The Lake Poets

By Tom Burrows

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey became known as the Lake Poets in the early years of the nineteenth century when critic Francis Jeffrey conferred this designation on them. In an 1817 article published in The Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey referred to the three poets as belonging to the "Lake School." The term refers to the Lake District, where all three poets resided for a time.

Despite their distinctly different styles, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth are all considered Romantic poets. The Romantic fascination with the unusual and the supernatural is reflected in many of the works of Coleridge and Southey, most notably in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Wordsworth and Coleridge both possessed a strong perception of the world as well as an active imagination. While Wordsworth used his imaginative powers to idealize the familiar, Coleridge explored the philosophical aspects of poetry. Southey's Romantic efforts tended to centred on travel and adventure.

The connection of the Lake Poets to Romanticism also encompassed a love of liberty and radical political convictions. The poets had, to varying degrees, sympathized with the French Revolution, believing that France was Europe's champion of liberty. Immersed in their love and worship of nature, the Lake Poets also believed in the spirit of reform through revolution, while maintaining that the union of the soul with nature was of primary importance. During the end of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century, they were sheltered from the affairs of the world in their Lake Country homes. But in the aftermath of the French Revolution they began to regain interest in worldly events, and their attitudes became increasingly conservative. Their early revolutionary fervour was severely diminished and their hopes for France dashed as the nation, under Napoleon's rule, began conquering other countries. Their love of liberty was transformed into nationalism as they became convinced that England's constitutional monarchy and the guiding force of the Protestant Church were the only guarantors of freedom.

Unlike Coleridge or Southey, Wordsworth was a son of the Lakes, born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, just a few miles west of Bassenthwaite. 
His childhood was spent largely in Cockermouth and Penrith, his mother's home town. William and Dorothy and his future wife Mary Hutchinson attended infant school in Penrith between 1776 and 1777. William's mother died in Penrith when he was 8 shaping much of his later work. Wordsworth attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love of poetry was firmly established and, it is believed, he made his first attempts at verse. While he was at Hawkshead, Wordsworth's father died leaving him and his four siblings orphans. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John's College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities. While touring Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the French Revolution. This experience as well as a subsequent period living in France, brought about Wordsworth's interest and sympathy for the life, troubles and speech of the "common man". These issues proved to be of the utmost importance to Wordsworth's work. Wordsworth's earliest poetry was published in 1793 in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.  Equally important in the poetic life of Wordsworth was his 1795 meeting with the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was with Coleridge that Wordsworth published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1798. While the poems themselves are some of the most influential in Western literature, it is the preface to the second edition that remains one of the most important testaments to a poet's views on both his craft and his place in the world. In the preface Wordsworth writes on the need for "common speech" within poems and argues against the hierarchy of the period which valued epic poetry above the lyric.

Wordsworth's most famous work, The Prelude (1850), is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism. The poem, revised numerous times, chronicles the spiritual life of the poet and marks the birth of a new genre of poetry. Although Wordsworth worked on The Prelude throughout his life, the poem was published posthumously. Wordsworth spent his final years settled at Rydal Mount in England, travelling and continuing his outdoor excursions. Devastated by the death of his daughter Dora in 1847, Wordsworth seemingly lost his will to compose poems. William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on April 23, 1850, leaving his wife Mary to publish The Prelude three months later.