[Music] when you read that william wordsworth was the greatest english romantic poet that he mostly wrote about nature and in his late days he was made poet laureate of england that's correct his portraits too tend to reinforce the idea of england's national poet a man who devoted his life to books and literature which again is right but that is not all there is to wordsworth the poet and the man he did love natural sceneries since he was born in the lake district an area of supreme natural beauty in the north of england as a child with his three brothers he was allowed to wander freely in the countryside by day and occasionally by night drinking in as he put it the air and its side sounds and smells in his rambles he would also get to know the people solitary people who lived in the countryside the shepherd the cottagers both people and the natural scenery would provide inspiration for his later poetry but he was also a restless young man as a student he found the atmosphere at cambridge uh not particularly stimulating it was the first clear sign of young wordsworth dissatisfaction with the english establishment he especially longed for his summer vacations to be allowed to go on travels to italy and to his beloved mountains again his travels abroad and in england are reflected in his poetry but the event that changed words with life was a revolution he was 21 when he visited france at the time of the french revolution it had a tremendous impact on him both as a social and cultural event but also at a personal level uh he became a fervent supporter of revolutionary ideas which for him did i'm quoting a glorious renovation of society he also fell in love with a french girl annette valone who bore him a daughter caroline the two wanted to marry apparently but either lack of money or the opposition of their parents forced roswell to abandon a net and returned to england he was prevented from returning to france by the outbreak of the war and the combination of personal guilt feelings and divided political loyalties between england and france brought him to the verge of a nervous breakdown all of this is clearly and touchingly described in his great autobiographical poem the predute now what was best known poetry 2 collected in lyrical balance reflects the revolutionary spirit of the time in its way it was a poetic revolution the subject of poetry had become the ordinary person and not a king or a nobleman and ordinary speech was used instead of high classical diction lyrical ballast was really the beginning not just of romantic poetry but of modern poetry the poetry of the self from now on what the writer felt his reaction to the external world became the subject of poetry and approach too there's something else about lyrical ballast it was written by wordsworth together with a lifelong friend samuel taylor coleridge the other great poet revealed early english romanticism they met in 1797 and for several years lived in the same area of sunset they met almost every day and spent a lot of time together talking listening to and editing each other's poems sometimes the same phrases may be found in poems written by both poets lyrical ballas was the result of this remarkable friendship worthwhile contributed his love of natural and ordinary subjects while college his love of the exotic and the supernatural and it happened rather than coleridge bitterly quarried in 1810 and were not reconciled for over 20 years which shows that great poets too have great friendships but fall out of them just as we all do after wordsworth's death in 1850 his sister dorothy published the long narrative poem he had been writing since he was a young man it was an autobiography in verse the first of its kind and is are considered to be wordsworth's best poetry it's called the prelude but the title chose by wordsworth was point to college it was a fit and affectionate tribute to a personal friendship and the most fruitful collaboration in english literature you