About the project

Led by Professor Phil Shaw, Wordsworth 2020 is an AHRC Leadership Fellows project designed to advance research on Wordsworth's poetry and to provide intellectual leadership related to broader aspects of Wordsworth and Romantic studies. The project title marks the 250th anniversary of the poet's birth and the bicentenary of an important collection of the poet's later works, The River Duddon: A Series of Sonnets ... and Other Poems (1820). Combining an ambitious programme of individual and collaborative research activities with a series of high impact public engagement initiatives, the project aims to shape the agenda for future academic study and to foster general understanding of the life, works and legacy of a major English writer.

The project's five objectives, reflecting Wordsworth's enduring fascination with lakes, rivers and streams, flow into each other:

• to complete a book-length study of Wordsworth’s later poetry;
• to edit a special issue of the journal The Wordsworth Circle dedicated to readings of The River Duddon volume;
• to co-curate a major exhibition at The Wordsworth Museum;
• to co-organise an international conference on Wordsworth, Water, and Romanticism;
• to develop a range of multi-level educational resources and activities.

Project team

• PI: Professor Phil Shaw
• Project IT coordinator and conference assistant: Dr Joanna Wilson-Scott