In this video Professors Simon Bainbridge and Sally Bushell discuss Wordsworth’s longer poem, ‘Michael’, first published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, 1800.
Professor Bainbridge and Professor Bushell go to a particular site in the Lake District, Greenhead Gill (a gill or ghyll is a mountain stream). This site provides both the setting and inspiration for the poem as well as the place in which it is written. They consider the ways in which Wordsworth builds a sense of place into the poem ‘Michael’.
