Published for the 250th anniversary of his birth, a major work and celebration of William Wordsworth – the greatest of the Romantic poets, and an astonishing political figure who transformed the world for good. W.H. Auden wrote, upon the death of Yeats, that ‘poetry makes nothing happen.' Jonathan Bate's book is a refusal of that idea; a vivid celebration of Wordsworth as a poet whose work changed the course of literature, but also as an iconic cultural figure who had a permanent impact on politics, spiritualism, philosophy, and our relationship with nature.In lively, adventurous biography, Jonathan Bate explores Wordsworth as a man, as a part of the Romantic movement, and – crucially – as a figure who has lived with us ever since. Bate explores how Wordsworth was not just the greatest of the Romantic poets, but the inventive core from whom the other writers reacted. He puts Wordsworth into his proper context, populating the book with the people of his moment who influenced his course – as well as those who followed and riffed on his legacy.This is bold, thoughtful biography that pulls poetry to the forefront of the era, understanding it not as an idle literary pleasure, but as a means of changing thought, pushing for progress, changing the world.