Meet Dorothy Wordsworth
The art of observing life
The Dorothy Wordsworth I met from Kathryn Aalto did not feel quite like the same Dorothy I met in the pages of her journal, published as The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals. Aalto had recounted a hike Dorothy had completed on a peak near to her house and how unusual (or not) it was for a woman to set out with a guide for a hike of this nature.1
Aalto uses the hike to point to how Dorothy’s experiences and her writings on them, may have influenced the main character in Dorothy’s life: her brother William Wordsworth. William and concerns for him have pre-eminence in Dorothy’s journals, the references to how he slept are on almost every page. Concern for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life is another repeated observation, and sprinkled throughout these concerns, Dorothy will write, usually fleetingly, her lyrical observations of moonlit lakes and mountain passes.
I’ll admit to not having a depth of knowledge on this poet who, with Coleridge, kicked off the Romantic era of English literature and poetry. My lack of knowledge made it harder to know where Dorothy’s journal observations, freely shared with her Beloved [brother], made their way into published poetry. Not under her name, of course.
Whatever was shared by Dorothy and crafted into a poem, or was a letter shared without attribution, it is clear in her journals that she was a person who experienced the world keenly and skillfully wrote her own observations.
In the Alfoxden journal, Dorothy seems inclined to write expansively, even while still employing her staccato style of day-keeping.
“We rose early. A thick fog obscured the distant prospect entirely, but the shapes of the near trees and the dome of the wood dimly seen and dilated. It cleared away between ten and eleven. The shapes of the mist, slowly moving along, exquisitely beautiful; passing over the sheep they almost seemed to have more of life than those quiet creatures. The unseen birds singing in the mist.” (page 149)
“Nature was very successfully striving to make beautiful what art had deformed.” (page 152)
Compare that with how she writes about her own life, more in the Grasmere journal:
“Wm [William] not well. A very fine beautiful clear winter’s day. I walked after dinner to Lloyds—drank tea & Mrs & Miss Lloyd came to Rydale with me—the moon was rising but the sky all over cloud. I made tea for William. Piles.” *
It’s evident throughout Dorothy’s journals that concern for the health of William, and at times Coleridge’s, tends to focus her entries. She’s happiest and most willing to be verbose when William is well.
It may seem to me, sitting at a distance of 200+ years from Dorothy, unfair that her words and observations were used without any meaningful attribution to herself. But in getting to know Dorothy through her journals, I can see that Dorothy was content and happiest to simply live life with William, to work on poetry together, and go for walks in their neighborhood, observing together the same moon hanging over the crags. Even if publishing her observations under her own name (or a pseudonym) had been possible, I don’t know if she would have pursued it. **
If you want to delve in Dorothy’s poems, I would suggest first reading William’s famous poem on Daffodils and see if you can’t spot the corresponding journal entry that pre-dates the poem by a year or so.
I look forward to learning more about William, Dorothy, and Samuel T. Coleridge in an upcoming book from author and pilgrim, Luke Sherlock.
*Piles, it turns out, are hemorrhoids, and William has them a lot?? I think if Dorothy had any idea her journals would be published, she would have written less of William’s piles and bowels. On the other hand, it’s interesting to have a firsthand account of Coleridge’s decline.
** I don’t know that it absolves William and some of his shenanigans. As Aalto says, Dorothy might not have minded, but “we can mind for her now.”2
Writing Wild, page 22
ibid, page 22