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About William Wordsworth: A Life
Product Description In this second edition of William Wordsworth: A Life, Stephen Gill draws on knowledge of the poet's creative practices and his reputation and influence in his life-time and beyond. Refusing to treat the poet's later years as of little interest, this biography presents a narrative of the whole of Wordsworth's long life--1770 to 1850--tracing the development from the adventurous youth who alone of the great Romantic poets saw life in revolutionary France to the old man who became Queen Victoria's Poet Laureate. The various phases of Wordsworth's life are explored with a not uncritical sympathy; the narrative brings out the courage he and his wife and family were called upon to show as they crafted the life they wanted to lead. While the emphasis is on Wordsworth the writer, the personal relationships that nourished his creativity are fully treated, as are the historical circumstances that affected the production of his poetry. Wordsworth, it is widely believed, valued poetic spontaneity. He did, but he also took pains over every detail of the process of publication. The foundation of this second edition of the biography remains, as it was of the first, a conviction that Wordsworth's poetry, which has given pleasure and comfort to generations of readers in the past, will continue to do so in the years to come. Review "[ William Wordsworth: A Life] is judicious, fair-minded, panoptic." -- Brad Leithauser, The Wall Street Journal "One of the many enjoyments of Stephen Gill's William Wordsworth: A Life is the quiet pride it communicates in a job well done. Wordsworth emerges from this comprehensive and absorbing study as a man whose sense of purpose and duty steadily grew from youth to old age." -- Freya Johnston, The Guardian "The richly revised second edition of Gill's biography (the first appeared in 1990), refuses the usual trajectory and instead celebrates 'a multifaceted, highly creative life of eighty years'." -- Thomas Keymer, London Review of Books "Gill gives us the Wordsworth who bore life's tribulations as a philosopher, the Wordsworth renowned as a poet, but also the deeply human portrait of Wordsworth the man." -- Chris Townsend, The Wordsworth Trust "This biography not only presents Wordsworth in the round, but also grants us a peep into his very soul." -- Steve Craggs, Northern Echo "Stephen Gill's masterly and immensely readable " William Wordsworth: A Life"." -- Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "Gill is the leading authority on the poet and writes in great detail about his life and work; an essential book for all students." -- Robert Tanitch, The Mature Times "An essential companion to students of Wordsworth with much to offer the general reader." -- Will Smith, Cumbria Life About the Author Stephen Gill is Professor Emeritus, Oxford University, Supernumerary Fellow, Lincoln College, Oxford, and a long-serving member of the Wordsworth Trust.
