华兹华斯(1770～1850年)

Wordsworth, William

英国诗人。父母早丧，曾就读剑桥大学。1793～1795年是他生平最不幸的时期，生计无着，思想苦闷。直到1795年获得一笔遗产後，诗人得以和妹妹重聚。他与柯立芝相遇，结成挚友，两人合写的《抒情歌谣集》（1798），促进了英国浪漫主义运动的兴起。诗集包括了华兹华斯的〈廷特恩教堂〉和其他抒情诗。华兹华斯试图把中下层阶级的口语尽量用於表达诗的乐趣。1798年前後他开始写自传诗；《前奏曲》1805年完成初稿，於1850年他去世时候出版。他的第二本诗集《诗二卷》（1807）包括「不朽的徵兆」和他多数最好的诗。其作品的主要主题是人与大自然的关系。1797～1808年这十年他写出不少优秀作品。晚年诗人的想像力渐衰，缺乏早年的清新感，佳作渐少。1843年被封为桂冠诗人。他被认为是英国浪漫主义的中心人物。

English version：

1770～1850年

Wordsworth, William

English poet. Orphaned at 13, Wordsworth attended Cambridge Univ., but remained rootless and virtually penniless until 1795, when a legacy made possible a reunion with his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. He became friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he wrote Lyrical Ballads (1798), the collection often considered to have launched the English Romantic movement. Wordsworth's contributions include “Tintern Abbey” and many lyrics controversial for their common, everyday language. Around 1798 he began writing the epic autobiographical poem that would absorb him intermittently for the next 40 years, The Prelude (1850). His second verse collection, Poems, in Two Volumes (1807), includes many of the rest of his finest works, including “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” His poetry is perhaps most original in its vision of the almost divine power of the creative imagination reforging the links between man and man between humankind and the natural world. The most memorable poems of his middle and late years were often cast in elegaic mode; few match the best of his earlier works. By the time he became widely appreciated by the critics and the public, his poetry had lost much of its force and his radical politics had yielded to conservatism. In 1843 he became England's poet laureate. He is regarded as the central figure in the initiation of English Romanticism.