Radical Wordsworth

The Poet Who Changed the World

By: Jonathan Bate

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eBook | 2 April 2020

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608 Pages

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A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020

'Radical Wordsworth deserves to take its place as the finest modern introduction to his work, life and impact' Financial Times

'Richly repays reading ... It is hard to think of another poet who has changed our world so much' Sunday Times

A dazzling new biography of Wordsworth's radical life as a thinker and poetical innovator, published to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth.

William Wordsworth wrote the first great poetic autobiography. We owe to him the idea that places of outstanding natural beauty should become what he called 'a sort of national property'. He changed forever the way we think about childhood, about the sense of the self, about our connection to the natural environment, and about the purpose of poetry.

He was born among the mountains of the English Lake District. He walked into the French Revolution, had a love affair and an illegitimate child, before witnessing horrific violence in Paris. His friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge was at the core of the Romantic movement. As he retreated from radical politics and into an imaginative world within, his influence would endure as he shaped the ideas of thinkers, writers and activists throughout the nineteenth century in both Britain and the United States. This wonderful book opens what Wordsworth called 'the hiding places of my power'.

W. H. Auden once wrote that 'Poetry makes nothing happen'. He was wrong. Wordsworth's poetry changed the world. Award-winning biographer and critic Jonathan Bate tells the story of how it happened.

Industry Reviews

PRAISE FOR RADICAL WORDSWORTH

'An entertaining biography ... This excellent, intellectually rousing book is about the young poet ... the Wordsworth who was the 'pure emanation of the spirit of the age', who pitied the poor, loved the natural world and believed "all that we behold is full of blessings"'

The Times

'This new book, like everything Bate writes, richly repays reading ... He is illuminating on the sources of Wordsworth's nature worship ... He carefully and persuasively re-examines the effects of the revolution on Wordsworth ... Bate shows that it was Wordsworth who inspired the founders of the National Trust ... It is hard to think of another poet who has changed our world so much'

Sunday Times

PRAISE FOR JONATHAN BATE'S TED HUGHES: THE UNAUTHORISED LIFE

'Magisterial ... Gripping and at times ineffably sad, this book would be poetic even without the poetry. It will be the standard biography of Ted Hughes for a long time to come' Sunday Times

'A work of head-spinning revelations ... Bate offers a complete picture of Hughes: the man, the work and the restless mythologies that prowled his imagination ... A moving, fascinating biography' The Times

'Comprehensive and definitive ... Bate's relaxed prose keeps everything moving anecdotally ... underpinning it all is a vast command of archival material ... He is also a sure guide to the genesis and reception of each of Hughes's major books' Daily Telegraph

'Bate captures the great poet in all his wild complexity ... A powerful and clarifying study, richly layered and compelling' Melyn Bragg, Observer

'[An] important ... ultimately triumphant biography ... Bate is obviously suited as a biographer and critic. His standing in his academic profession is eminent' Financial Times