Wordsworth, Dorothy

Wordsworth, Dorothy
born Dec. 25, 1771, Cockermouth, Cumberland, Eng.
died Jan. 25, 1855, Rydal Mount, Westmorland

English writer.

An inspiring influence on her brother William Wordsworth, she lived with him from 1795 onward. Her Alfoxden Journal 1798 (1897)
from the period when he and Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced Lyrical Ballads (1798)
and Grasmere Journals 1800–03 (1897) are intimate records of their lives. Both are appreciated for their imaginative descriptions of nature, their perfection of style, and their revelation of her personality as well as for the light they throw on her brother. In 1829 severe illness left her an invalid, and her mind was clouded in her last 20 years.

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▪ English author

born Dec. 25, 1771, Cockermouth, Cumberland, Eng.
died Jan. 25, 1855, Rydal Mount, Westmorland

      English prose writer whose Alfoxden Journal 1798 and Grasmere Journals 1800–03 are read today for the imaginative power of their description of nature and for the light they throw on her brother, the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (Wordsworth, William).

      Their mother's death in 1778 separated Dorothy from her brothers, and from 1783 they were without a family home. The sympathy between William and Dorothy was strong; she understood him as no one else could and provided the “quickening influence” he needed. When in 1795 he was lent a house in Dorset, she made a home for him there. At Alfoxden, Somerset, in 1796–98, she enjoyed with Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Coleridge, Samuel Taylor) a companionship of “three persons with one soul.” She went with them to Germany (1798–99), and in December 1799 she and William settled for the first time in a home of their own, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake District, remaining there after his marriage (1802) and moving with the family to Rydal Mount in 1813. In 1829 she was dangerously ill and thenceforth was obliged to lead the life of an invalid. Her ill health affected her intellect, and during the last 20 years of her life her mind was clouded.

      The Alfoxden Journal (of which only the period from January to April 1798 survives) is a record of William's friendship with Coleridge that resulted in their Lyrical Ballads (1798), with which the Romantic movement began. The Grasmere Journals contains material on which William drew for his poetry (notably her description of daffodils in April 1802, which inspired his "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" ). Her other surviving journals include accounts of her trip to Germany in 1798–99 as well as visits to Scotland (1803) and Switzerland (1820). None of her writings was published in her lifetime.

Additional Reading
Robert Gittings and Jo Manton, Dorothy Wordsworth (1985); Susan M. Levin, Dorothy Wordsworth & Romanticism (1987); Kenneth R. Cervelli, Dorothy Wordsworth's Ecology (2007); Frances Wilson, The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth (2008).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Wordsworth, Dorothy — (1771 1855)    Diarist, etc., was the only sister of the poet, and his lifelong and sympathetic companion, and endowed in no small degree with the same love of and insight into nature as is evidenced by her Journals. Many of her brother s poems… …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

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  • Wordsworth, William — born April 7, 1770, Cockermouth, Cumberland, Eng. died April 23, 1850, Rydal Mount, Westmorland English poet. Orphaned at age 13, Wordsworth attended Cambridge University, but he remained rootless and virtually penniless until 1795, when a legacy …   Universalium

  • Dorothy — /dawr euh thee, dor /, n. a female given name, form of Dorothea. * * * (as used in expressions) Day Dorothy Dunaway Dorothy Faye Fields Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Parker Dorothy Dorothy Rothschild Richardson Dorothy Miller …   Universalium

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