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Dorothy Wordsworth

Born December 25, 1771 (1771-12-25)
Cumberland, England, Kingdom of Great Britain
Died January 25, 1855 (aged 83)
Occupation writer

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (December 25, 1771 – January 25, 1855) was an English poet and diarist. Events 274 - Roman Emperor Aurelian Year 1771 ( MDCCLXXI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Cumberland is one of the 39 Historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 (excluding Carlisle from 1915 and now forms part of England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a State in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1800 Events 41 - After a night of negotiation Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate Year 1855 ( MDCCCLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year Events 274 - Roman Emperor Aurelian Year 1771 ( MDCCLXXI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 41 - After a night of negotiation Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate Year 1855 ( MDCCCLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year The English people (from the adjective in Englisc) are a Nation and Ethnic group native to England who predominantly speak English She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives. Dorothy Wordsworth did not set out to be an author, and her writings comprise a series of letters, diary entries, and short stories.

Contents

Life

Dorothy Wordsworth was born on Christmas Day in Cockermouth, Cumberland in 1771. Cockermouth is a town within the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England, and is so named because it is at the confluence of the River Cocker Cumberland is one of the 39 Historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 (excluding Carlisle from 1915 and now forms part of Despite the early death of her mother, Dorothy, William and their three siblings had a happy childhood. In 1783 their father died, and the children were sent to live with various relatives. Dorothy was sent alone to live with her aunt Elizabeth Threlkeld in Halifax, West Yorkshire. [1] After she was able to reunite with William in 1798 in Alfoxton House in Somerset, they became inseparable companions. Alfoxton House, also known as Alfoxton Park, was built as an 18th century country house in Holford, Somerset, England, within the Quantock The pair lived in poverty at first; and would often beg for cast-off clothes from their friends. [2]

Wordsworth wrote of her in his famous Tintern Abbey poem:

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes [. Tintern Abbey ( Abaty Tyndyrn) was founded by Walter de Clare Lord of Chepstow, on May 9, 1131. . . ]
My dear, dear Sister!

Dorothy was a diarist and poet but had little interest in becoming a famous writer like her brother. "I should detest the idea of setting myself up as an author," she once wrote, "give Wm. the Pleasure of it. "[3] She almost published her travel account with William to Scotland in 1803 Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, but a publisher was not found[4] and it would not be published until 1874. Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A D 1803 (1874 is a travel memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth about a six-week 663-mile journey through the

Dorothy never married. After William married Mary Hutchinson in 1802, Dorothy continued to live with them. She was by now 31, and thought of herself as too old for marriage. In 1829 she fell seriously ill, and was to remain an invalid for the remainder of her life. She died at the age of eighty-four in 1855, having spent the past twenty years in, according to the biographer Richard Cavendish, "in a deepening haze of senility". [2]

The Grasmere Journal

Dorothy's Grasmere Journal was first published in 1897, edited by William Knight. The journal eloquently described her day-to-day life in the Lake District, long walks she and her brother took through the countryside, and detailed portraits of literary lights of the early 19th century, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb and Robert Southey, a close friend who popularised the fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 21 October 1772 &ndash 25 July 1834) was an English Poet, Critic and philosopher Sir Walter Scott 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 &ndash 21 September 1832 was a prolific Scottish Historical novelist and Poet popular throughout Charles Lamb is the name of Charles Lamb (writer (1775-1834 a British essayist Charles Lamb (politician (1891-1965 a Canadian Robert Southey ( August 12, 1774 &ndash March 21, 1843) was an English Poet of the Romantic school one The Three Bears or Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a notable children's bedtime story

Dorothy Wordsworth's works came to light just as literary critics were beginning to re-examine women's role in literature. Feminist literary criticism is Literary criticism informed by Feminist theory, or by the politics of Feminism more broadly The success of the Grasmere Journal led to a renewed interest in Wordsworth,[5] and several other journals and collections of her letters have since been published.

The Grasmere Journal and Wordsworth's other works revealed how vital she was to her brother's success. William relied on his sister's detailed accounts of nature scenes when writing poems and borrowed freely from her journals. For instance, compare lines from one of William Wordsworth's most famous poems "I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud,"

. . . All at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee

To this entry from Dorothy's journal:

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. Turnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by Act of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. [6]

Notes

  1. ^ Macdonald MacLean, p. 7.
  2. ^ a b Cavendish, Richard. "Death of Dorothy Wordsworth: January 25th, 1855". History Today, Vol. 55, January 2005.
  3. ^ De Selincourt, Ernest (ed. ). "The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, vol. 2". Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1967. p. 454.
  4. ^ De Selincourt, p. vii.
  5. ^ Polowetzky, Michael. "Prominent Sisters: Mary Lamb, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Sarah Disraeli". Westport CT: Greenwood, 1996. p. 66.
  6. ^ Teich, Nathaniel. "14 Spots of Time—writerly and Readerly Imaging with William Wordsworth and Basho". Language and Image in the Reading-Writing Classroom: Teaching Vision, ed. Fleckenstein, Kristie S; Calendrillo, Linda T; Worley, Demetrice A. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. p. 213.

Bibliography

External links

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