William Wordsworth was not only one of the greatest English poets but also a creative and political radical. 250 years after his birth in 1770, Professor Jonathan Bate travels in his footsteps to reveal the true story of the making of the poet.

3. A Sense Sublime
Jonathan travels to the West Country to tell the story of the formative years which Wordsworth spent there, reunited with his sister Dorothy and in the first flush of his collaborative friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was a collaboration that was to lead to the publication of the radical poetry collection Lyrical Ballads - a collection that, for the first time, celebrated the lives of the poor and dispossessed, the disabled and the mentally ill. He goes on to find the very spot where Wordsworth took inspiration for one of his most sublime celebrations of humanity.

Featuring Simon Russell Beale as Wordsworth and music specially composed by Emily Levy. With contributions from leading British poet Alice Oswald, actor Emily Woof and Adam Nicolson, author of a new study of the collaboration between Coleridge and Wordsworth. Also with Laura Christy as Dorothy Wordsworth and viola playing by Aby Vulliamy .

Professor Sir Jonathan Bate is a British academic, novelist and broadcaster, and the author of a forthcoming biography of Wordsworth

Producer: Beaty Rubens Show less