Title: William Wordsworth Biography - life, childhood, death, history, school, mother, old, information, born, college, time
Headings: William Wordsworth Biography
William Wordsworth Biography
His early years
Stay in France
Publication of first poems
"Tintern Abbey"
Poems of the middle period
Changes in philosophy
Poems of 1802
The Prelude
Later years
For More Information
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Content: Changes in philosophy
The crucial event of this period was Wordsworth's loss of the  sense of mystical oneness, which had sustained (lasted throughout) his  highest imaginative flights. Indeed, a mood of despondency (depression)  descended over Wordsworth, who was then thirty-two years old. In the summer of 1802 Wordsworth spent a few weeks in Calais, France,  with his sister Dorothy. Wordsworth's renewed contact with France  only confirmed his disillusionment (disappointment) with the French  Revolution and its aftermath. During this period Wordsworth had become increasingly concerned with  Coleridge, who by now was almost totally dependent upon opium (a highly  addictive drug) for relief from his physical sufferings. Both friends  came to believe that the realities of life were in stark contradiction  (disagreement) to the visionary expectations of their youth. Wordsworth  characteristically sought to redefine his own identity in ways that  would allow him a measure of meaning. The new turn his life took in 1802  resulted in an inner change that set the new course his poetry followed  from then on. Poems about England and Scotland began pouring forth from  Wordsworth's pen, while France and Napoleon (1769–1821)  soon became Wordsworth's favorite symbols of cruelty and  oppression. His nationalistic (intense pride in one's own  country) inspiration led him to produce the two "Memorials of a  Tour in Scotland" (1803, 1814) and the group entitled  "Poems Dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."