Dorothy Wordsworth’s notebooks reveal a formidable Romantic writer unfairly eclipsed by her brother. A recent illustrated edition of The Grasmere Journal takes a fresh look Dorothy Wordsworth never intended her four small notebooks to become a classic of memoir and nature writing,or even that they would be read by anyone beyond herself and her brother William. But it is a great boon that we can read her Grasmere Journal; a record of life in England’s Lake District that is grand in language, but subdued in tone.
William and Dorothy Wordsworth moved to Gransmere in 1799, or living in Dove Cottage until 1808. Dorothy’s journals document their restful existence: daily walks,afternoons with mutton pies, William’s headaches. The siblings composed poems and letters as they walked through miles of hills and thickets; on occasion visited by friends like Walter Scott, or Thomas de Quincey,Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In a 1797 letter, Coleridge described Dorothy’s taste as “a perfect electrometer — it bends, or protrudes,and draws in at subtlest beauties and most recondite faults.” Consider her description of daffodils near Gowbarrow Park:Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com