The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Wordsworth, William
Wordsworth, William
(
1770
–
1850
), born at Cockermouth, Cumbria, the son of an attorney; he attended (with Mary Hutchinson, his future wife) the infants' school in Penrith and, from
1779
to
1787
, Hawkshead Grammar School. His mother died in
1778
, his father in
1783
, losses recorded in
The Prelude
, which describes the mixed joys and terrors of his country boyhood with a peculiar intensity. He attended
St
John's
College, Cambridge, but disliked the academic course. In
1790
he went on a walking tour of France, the Alps, and Italy, and returned to France late in
1791
, to spend a year there; during this period he was fired by a passionate belief in the French Revolution and republican ideals, and also fell in love with the daughter of a surgeon at Blois, Annette Vallon, who bore him a daughter (see
E.
Legouis
, William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon,
1922
). (This love affair is reflected in...
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