“For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor... To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves.”

English Romantic poet

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet. He lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and with Samuel Taylor Coleridge he helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature through their joint publication, Lyrical Ballads, in 1798. His work is closely associated with the rise of Romantic poetry in England, especially through the ideas and tone that shaped that movement. He is remembered for helping redefine English poetry at a turning point in literary history.