Wissenswertes

Geburtstag: 1771-12-25
Todestag: 1855-01-25
Geschlecht: female
Nationalität: UK
Geburtsort: Cockermouth, Cumberland, England, UK
Sterbeort: Rydal, Cumberland, England, UK
Wohnorte: Cockermouth, Cumberland, England, UK (birth)
Rydal, Cumberland, England, UK (death)
Alfoxden, Somerset, England, UK
Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumberland, England, UK
Berufe: dagboekschrijver
dichter
reisboekenschrijver
Beziehungen: Wordsworth, William (broer)
Kurzbiographie: Dorothy Wordsworth, one of five children and the only daughter of John Wordsworth, an attorney, and his wife Anne, was the younger sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. After their parents died young, the siblings were sent to live with various relatives. Dorothy managed to reunite with William and after that they were inseparable companions for the rest of their lives, even after his marriage in 1802. Dorothy never married and was considered an invalid after a serious illness in 1829. However, she had previously travelled with William to Scotland, the Isle of Man, and to Europe, which she greatly enjoyed, and was a faithful diarist. Dorothy's now-famous Grasmere Journal eloquently describes her everyday life in the Lake District, long walks in the countryside with her brother, and detailed portraits of their literary friends, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, and Robert Southey. Among her other prose works was a travel account called Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland AD 1803, published posthumously in 1874.

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The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth: The Alfoxden… von Dorothy Wordsworth

Read for a graduate seminar on Romantic Period women writers at CU Boulder.

This one was about as dull as they come, for me. I’m sure poets will probably love reading about the stories and daily occurrences that inspired Wordsworth’s most celebrated works –but I am neither a poet, nor a Wordsworth fanatic.
If long walks backwards and forwards, constant sickness, and an odd fear of cows is your thing – off you go. If not – I’d recommend skipping this one.

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BreePye | 1 weitere Rezension | Oct 6, 2023 |

Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland AD 1803 von Dorothy Wordsworth

This is an account by Dorothy Wordsworth of a six week tour she made with her poet brother north of the border from their Lake District home in the late summer of 1803. They were accompanied by fellow poet Coleridge for part of the way, though he seems to have been ill most of the time, and before long went his own way in greater comfort. Dorothy's poetic descriptions of the Scottish countryside will ring familiar to anyone who has read her more famous Grasmere Journal, and the landscape has many similarities. Dorothy's descriptions of the many sub-standard inns they stay in along the way are quite amusing and show how much poorer and bleaker the Scottish countryside was at this time than most parts of England. Towards the end of the tour they spend time with Walter Scott, at this time also a fellow poet, and not the prolific novelist he would become better known for later. The first half of this account was written contemporaneously, while the latter half suffers slightly from having been written up at a later date, somewhat lacking the detail and fluency of the earlier sections. A good read, though.… (mehr)

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john257hopper | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 12, 2022 |

The Alfoxden Journal, 1798 von Dorothy Wordsworth

This very short journal was kept by Wordsworth's sister Dorothy for a few months in 1798 during their residence at Alfoxden in Somerset, in a year that was pivotal in the poet's literary development, and just before their permanent move to the Lake District. The journal gives great descriptions of the countryside but lacks the depth and feel of the ebb and flow of life that comes across in the later and longer Grasmere Journal. Also, in places, I got the impression Dorothy was finding it a chore to maintain this earlier diary.… (mehr)

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john257hopper | Jul 30, 2019 |

The Grasmere Journal, 1800-1803 von Dorothy Wordsworth

This is a journal kept by William Wordsworth's sister Dorothy covering two and a half years (mid 1800 to January 1803) of their lives in Dove Cottage in Grasmere, in the heart of the Lake District, a house which she shared with William and his wife Mary (and assorted others, including sometimes Samuel Coleridge). The journal was not intended for publication, and indeed was not published until nearly 50 years after William's and Dorothy's deaths. Like any such journal, it contains a lot of mundane and repetitive detail, but these contribute towards the ebb and flow of their lives as the seasons and years roll by in this beautiful corner of the country. Most people would say (then and now) they had an idyllic lifestyle, marked mostly by reading, writing, and the walks they do round Grasmere/Easedale and Rydal, gaining inspiration for William's poems, and to Ambleside and Keswick (and one longer journey down the eastern side of the country via Yorkshire to London, and across the Channel to Calais, in the late summer of 1802). Also recorded is, of course, the famous walk of 15 April 1802 in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park where they saw the host of daffodils that inspired the poet's most famous creation. Their walking capacity is very high by our standards and walking to Ambleside and back, in winter, a distance of some three and a half miles, to check if there is any post to be collected, or to visit friends, is nothing out of the ordinary. On one occasion, Dorothy records walking to Keswick on a frosty day in November, a distance of some 12.5 miles, setting off at 5 minutes past 10 and arriving at half past 2. But life is not all a bed of roses; one thing that strikes the reader is how often both William and Dorothy are ill, the latter regularly having toothaches and headaches that incapacitate her, and William frequently prostrate with exhaustion through the exercise of his creative powers and general constitutional weakness. It seems a minor miracle they both lived into their 80s. And the outside world does get in: one thing that struck me was the regular appearance at the cottage of various beggars and other itinerants travelling through the area looking for work and/or money, reflections of economic (the early stirrings of the industrial revolution) and political (the Napoleonic wars) developments. In sum, this journal gives a good picture of the lifestyle and habits of the poet and his family at this stage in their lives, set against the beautiful backdrop of the Lakes.… (mehr)

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john257hopper | 1 weitere Rezension | Jul 26, 2018 |

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