William Wordsworth: A biography with selected poems

by Rosanna Negrotti

Book by Negrotti, Rosanna

120 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Eleni · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few interesting bits of biographical information about Dorothy Wordsworth - Coleridge's first opinion of her, a critic from 1866 noting her decided influence on Wordsworth's poetry, Dorothy's response to Wordsworth's wedding day - and one nice note about Wordsworth's radical break from the poetry of the past, his introduction for the first time of something we today are all too familiar with: the concept of a "Speaker" in poetry who is not the poet per se. This so surprized readers that "One reviewer was so confused by The Last of the Flock, a poem where the speaker meets a bankrupt man clutching his last sheep, he couldn’t understand why Wordsworth didn’t lend the man some money."

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biography was just the right length for a casual read - 40 pages or so. The poetry was interesting, but hit and miss. I liked "We are Seven" and "To the Cuckoo"

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty sparse biography, but my favorite poems are there (I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud and Lucy Gray), and there are some lovely pastels of the Lake Country.