Spirit of the Wild

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth, Liz Hamilton looks at how his vision informed conservation and how we see the natural world

- Liz Hamilton

William Wordsworth was born 250 years ago, on April 7, 1770; a timely anniversary as the nation rediscovers connections with nature, and will perhaps lead to a resurgence of interest in his work. More rooted in the natural world than any previous poet, he changed the nature of English poetry and our perception of the landscape.

As a child he relished the freedom to explore the countryside around his home in Cockermouth, on the north-western edge of the Lake District. His mother died just before his eighth birthday, and his father five years later. Feelings of loss appear in his poetry repeatedly, but he found consolation in nature. He often walked alone and the working people and travellers he met appear in his poetry, as do the physical features of the landscape and its wildlife.

As a child Wordsworth experienced episodes when he felt mysterious forces emanating from the physical landscape. He referred to them as ‘spots of time’ when ‘our minds… are nourished, and invisibly repaired’. He took a boat out on to a lake at night and was alarmed by a towering cliff, which seemed ‘like a living thing’. On other occasions he felt a spirit or sublime presence emanating from the rocks and cliffs.

Wordsworth began writing poetry before he left his school in Hawkshead for Cambridge in 1787. Three years later he toured Europe with a friend during the long summer holiday. They visited France, Switzerland and Germany, and crossed the Alps, walking most of the way and sometimes covering 40 miles a day. They were in Paris on July 14, 1790, the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. At that time Wordsworth was greatly uplifted by the French Revolution; he later wrote: