We couldn’t visit the Lake District without mentioning the Lake Poets, as they in large part were the ones who popularised the area. The most important were William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. Dorothy Wordsworth should also be mentioned as, although not published in her lifetime, she provided much of the inspiration for her brother William’s work. Charles and Mary Lamb and Thomas De Quincey also played their part. Keats and Sir Walter Scott also visited, and John Ruskin made his home there at Brantwood, which we’ll be visiting.
In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge first published their Lyrical Ballads, the preface of which became known as the Manifesto of Romanticism and the start of the English Romantic Movement.
Arguably the most famous poems written in the Lake District are William Wordsworth’s The Daffodils, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, but there are many others and I’ll be reading some of these to you while we’re there.
About the author
Dai (David) Vaughan is a contemporary British artist who with his late wife Jenny created work which spans decades . They are well-known primarily for their work in Glasgow, which includes a series of anamorphic mural portraits of famous people born in Glasgow which they created to hang at the Princes Square Shopping Center. They were chosen to design the Christmas lights for George Square and Cardiff City Council. Most notably, they worked on gesso panels for the House for an Art Lover and Willow Tea Rooms. Dai is also a poet, and loves walks where he can go dowsing – using a forked stick, rod, pendulum, or similar device to locate underground water, minerals, or other hidden or lost substances.