 Wordsworth, born in his beloved Lake District, was the son of an attorney. His school years were later to be described vividly in "The Prelude". Wordsworth wrote many of his greatest poems after his returning from France (1795-1799), where he twice fell in love: once with a young french woman Annette Vallon, and the, once more, with the French Revolution. In these years he wrote enlarged edition of "Lyrical Ballads", this was followed by the publication of "Poems in Two Volumes", which included the poems "Resolution and Independence" and "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". During this period he also made new friendships with Walter Scott, Sir G. Beaumont and De Quincy, wrote such poems as "Elegaic Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle".
Today Wordsworth's poetry remains widely read. Its almost universal appeal is perhaps best explained by Wordsworth's own words words on the role, for him, of poetry; what he called "the most philosophical of all writing" whose object is "truth... carried alive into the heart by passion".
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