William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint collection Lyrical Ballads in 1798. In the preface to its second edition, in 1800, he sought verse in the language "really used by men" and defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". He settled at Grasmere in the Lake District, the region of his birth, and was Poet Laureate from 1843. The Prelude, the autobiographical poem generally considered his masterpiece, was published by his widow after his death.