POETIC students can now sign up for a new University-led course focusing on one of the Lake District's greatest writers.

Lancaster University is launching a new online course which explores the influence of the area on William Wordsworth and the writing process behind some of his best-known poetry.

The MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is now open for registration on FutureLearn, which provides free online courses from world-class universities.

The course ‘William Wordsworth: Poetry, People and Place’ has been designed for the general public – both for those who have not read Wordsworth before, and for those who are familiar with his poetry - and lasts four weeks.

Professor Simon Bainbridge, who is leading the course, said: “This free online course brings together the academic strengths of Lancaster University with the unparalleled resources and curatorial expertise of the Wordsworth Trust.

“The course will enable participants to appreciate why the beautiful landscape of the Lake District was so important for William Wordsworth. It will also give learners a sense of what it is like to work with Wordsworth’s own manuscripts and to understand why and how he wrote his greatest poetry.”

The course was filmed in Grasmere, Ullswater and Hawkshead – places Wordsworth wrote about – as well as Dove Cottage, where he lived from 1799 to 1808 and produced much of his greatest poetry.

Wordsworth did not always find writing an easy process an the course demonstrates how he struggled at times as well as other snippets of insider information that would not otherwise be known.

It has been designed in association with the Wordsworth Trust, based in Grasmere.

Jeff Cowton, Curator and Head of Learning at the trust, said: "The whole point is to open doors, eyes and windows and if somebody went on the course and thought that they would love to come here for real then that would be a real success. It's an incredible opportunity for people to get behind the scenes. They would have nothing to lose and everything to gain. In an ideal world we would bring everyone to Grasmere but we simply can't do that so MOOC allows it to be done."

For more information visit www.futurelearn.com/courses/william-wordsworth