We can't talk about British Romanticism without talking about William Wordsworth, the father of the whole she-bang. In fact, the beginning of British Romanticism as a literary movement is usually traced back to Wordsworth's publication of the collection of poems Lyrical Ballads in 1798, which he co-authored with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Why is Wordsworth so important? For one thing, he revolutionized the writing of poetry. Wordsworth was one of the first poets to try to make poetry accessible to the common man, to write in a language that was part of "everyday" speech. Not to mention that a lot of the big Romantic themes—like nature and emotion—first find expression in Wordsworth's poetry.

Lyrical Ballads (1798)

It's the book that kick-started the Romantic movement in England. In the preface to this collection of poetry, Wordsworth defines poetry as the "spontaneous overflow of emotion….recollected in tranquility." There's lots of emotion, for sure—and lots of trees and flowers.

Poems (1807)

More flowers, trees, and emotion. In this second collection of poetry, Wordsworth develops the Romantic project of bringing man/woman back to nature, focusing on the individual, and making poetry accessible to all.

Chew on This

Look at how Wordsworth uses or everyday language in his poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud (Daffodils)"

Nature was by far the biggest theme in Wordsworth's writing. Check out these nature quotations from his poem, "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798"