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William Wordsworth (1770-1850) stands as a towering figure in the pantheon of English literature, renowned for his pioneering role in the early 19th-century Romantic movement. Born in the Lake District, a region that would emerge as an enduring muse for his poetry, Wordsworth developed a deep affinity for nature that pervaded his literary works. Educated at Cambridge University, he embarked upon a grand tour of Europe which strongly influenced his worldview and artistic trajectory. Wordsworth's partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge was perhaps most visibly crystallized in their joint publication, 'Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems of Coleridge & Wordsworth' (1798), often lauded as the incipient event of the Romantic age in English literature. Wordsworth's contributions to the volume, including the preface to its second edition, offered a new aesthetic credo that valued emotion, individualism, and natural beauty, detouring from the Neoclassical tendencies of the preceding age. His other notable works include the autobiographical epic 'The Prelude' and a profusion of shorter poems such as 'Tintern Abbey' and 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,' which remain classics of English poetry. Wordsworth's lucid and evocative use of language, emphasis on introspection, and the innovative exploration of the interface between the human psyche and the natural world are hallmarks of his legacy. Appointed Poet Laureate in 1843, Wordsworth's influence endures in the literary canon and continues to inform the ecological sensibilities within modern discourse.
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