Dorothy Wordsworth

If William Wordsworth was, in fact, the most influential poet of the Romantics, then he is very fortunate that few took note of his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, at the time. If they had, I think his title could have become compromised, or at least shared. As brother and sister, whose parents died when they were very young, the tightly-knit relationship between these two Romantic writers is understandable. But I have to wonder, who influenced who? Although Dorothy only wrote "to give William pleasure," her writings were described as being "full of brilliantly detailed descriptions of nature," a talent and passion she most certainly shared with her brother (291). The siblings also seemed to share the same conclusions regarding nature. As William drew the connection between nature, the mind, and memory, Dorothy also writes of such connections in Thoughts on My Sick-bed when she states, "I thought of Nature's loveliest scenes; And with Memory I was there" (294). This clause reiterates what William described in Tintern Abbey- how memory of nature provided an escape from loneliness the burdens of the world. 

Of Dorothy Wordsworth's writings, I found the Grasmere Journals to be the most interesting. Some of them were formatted in a stream of conscience style, which I believed to allow an unedited, direct view into the mind of Dorothy as she witnessed certain events or recalled past happenings. Yet, in these journals, her talent to create wonderful imagery can be immensely appreciated.

An example of such magnificent imagery of a certain depiction can be see in her A Vision of the Moon. This journal entry begins with Dorothy stating, "something in the air compelled me to serious thought..." (296). This quotation seems to foreshadow the magnificence of what Wordsworth was about to witness. Like William, Dorothy seemed to have regarded nature with the utmost significance and importance, such that she may have taken any of nature's scenes very seriously because she was fully aware of the effect such a scene could have on her. 

Further along in the journal entry, Dorothy claims, "the moon came out from behind a Mountain Mass of Black clouds-O the utterable darkness of the sky & the Earth below the Moon! & the glorious brightness of the moon itself!" (296). Here, it seems, Dorothy uses the contrast of light and dark to intensify the illumination of the moon itself. The moon, the focus of the entry, is bright against the darkness of the sky and earth "below"- as if to now only highlight the moon, but to also stage it above all of the rest. She then describes this vision of the moon from another angle: "there was a vivid sparkling streak of light at this end of Rydale water but the rest was very dark & Loughrigg fell and Silver How were white & bright as if they were covered with hoar frost" (296). This illustration allows the reader to vividly imagine the reflection of the moon on the Rydale lake, and the peaks of Loughrigg and Silver How. Even this reflection entails that the moon was so incredibly bright, that it reflected upon scenes below it, illuminating even more of nature's depictions-as if the moon can be responsible for uncovering more of nature's hidden beauty.  

Another quotation in this journal entry describes the light of the moon in yet another view along Dorothy's journey: "Once there was no moonlight to be seen but upon the Island house & the promontory of the Island where it stands, 'That needs must be a holy place'"(296). This excerpt illuminates the Island house, as if it has been selected by the moon or nature acting as a higher power such that the selectivity of the moon's shine can deem this place "holy." In this way, Dorothy's intimate connection with nature can be witnessed as well as the reverence to which she gives to such a scene. It is like she is describing the moon as having some sort of omnipotence in this passage, for it is bright like no other, it can uncover more beautiful scenes, and it can even selectively isolate things that should, from that point, be considered with importance in come respect. Wordsworth later claims that this scene alone "made her more than half a poet," entertaining the thought that witnessing nature's power in an instance like this could be deemed as somewhat of a right of passage for a poet.  

After analyzing a writing like that, anyone would have to be able to look at nature in a new way. I can definitely say that I will appreciate one of nature's scene as I pass by next.