Showing results by author "William Wordsworth" in All Categories

Adopting the methodology of the music charts, The Classic Hundred Poems presents the "top 100" poems of all time. The selections are illuminated by the informative notes of editor William Harmon and read by an ensemble of contemporary poets including Alfred Corn and Rita Dove.

Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".

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.

Wordsworth's The Prelude is the consummation of his achievement as the great founder of English romanticism. An autobiography in verse, it tells of his childhood in the Lake District, his student days in Cambridge, his passion for the French Revolution and his later disenchantment with it. It also tells of his personal journey to a belief in Nature as the great moral and spiritual force which shapes human life, but on which human society all too often turns its back.

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.

In this collection, the authors were striving for a natural and unaffected style of verse that sought to avoid the elaborate structures and artifice that they considered had characterized much of the poetry of the 18th century. Of the 23 poems, only four are by Coleridge, including "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", which is the most famous poem in the collection. The most notable contribution by Wordsworth is the concluding poem, "Tintern Abbey".

Enjoy the best of Lakeland poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey in this specially selected anthology, including "The Two-Part Prelude", Wordsworth's own shortened version of his great autobiographical work The Prelude, and Coleridge's celebrated Kubla Khan. John Rowe, Alex Jennings, and Stephen Critchlow read these perfect evocations of majestic Cumbrian scenery.

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Romantic period, the battlefield and the Victorian era, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Themes of war, love, nature, sexuality and much more are played out in these timeless readings of poetry from the 19th and 20th century.

The English language has grown into the world’s pre-dominant spoken language, containing over one million words. Its sources are rich and diverse, having absorbed words from other cultures and times without hesitation. With such talents as Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Kipling, Blake, and many other classic poets using this most flexible language to render their thoughts and visions, it is no wonder that the beauty and reach of English entrances us.

Lyrical Ballads features a selection of poems from Wordsworth and Coleridge's 1798 collaboration, which marked the beginning of the English Romantic poetry movement. In the first episode, we hear Coleridge's "Lewti" and Wordsworth's "The Thorn", while the second episode showcases Coleridge's "The Nightingale" and Wordsworth's "Lucy" poems. In the final episode, we hear Wordsworth's "Lines Written A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" and Coleridge's ballad, "Love".

Here's a wonderful selection of Wordsworth's finest work, including "Daffodils", "Sonnets", "Upon Westminster Bridge", and "The Tables Turned".

Christmas, they say, comes but once a year. In these days it seems to also last for much of that year - but this volume is not just for Christmas! For the religious amongst us, this annual celebration of the Birth of Christ must seem bitter sweet: it's acknowledgment by billions of people countered by the pervasive spread of material possessions translating the event to little more than a sales pitch for material wares.

Simon Cliffe reads some of the greatest Christmas poems for the 12 days of Christmas. Day 1 - Merry Christmas by Louise May Alcott. Day 2 - Christ's Nativity by Henry Vaughan. Day 3 - Ceremonies for Christmas by Robert Herrick. Day 4 - New Prince, New Pomp by Robert Southwell. Day 5 - Christmas Cheer by Thomas Tusser. Day 6 - Ring Out, Wild Bells by Lor Alfred Tennyson. Day 7 - The Oxen by Thomas Hardy. Day 8 - Nativity by John Donne. Day 9 - A Christmas Carol by G.K. Chesterton.

Silence is rare in Nature. When we really listen, Nature is conducting symphonies of sound as her world goes about the day and night. Her invisible heartbeat is everywhere, for everyone. Our eyes are constantly bathed in the wonder of her ways, the soft drizzle of rain from soft grey clouds, the bleached harsh desert sand of a noon day, a wave caressing the shore, to the ravenous colours of a departing sunset. Indeed, whenever we look and listen to the vastness of our world Nature’s beauty is always there for us..

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in Cockermouth, in the Lake District. His Lyrical Ballads, written in collaboration with Coleridge, was published in 1798, and shortly afterwards he settled in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, with his sister Dorothy. Inspired in his early manhood by the French Revolution, he grew disillusioned with revolutionary politics and in later life became decidedly conservative. He left a vast body of work, ranging from delicately simple lyrics to deeply meditative odes.

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Romantic period, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Love, romance and portrayals of nature are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period. Performed by Richard Burton, Peter Orr, William Squire, Richard Marquand, Peggy Ashcroft, Margaretta Scott, Tony Church, Derek Godfrey, Patrick Garland, Gary Watson and Janette Richer. This collection includes poems from: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats.

The finest voices reading a wonderful selection of poetry accompanied by selected classical music.

William Wordsworth (1770 -1850) is one of the most popular and enduring of the English poets. His poetry is beloved for its deep feeling, its use of ordinary speech, and its celebration of nature and of the beauty and poetry in the commonplace. Together with his friend, the poet and political activist Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth helped launch the romantic age in English literature. These poems demonstrate the astonishing range and beauty of Wordsworth’s work and his sustained, coherent vision.

This collection of 35 poems is a sequel to a volume of lyrical ballads first published in 1798. While the first volume was a collaboration between Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this anthology contains verses by Wordsworth only. Generally, the poems are less well-known than those of the earlier volume but do include major narrative pieces, like "The Pastoral Epics", "The Brothers", and "Michael".

The period of English romantic poetry occurred roughly between 1800 and 1850 and was represented by poets such as William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. All of these poets are featured in this collection of more than 50 poems read by award-winning actors that include Joan Allen, Julie Christie, Stephen Fry, Glenda Jackson, and Jude Law.