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Notes
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With Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth published Lyrical Ballads (1798) which marked the development of a new type of poetry dealing with feeling and imagination. For most of his life he lived in the Lake District and the main theme of his extensive poetry was man's relation to nature. His masterpiece is commonly considered to be The Prelude (1850), a long verse-autobiography that includes Wordsworth's journey through revolutionary France in 1791 – 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!' He abandoned his early republicanism and was appointed Poet Laureate in 1843. This portrait depicts Wordsworth aged seventy-two. It was painted to commemorate a sonnet that he had composed on climbing the peak of Helvellyn, after seeing Haydon's picture of Wellington musing on the Battlefield of Waterloo.
Title
William Wordsworth
Date
1842
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 124.5 x W 99.1 cm
Accession number
1857
Acquisition method
Bequeathed by John Fisher Wordsworth, 1920
Work type
Painting