Lake District

The Lake District National Park is one of thirteen National parks in the United Kingdom. It lies entirely within the county of Cumbria, and is one of England's few mountainous regions. All the land in England higher than three thousand feet above sea level lies within the Park. The Lakes, as the region is also called, were made famous during the early 19th century by the poetry and writings of William Wordsworth. This whole land of fells presents wonderful and mystic scenes for painters and photographers and many visitors are attracted there to go rambling, or simply to enjoy views of lake and mountain scenery.

Literature

The Lake District is intimately associated with the history of English literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. In point of time the poet whose name is first connected with the region is Thomas Gray, who wrote a journal of his Grand Tour in 1769. But it was William Wordsworth who really made it a Mecca for lovers of English poetry. Out of his long life of eighty years, sixty were spent amid its lakes and mountains, first as a schoolboy at Hawkshead, and afterwards living in Grasmere (1799-1813) and Rydal Mount (1813-50).

Related Topics:
English literature - 18th - 19th - Thomas Gray - Grand Tour - 1769 - William Wordsworth - Mecca - English poetry - Hawkshead - Grasmere - 1799 - 1813 - Rydal - 50

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In the churchyard of Grasmere the poet and his wife lie buried, and very near to them are the remains of Hartley Coleridge (son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), who himself lived for many years in Keswick, Ambleside and Grasmere. Robert Southey, the friend of Wordsworth, was a resident of Keswick for forty years (1803-43), and was buried in Crosthwaite churchyard. Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived for some time in Keswick, and also with the Wordsworths at Grasmere. From 1807 to 1815 John Wilson was lived at Windermere. De Quincey spent the greater part of the years 1809 to 1828 at Grasmere, in the first cottage which Wordsworth had inhabited. Ambleside, or its environs, was also the place of residence of Thomas Arnold, who spent there the vacations of the last ten years of his life; and of Harriet Martineau, who built herself a house there in 1845. At Keswick Mrs Lynn Linton (wife of William James Linton) was born in 1822. Brantwood, a house beside Coniston Water, was the home of John Ruskin during the last years of his life.

Related Topics:
Grasmere - Hartley Coleridge - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Keswick - Ambleside - Robert Southey - Wordsworth - 1803 - 43 - Crosthwaite - 1807 - 1815 - John Wilson - Windermere - De Quincey - 1809 - 1828 - Thomas Arnold - Harriet Martineau - 1845 - William James Linton - 1822 - Brantwood - Coniston Water - John Ruskin

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In addition to these residents or natives of the Lake District, a variety of other poets and writers made visits to the Lake District or were bound by ties of friendship with those already mentioned above. These include Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Hugh Clough, Henry Crabb Robinson, Thomas Carlyle, John Keats, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Felicia Hemans, and Gerald Massey.

Related Topics:
Percy Bysshe Shelley - Sir Walter Scott - Nathaniel Hawthorne - Arthur Hugh Clough - Henry Crabb Robinson - Thomas Carlyle - John Keats - Lord Tennyson - Matthew Arnold - Felicia Hemans - Gerald Massey

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Almost the only instance of its kind in English literature is the Lake School of Poets. Of this school the acknowledged head and founder was Wordsworth, and the tenets it professed are those laid down by the poet himself in the famous preface to the edition of Lyrical Ballads which he published jointly in 1800 with Coleridge. Wordsworth's theories of poetry – the objects best suited for poetic treatment, the characteristics of such treatment, and the choice of diction suitable for the purpose – may be said to have grown out of the soil and substance of the lakes and mountains, and out of the homely lives of the people, of Cumberland and Westmorland.

Related Topics:
English literature - Wordsworth - Lyrical Ballads - 1800 - Coleridge - Cumberland - Westmorland

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In more recent times, Arthur Ransome was resident in several areas of the Lake District and set a number of his Swallows and Amazons books in a fictionalised Lake District setting.

Related Topics:
Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons

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