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Radical Wordsworth
- The Poet Who Changed the World
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Art & Literature
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William Wordsworth's autobiographical poem The Prelude is arguably the most important piece of poetic writing in our language. Recorded in Wordsworth's home in Grasmere, Cumbria, Wordsworth looks back over events in his early life. Wordsworth believed that poetry should be written in the natural language of common speech, and in that way it was revolutionary in its time.
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Paint dries before the war.
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Great Poets of the Romantic Age
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With a dynamic spirit, these great English poets made a conscious return to nostalgia and spiritual depth. Each chose a different path, but they are united in a love of moods, impressions, scenes, stories, sights and sounds. In this collection of more than forty poems are some of the finest and most memorable works in the English language.
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Lovely reading by Michael Sheen
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Summary
A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020.
A dazzling new biography of Wordsworth’s radical life as a thinker and poetical innovator, published to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth.
William Wordsworth wrote the first great poetic autobiography. We owe to him the idea that places of outstanding natural beauty should become what he called ‘a sort of national property’. He changed forever the way we think about childhood, about the sense of the self, about our connection to the natural environment and about the purpose of poetry.
He was born among the mountains of the English Lake District. He walked into the French Revolution and had a love affair and an illegitimate child before witnessing horrific violence in Paris. His friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge was at the core of the Romantic movement. As he retreated from radical politics and into an imaginative world within, his influence would endure as he shaped the ideas of thinkers, writers and activists throughout the 19th century in both Britain and the United States. This wonderful book opens what Wordsworth called ‘the hiding places of my power’.
W. H. Auden once wrote that ‘Poetry makes nothing happen’. He was wrong. Wordsworth’s poetry changed the world. Award-winning biographer and critic Jonathan Bate tells the story of how it happened.
Critic reviews
"Radical Wordsworth deserves to take its place as the finest modern introduction to his work, life and impact." (Financial Times)
"Richly repays reading.... It is hard to think of another poet who has changed our world so much." (Sunday Times)
"An entertaining biography.... Excellent, intellectually rousing." (The Times)
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What listeners say about Radical Wordsworth
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Overall
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Performance
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- DavidT
- 27-04-20
Largely entertaining, however some of the claims's
at the end for WW's importance were a bit hyperbolic. My main complaint however was with the performance. I found the voices Mr Keeble put on when reading the quotes highly distracting from the substance (particularly when putting on a voice for Dorothy). Pity because otherwise it was very entertaining and informative.