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Lecture 1:
Cultural and Historical Circumstances in England between 1800 and 1832

Nineteenth century was an age of huge changes in Europe and elsewhere in the world,
and England was one of the leading counties in this period, with great international influence.
When the century started the country was already at war with France, and soon after it entered
the Napoleonic wars, which were finally ended at Waterloo in 1815, England having won.
The country was exhausted during these wars because they ate up a huge amount of finances,
so an economic crisis ensued after the age of Napoleon. Workers in Britain were struggling
for their rights and organizing various kinds of activities aimed at the enhancement of their
overall position. These activities had varying degrees of success, but they never broke out into
a final revolution, and they gradually subdues as the economic prosperity was gradually rising
later in the century. The lives of the poor were those of extreme depravation. They laboured
hard and still couldn’t manage to feed their families, so their wives and children also had to
work in factories and mines. Child labour is one of the darkest pages of British history. Since
factories were introducing new labour-saving machines, many workers remained jobless. The
right to vote was secured only to those men who possessed real estate, which was one out of
five men of age. Women were not even considered as having the right to vote until the
following century. They were generally still subordinated in society and did not have nearly
equal chances as men – in fact, poor men and women were perhaps more equal because
neither of them could boast with decent living conditions or rights, while daughters of the rich
families were much more restricted in their possibilities than their brothers. Another huge
group of socially unsettled were the Irish, in the first place the Irish Catholics, who were
being moved out of their huts and forced to pay taxes for the Anglican Church they did not
belong to. Many came to England to seek employment in expanding industrial cities such as
Manchester or Birmingham. However, life conditions in these cities were horrible. Apart from
the overall poverty, the sewage system was bad, the houses made of cheap material, sanitation
was unheard of and there were various epidemic spreading in workers’ suburbs. The early
phase of industrialization was unstoppable, it’s pace enormous, but at a terribly high price. It
made the rich even richer, and the poor even poorer. However, one of the huge enterprises in
England in the beginning of the nineteenth century was the railroad. The first line was built
between Manchester and Liverpool. Rail changed the image of life in Britain, concerning
mobility and many other aspects. It also provided many workers their sought-after jobs.
British colonial empire was expanding still. In the year of 1832 the First Reform Act was
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enforced, and it changed the system of parliamentary rule. Up till then, it was only aristocracy
that was allowed to enter the Parliament. From 1832 bourgeoisie joined forces with them and
became a new ruling class in England. It was then that huge industrial centers like Manchester
or Birmingham finally got their MPs – before that they did not have a single representative in
the Parliament, while some small townships had one or even two. When philosophical ideas
are concerned, this was the period of German philosophical dominance in Europe.
Philosophers such as Kant or Hegel were most influential. The most prominent British thinker
at the time was Thomas Carlyle, an antidemocrat (he propagated the rule of the chosen few),
who stood opposed to previously dominant materialism, rationalism, utilitarianism,
evolutionism.

Romanticism
The romantic period in English literary history starts with the publication of preface to
Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1800, and ends in 1832 with the death of Sir
Walter Scott and the passing of the Reform Bill. Although this is a relatively short period of
time, it’s been considered as one of the richest in English literature, along with Elizabethan
age. Although literary movements can rarely be obviously linked with social and political
changes, it seems that romanticism largely represents a reaction towards the Fren ch
Revolution and it aftermaths. The reactions vary from exhilaration to disappointment, often
within the opus of a single writer. Almost all romantic authors were politically minded, and
most of them pro-democratic. Romanticism was in many way opposed to the values of the
previous age.
Authors are now able to earn their living by selling books, which has as a side affect
the appearance of commercial writers, who see in their work only a means of earning money.
Literary criticism is now playing a decisive role in discussing books, and it is peculiar to learn
that critics of the time were mostly unfriendly towards the works of greatest contemporary
authors. One of the most influential literary magazines was Edinburgh Review, which was
published between 1802 and 1929. The most popular literary genres were lyrical and lyrical-
epical poems. Historical novel was an original British form, which soon gained popularity
throughout Europe.
Romantic literature stood directly opposed to the values of classicism and rationalism
– although it is quite natural that it retained certain qualities of the previous period, because it
is not next to impossible to completely get rid of all the elements of the previous tradition.
Now the main force poetry and art come from is intuition, as opposed to reason. William
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Wordsworth put it in the following way: ‘a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’

(WilliamWordsworth in preface to Lyrical Ballads). Although they also tried to reach the
ultimate truths about humanity, like classicists, they used completely different means to attain
this, relying on subjective views of the world and idiosyncratic emotions. Unlike classicist
looking up to antique models, romanticists highly esteemed originality in every form. The
romantic movement in European countries shares many elements. They all unreservedly
revere nature – wild, untamed nature, which becomes the best life teacher. Some of them have
even exalted nature to the pedestal of new religion. The interests of the romantics rests upon
the mysterious, the primitive, medieval, ideal, infinite, natural. They love folklore and use its
elements, they adore the natural man, childhood (for its purity and imagination). Romantic
poetry frequently represents rebellion (in creating new utopias and commenting on the current
social circumstances) and escape (indulging in weltschmerz).
English romanticists slightly differ from their European counterparts. One of the
striking differences is that romanticism was never a movement in Britain, the country was
rather producing and hosting different, highly individual authors, who were frequently in
discord and criticized each other, and who much less frequently cooperated and executed any
influence upon one another. When speaking about folklore heritage, none of them was relying
on it strongly, apart from Walter Scott.
English romantic poets are usually divided into two groups: those of the older and
those of the younger generation. The criteria for such a distinction were not purely temporal,
but also based on inner qualities, which will be discussed throughout the lectures dealing
individually with the romantic poets. The older generation includes Wordsworth and
Coleridge, the younger Byron, Keats and Shelley.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Anecdotes (all taken from Hendrickson)
- He was not a witty man and usually knew it. In fact, he had some difficulty
recognizing what was with and what wasn’t. One time he confided to
company that he had made only one witty remark in his entire life. What wa
that, he was asked. ‘Well, I will tell you,’ he replied. ‘I was standing some
time ago at the entrance of my cottage at Rydal Mount. A man assocted me
with a question – ‘Pray, sir, have you seen my wife pass by?’; whereupon I
said, ‘Why, my good friend, I didn’t know till this moment that you had a
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wife!’’ While he roared with laughter the company stood in puzzled silence.
(p. 306.)
- Sometimes when he was writing a poem, Wordsworth would let his dog
criticize his work. Walking in the garden, reciting lines as he composed
them, the poet carefully watched his canine-critic. He felt that if the rhythm
was wrong, if he’d chosen a cacophonous word, the dog-critic’s hackles
would rise and he’d voice his disapproval by barking. (p. 307.)
- Said his friend Coleridge to him: ‘Since Milton, I know of no poet with so
many felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas as you.’ (p. 307.
- Writing to a young De Quincey, who had solicited his friendship, he
explained: ‘My friendship is not in my power to give; this is a gift which no
man can make… A sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and
circumstance; it will spring up like a wildflower when these favour and
when they do not it is in vain to look for it.’ (p. 307.)
- He and his wife, Mary, cared for his beloved sister Dorothy for the last 20
years of life. Dorothy had lost her mind as a result of physical ailments and
could do nothing but sit, helpless, by the fire. Almost all her memory was
destroyed, but she could still recite her brother’s poems. (p. 307.)
- The philosopher Bertrand Russel summed up the poet’s career: ‘In his youth
Wordsworth symphatized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote
good poetry, and had a natural daughter. At this period he was called a ‘bad’
man. Then he became ‘good’, abandoned his daughter, adopted correct
principles, and wrote bad poetry.’ (p. 307.)

Life
It is interesting that Wordsworth was born before and died after all other romantic
poets in England. ‘Few poets have told us more of their early lives. The Prelude is not only
the greatest of poetical autobiographies, it is also a source of positive information.’ (Sampson,
475) It gives many descriptions of his childhood activities, such as rowing on the lakes in
summer and skating in winter, mountaineering, etc. Wordsworth was born in Cumberland and
remained parentless early in life. His mother passed away when he was eight, and his father
when he was thirteen. He spent most of his later childhood and adulthood in boarding schools
and he studied in Cambridge. Wealthy cousins were taking care of him, but still he lived an
extremely modest life. While still very young he ‘lived in poverty at the cottage of a village
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dame,’ (Sampson, 476) being ‘denied the blessing of a happy home’ (Sampson, 476).
Wordsworth lived among the villagers, and as a replacement for intellectual company he read
a lot. Cambridge did not offer him interesting contents or company, and mostly he spent time
solitary. Although it was not a pleasant state he was in, it was the time of poetic brewing
within his mind. After getting his B.A. he visited France and French Alps with a friend, and
described it in his early, but not quite successful collection of poems titled Descriptive
Sketches. He also hiked a lot around Britain. Upon return from France he spent some time in
London, and then left for France again for a longer period of time. It was during the great
upheavals around the French Revolution that he lived there and was passionately on the side
of the revolutionaries, and also tried to get French citizenship. He also fell in love with a
French girl, but she came from a catholic and a royalist family, so marriage between them was
impossible. Still, they got a daughter soon after Wordsworth left for England in late 1792 in
order to publish some of his poems and perhaps earn a little money with it. The development
of the situation was such that all contacts between England and France were sealed off until
1802, even letters could not travel, so Wordsworth suffered for several reasons – the inability
to see his lover and daughter, and the disappointment with the course the French Revolution
was taking, using brutality, etc. ‘When the French Revolution passed into the Terror,
Wordsworth lost his trust in immediate social reform. He turned to abstract meditation on man
and society.’ (Sampson, 477) It is curious that English public did not know about this natural
daughter of Wordsworth until the twentieth century – he was kept in high esteem in the
Victorian period where philistinism and double morality were at play. The fact that he had an
illegitimate child would certainly bring him down in the eyes of contemporary public, and he
kept the secret as best he could. He met her and her mother a couple of times, even helped her
when she was getting married, but no strong attachment was ever established. In England
Wordsworth found himself jobless and moneyless. ‘Wordsworth had much to endure in life;
but it is curious how frequently certain pieces of good luck befell him at critical moments’
(Sampson, 477) – escape from France to England saved him the guillotine, amid his financial
crisis a friend bequeathed him a legacy of £900, with which he could settle in a small house
and live without having to work. He moved to a cottage in Dorsetshire, and his sister Dorothy
moved in with him. She had lived with her uncle for many years, and ‘brother and sister were
passionately attached to each other’ (Sampson, 477). She discussed with her brothers all
poetic issues, spent much time with him and his friend Coleridge, who lived nearby, and
wrote a diary whish is a gold mine of information about Wordsworth and Coleridge at this
time. ‘Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) is one of those engaging, selfless and devoted
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women about whom it is difficult to speak without excess of enthusiasm.’ (Sampson, 477)
This reunion with his sister somewhat chased away the gloom that was possessing him, but
not completely. The lost of ideals and people emotionally close to him was a source of great
inner unrest, but soon he started to settle down. He visited Germany and then moved to Lake
District. In 1802 he married Marry Hutchinson, his acquaintance from youth. Further
development of his life fanned further gloom. Coleridge was slowing sailing away in his
overuse of opium, Wordsworth’s brother had died in a military shipwreck, and Wordsworth
was also losing poetic inspiration. He was more and more turning to formal religion and
strove for final serenity. When he died he was eighty, and during the last 35 years of his life
he wrote nothing that could come close to the poetry he wrote in his golden years between
1797 and 1807. After the death of Robert Southey, he was elected Poet Laureate in 1843.

Poetry of William Wordsworth

Prof. Sampson states that Wordsworth was ‘a great English poet, tenacious,
indomitable and unsubmissive, carrying his own way slowly to understanding of himself, and
winning, in the end, the love and admiration of readers, not by any moral message or theory
of art, but solely by the penetrating beauty of his poems’ and his ‘power to see into the life of
things’ (Sampson, 475). ‘He firmly believed in the restorative power of nature and in the
validity of natural emotions.’ (Sampson, 478) There is a quality in nature that nurtures man’s
spirit. ‘Wordsworth’s peculiar originality is to be sought in his expression of what nature
meant to him.’ (Sampson, 480) He does not describe nature in detail, ‘but no one has ever
surpassed him in the power of giving utterance to some of the most elementary, and, at the
same time, obscure, sensations of man confronted by the eternal spectacle of nature’
(Sampson, 480). ‘These sensations, old as man himself, come to us as new, because
Wordsworth was the first to find words for them.’ (Sampson, 480) It is believed that they
even had therapeutic effect, for the famous economist John Stuart Mill read Wordsworth’s
poetry when he was depressed, and it allegedly helped him restore his mental balance.
Although the poet had a long and fruitful career, many agree that outside his golden
decade, i.e. 1797-1807 there are no great literary achievements. They also might be unjustly
dismissed when compared with the heights of his poetry which he reached in middle-life, but
the fact is that his best poems fall within the scope of the mentioned decade. Besides poetry
Wordsworth also wrote prose, such as pamphlets and ‘prefaces and essays on the nature of
poetic expression’ (Sampson, 480).
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Lyrical Ballads. Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems that includes pieces by

Wordsworth and by Coleridge. It is not the first published book by Wordsworth, but it is the
first successful one. The two poets decided to write in two different veins – Wordsworth was
to write about ordinary events adding to the touch of mystery, using colloquial language, and
Coleridge was to write about supernatural things presenting them as reality. They wanted to
give poetry back to ordinary people, for the age of classicism reserved it only for the elite.
The first edition appeared in 1798, followed by the ones in 1800 and 1802. The latter two
contain Prefaces which can be taken as manifestoes of romantic poetry. In them Wordsworth
expounded his own ideas on poetry and poetic language. He states that good poetry requires
both profound emotions and profound thoughts. It is the ‘natural man’ he writes about, the
man from countryside who is close to nature and whose language is thus closer to true
emotions. Wordsworth was not the first poet to advocate such ideas, for Burns and some
sentimentalist poets also wrote about the ‘natural ma’, but he was the first to give them
theoretic expression.
Lyrical Ballads contained more poems by Wordsworth than by Coleridge. To the 1800
edition Wordsworth even added more poems, including some of his best. They can be divided
into two groups – ballads (narratives about people from rural environments) and lyrical poems
about nature, with ‘Lucy Poems’ (about love and nature) as its sub-group.
Ballads are the less successful group of poems which were to exemplify the ideas
stated in the Preface. They use colloquial language are a combination of narratives and lyrical
impressions, often didactic. Many of the ballads have the following pattern – on his long
walks the poet meets somebody with a sad life-story, and then empathizes with him or her.
‘Simon Lee’ is a poem about an old hunter, ‘Her Eyes Are Wild’ about an abandoned crazy
girl, ‘We Are Seven’ about a small girl who tells the poet that there are seven children in her
family, although two of them had already died, but she includes them, too. ‘Michael’ is a
poem about a peasant who starts building a pen for sheep with his son. The son then goes to
the town which life corrupts him, and he eventually dies. Michael goes on to build the pen,
though unwillingly, and having lost hope in his child the pen remains unfinished.
The poems of nature contain much stronger emotions and ideas than the ballads.
Nature is in them exalted as life’s teacher superimposed to books. Wordsworth strongly
believed in it, although he does not concretely explain how nature actually gives lectures in
morality and laws of humanity. In the poem ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’ a contrast is
emphasized between the beauty of nature and the troubled society. It shows what man has
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made of man, and is somewhat utopian. The suggestion is given that were men to follow
nature and its laws, there would be much less misery in society.
‘Lucy Poems’ appeared both in Lyrical Ballads and in Poems in Two Volumes from
1807. They tell of the poet’s love for a girl who died very young, and who was an epitome of
natural and uncorrupt life. It is not known whether this portrait was drawn on a real
personality, or if it was just a character from the poet’s fancy. These poems are placed within
the peaks of Wordsworth’s poetry. In ‘Three years she grew in sun and shower’ the girl
beauty and overall qualities are given in the light of scenes from nature. ‘She dwelt among
the’ untrodden ways’ emphasizes the ‘bliss of solitude’. The short and simple but still
complex song ‘A spirit did my slumber seal’ gives a contrast in its two stanzas – the first one
expounds the feeling of immortality in love, the idea that the loved one just cannot die, and
the second one harshly states that the poet’s love is dead, but that she has now become part of
the natural environment – of rocks and trees.
Tintern Abbey Revisited. This is one of the most famous poems from the volume,
written in blancverse in somewhat elevated style of an ode. It features a successful description
of an old church by the river Wye, and compares the poet’s impressions of it when he last saw
it five years previously, and now, when he is composing the poem. It is full of contrasts and
variety, and one of the main ideas is that the memories of this landscape were a kind of balm
in the poet’s distressed hour when he was away from it, in corrupt cities and among miserable
humanity. The famous quote that ‘we see into the life of things’ perhaps resounds with
mystical implications and is a description of a ‘spot in time’, so frequent in Wordsworth’s
poetry. In the mid-parts of the poem he states that he is no longer able to experience nature as
passionately and spontaneously as when he was a boy. However, there is some compensation
for the strength of impressions he has lost – and that is another gift, a more elevated
pantheistic feeling of interfusion between man and nature, an almost mystical penetration
beyond the surfaces of appearance. The final parts of the poems are addressed to Coleridge
and to Dorothy, and are weaker than the rest. This poem, which is slightly unequal in quality,
expounds the main topics such as: the difference between perception in youth and in mature
years, the unity of man and nature, mystical feelings, the power of memories.
The poems published in Lyrical Ballads contain patterns of almost all topics and
poetic procedures that Wordsworth was going to use afterwards in his career.
Other short poems. Many of Wordsworth’s successful shorter poems depict people as
symbols of dignity and peace attained through their constant touch with nature. Such are, for
example, ‘The Leech Gatherer’ or ‘The Solitary Reaper’. The latter is a poem about a girl in
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Scottish highlands, reaping and singing in, to the poet, incomprehensible Gaelic. In it
Wordsworth writes about a ‘spot in time’, a spontaneous moment which hides within it the
mystery of the universe. This mystery is furthered with the poet’s guessing at the end of what
the girl sings about. One of his most enchanting poems. In the probably most famous poem
‘The Daffodils’ Wordsworth describes an impression a field of yellow daffodils has made on
him. The nature and mystery of life are again connected here. The mentioned poems resound
the ideas stated in ‘Tintern Abbey Revisited’. ‘The Rainbow’ contains the famous line that
‘the child is father of the man,’ and it suggests that we should retain a link with our childhood.
It treats a similar idea as is given in ‘Ode on Intimations of Immortality’.
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. This longer
poem (about 200 lines) was published in Poems in Two Volumes in 1807, although the poet
started composing it as early as 1802, as soon as he got disillusioned with the French
Revolution. It has 11 uneven stanzas and incorporates various rhymes. Its form is quite free,
its content perhaps represents ‘the crown of his work and his last word on the central
problems of his creative life’ (Bowra, 76). The main line of the songs deals with the poet’s
unhappiness for the loss of a child’s vision of the world. He examines why it happens, tries to
accept it, and finally finds compensation for the loss. In the poem we have ‘a crisis, an
explanation, and a consolation’ (Bowra, 76), and ‘Wordsworth speaks of what is most
important and most original in his poetry’ (Bowra, 76). The following lines emphasize it:
‘Whisther is fled the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream?’
‘The first four stanzas tell of a spiritual crisis, of a glory passing from the earth, and
end by asking why this has happened.’ (Bowra, 76) The first two state this loss in an inspired
way, the next two reiterate the same idea in a slightly redundant way.
‘The middle stanzas (v-viii) examine the nature of this glory and explain it by a theory
of reminiscence from a pre-natal existence.’ (Bowra, 76) In the fifth stanza Wordsworth
explains the profundity of child’s vision with the idea that the soul exists in the heaven before
it is incarnated, and that in early days the child still retains parts of the heavenly vision and
shiny clouds, which disappear as the human matures, and as one gets more and more rational
and pragmatic. However, reminiscing childhood can preserve the connection with the
heavenly state of the mind. These ideas were not original. ‘From Coleridge Wordsworth took
the idea of pre-existence and from Vaughan that of a slow decline in celestial powers.’
(Bowra, 97) Still, such ideas were not acceptable by the wider public, for ‘Wordsworth was
troubled by the criticism of some pious souls who argued, correctly enough, that the notion of
pre-existence has no warrant in Holy Writ […] in later years, as he grew more orthodox, he
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himself ceased to believe in it’ (Bowra, 96). Stanzas six, seven and eight describe nature
which becomes an ally in the task to make man forget about his early enchantments, but he
still retains a connection with childhood, when the vision is departed there is still the effect
that ‘nature had on his affections’ (Bowra, 101).
‘The last three stanzas show that, though the vision has perished, life has still a
meaning and a value.’ (Bowra, 76) They nicely round up and repeat the main ides of the poem
and suggest the compensation for the loss of visionary insights. Hard experience and
reflections of mortality give man compassion for others, and compassion is a sufficient
compensation, so one should not be sad.
This poem describes man’s observing of nature and his passive pleasures, but avoids
active enjoyments, such as love. There is also no mention of man’s participation in society, so
all the ideas stated in this poem are narrowly connected with Wordsworth’s idiosyncratic
personality. However, his ‘belief in natural religion began to wane soon after the completion
of the Ode’ (Bowra, 102).
Wordsworth was also known for reviving the sonnet which was almost dead during
the previous era. His sonnets cannot be listed among the best written in the English language,
but still they treat a variety of topics much wider than dealt with in other Wordsworth’s
works. His famous sonnets include ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’, (about the sleepy
city attuned with the eternal peace of the universe) ‘The world is too much with us’, (about
incongruence between man and nature) ‘Scorn not the Sonnet’ (about poetry), London 1802
(about Milton), ‘It is a beauteous evening’ (about the meeting with his natural daughter), etc.
The Recluse. As early as 1795 Wordsworth planned an ambitious work called ‘The
Recluse’. However, this work remained unfinished. The part of it called ‘The Recluse’
represents now the unfinished mid-part of the book, while he managed to complete the
introductory part and some others, too. The idea for this work was to analyze human spirit on
the instance of his own development, but it turned out too ambitious a task.
The name of the introduction to this envisaged book is The Prelude, which is a
relatively successful poem and can stand on its own. The first version was composed in 1805,
but Wordsworth adapted it in his late years, attuning it with his later beliefs. It is a poem
written in blancverse, consisting of 14 ‘books’, an epic which has a romantic sentiment and
which was a completely new undertaking in English poetry. It represents the poet’s poetic
autobiography and emphasizes the development of his spirit and of his poetic gift. We cannot
call this poem a real epic, for it recounts only those elements that had emotional importance in
Wordsworth’s life and that shaped him into a poet, and he tells about his reactions and
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reflections. There are great fragments in this book, such as descriptions of nature and
visionary moments, but they are linked with many lifeless passages, so its only partially
successful. The curious thing is that the poet never even alludes to his sexual persona, which
was in line with Victorian false morality.
The part of ‘The Recluse’ envisaged as an intermezzo between the first and the third
book is called The Excursion. The title has both a direct and a metaphorical meaning – for it is
an excursion that is retold here, the poet’s walk in the mountains and his encounters with
many people, but there is no plot, and the point of the poem is certainly not in the events
taking place in it. The work consists of nine books which include many examples from real
life, but there is no obvious developing line. What also may have a somewhat problematic
reception today is that in this book Wordsworth defends conventional Christianity, monarchy,
his nation. Just like The Prelude, The Excursion is also only fragmentary successful.

Conclusion
William Wordsworth was the first English poet who definitely broke up with the
classicist tradition. He is an intensely romantic poet, for he sings only about things that have
to do with his emotions. When he tries to write about some other aspects of life – he usually
fails. The message of Wordsworth’s poetry is joy, joy about the things that are available to us
all – nature, imagination, emotional word, close relationships with family and friends.
However, it is nature that stands at the first place in Wordsworth’s poetry. It was a force from
which he sought most poetic inspiration, and was seriously troubled when, in his mid-years,
he seemed to have lost touch with inspiration of nature. Nature has been superbly depicted in
Wordsworth’s poems – not in great detail, but rather as fantastic and unforgettable overall
impressions. Although he wrote a lot, it is only a fraction of his opus that is considered
supremely successful. His poems are highly original and possess great strength, but they deal
with a limited range of topics: the beauty of nature, the beauty of childhood, the intimations of
death. Wordsworth is even today considered as the leading romantic poet in England, and he
has always been much popular there than abroad. Perhaps one of the reasons for his standing
popularity even through the demanding Victorian age was that he did not tackle with any of
the bourgeois taboos, which included even hiding facts from his personal life. Another reason
why he was not so popular abroad as were, for example, Byron or Shelley, was that he was
perhaps ‘too British’. Still, the romantic age is in England sometimes called ‘the age of
Wordsworth.’
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