stack.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful biography