William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet, who along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, founded the Romantic Movement of literature. His first examples of romantic poetry came in 1798 when his work “Lyrical Ballads” was published. Another of his most often mentioned poems is a semi-autobiography known prior to his death as “poem to Coleridge”, and revised several times. Published after his death, it was renamed to The Prelude.
As a child his mother taught him to read and he attended a low quality school, it was not until the death of his mother that he received a more formal education when his father sent him to a boarding school. His father had taught him about poetry and allowed him access to his personal library, though his father was rarely there for William and his siblings.
He was often sent to visit with his grandparents, who were not kind to him. To relieve his distress during these visits, he would wander the moors and developed an appreciation for nature. This appreciation is expressed in the romantic era poetry that he wrote. One such work is The Prospectus which reveals some of his most famous lines on the relation between the human mind and nature.
During about a 5 year period, opinion was that Wordsworths writing was on the decline, though now it’s believed that most of the issues he wrote about had been resolved through his writing. He continued to write until about 1847, when the third of his 5 children passed away.
When you read his poetry, it's easy to see why he's considered one of the best romantic poets.