Today’s a big day on the Dead Poets Society’s calendar.  On April 7, 1770, one of the founding members, William Wordsworth was born.  Alongside his buddy Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth kicked of the Romantic movement in the 19th century, a rebellion against the stiff, rational ideals of the Enlightenment.  These guys weren’t just writing pretty poems about daffodils (though Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a banger) or tributes glorifying their patrons; they were shaking up the literary world with raw, emotional verse that put the individual’s experience front and center.  Their 1798 collection, Lyrical Ballads, was a middle finger to the stuff neoclassical norms  of the time, emphasizing imagination, the beauty of the natural world, and the power of language.  Which was pretty disruptive for a couple of poets in an era when most writers were obsessed with order and reason.

Wordsworth deserves much more attention here…he and Blake were surprisingly strong influences on me.  But I have writing of my own to get done…but happy birthday to Mr. Wordsworth.

N.P.: “Take Up The Fight” – Family Money