Today is William Wordsworth’s death anniversary.

Today is the death anniversary of William Wordsworth, the founder of the European Romantic poetry movement. He was born on April 17, 1770 in Cockermouth, a small town in Cumberland, England. Wordsworth, who has a long life, has been immersed in poetry for almost 50 years and has enriched English literature as well as world literature. Looking at Wordsworth’s relentless poetic practice, surprised critics commented – ‘Wordsworth is unique in the history of English poetry.’

Wordsworth was on the one hand a poet of nature, a poet of divine consciousness; On the other hand, his nature consciousness culminated in a philosophical conviction. Looking at this work of Wordsworth, critics called him the epic poet and philosopher of nature, The Highest Priest of Nature etc. William Wordsworth was one of the foremost poets in the 19th century who rebelled against neo-classical literature and sang the praises of Romanticism. In addition to natural beauty, the happiness and sorrows and laughter and tears of common people, rural biographies are predominant in his poetry.

Farmer’s Daily Wordsworth’s first poem—’An Evening Walk’. It was written in 1793 AD. Another poem titled ‘Descriptive Sketches’ was published in the same year. It describes Wordsworth’s travels in the Alps and his experiences of the simple and unsophisticated lifestyle of the peasants in Switzerland.

In 1798, William Wordsworth and his friend Coleridge jointly edited ‘Lyrical Ballads’, which marked the beginning of the Romantic era in world literature. Four poems by Coleridge and nineteen by Wordsworth are included here. The poem changed the perspective of poets and writers of that time. In its introduction, the ideals, form, language and style of poetry of the new age are discussed in detail. Naturally, the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ are regarded as the milestones of Wordsworth’s poetic career.

Another notable poetry book of Wordsworth is ‘Lucy’s Group of Poems’. This poem somewhat fills the dearth of love poetry in Wordsworth’s entire oeuvre. However, the so-called Passionate love is not given special importance here.

‘Ecclesiastical Sonnets’ is a collection of quatrains by Wordsworth. It contains a total of 132 sonnets. Their content is religious sentiments and philosophical theories. However, Wordsworth wrote more than three hundred sonnets throughout his life. Among them, the number of sonnets based on nature, homeland and human life is not less. Apart from the sonnets, Wordsworth’s world-famous poems include ‘Lines Composed of a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey’, ‘London’, ‘Ode to Duty’, ‘The Fountain’, ‘The Solitary Reaper’, ‘The To April Morning’, ‘To a Skylark’, ‘To the Crow’, ‘To the Daisy’, ‘September’, ‘The Exercise’, ‘Laudamia’ etc.

The fact that Wordsworth was the forerunner of the Romantic poetry movement is evidenced by his influence on the poetry of many Romantic poets in later world literature. Bengali lyricists too could not escape the influence of Wordsworth. Wordsworth was influenced by the poetry of Rangalal Banerjee, Madhusudan Dutta, Hemchandra Banerjee, the first poet of modern Bengali poetry; Later, when the victory journey of Bengali lyric poetry started under the leadership of Biharilal Chakraborty, Wordsworth also influenced the poetry of the poets of that time. Wordsworth’s influence on Biharilal’s poems like ‘Sangeet Shatak’, ‘Nisarga Sandarshan’ ‘Sardamangal’ etc. is very extensive.

Rabindranath was also influenced by Wordsworth in his poetic career. Like Wordsworth, he also felt the unity of human spirit with nature in numerous poems like ‘Basundhara’, ‘Toward the Sea’, ‘Jete Nahi Div’ etc. The fourth stanza of Wordsworth’s ‘Prelude’ bears considerable resemblance to Rabindranath’s ‘Nirjhar Swapnabhanga’. So there is no room for doubt that Wordsworth was a great romantic poet. Wordsworth died on this day in 1850 AD.