Dorothy Wordsworth

Dorothy Wordsworth (born December 25, 1771, Cockermouth, Cumberland, England—died January 25, 1855, Rydal Mount, Westmorland) was an English prose writer whose Alfoxden Journal 1798 and Grasmere Journals 1800–03 are remarkable for the imaginative power of their description of nature. Her journals also shed significant light on her brother, the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, whose own work was profoundly influenced by her writing.

Early life

Dorothy Wordsworth was born in the Lake District of northern England and was the only daughter of five children born to John Wordsworth, a lawyer, and Ann Cookson Wordsworth, who came from a gentry family. Her mother’s death in 1778 separated Dorothy from her brothers, as she was sent to live with relatives in Halifax (West Yorkshire). Her brothers stayed closer to home, living with guardian uncles and attending a grammar school in the village of Hawkshead. In 1783 their father died, and the Wordsworth children were left without a family home.

Life with William Wordsworth and friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The sympathy between William and Dorothy was strong; she understood him as no one else could, providing the “quickening influence” he needed for his poetry. When in 1795 he was lent a house in Dorset, she made a home for him there. At Alfoxden House, Somerset, in 1796–98, she enjoyed with Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge a companionship often characterized as “three persons with one soul.” Dorothy’s 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 poetry collection Lyrical Ballads (1798), with which the Romantic movement began.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

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. After William married in 1802, Dorothy remained with him in Grasmere and moved with his family to Rydal Mount in 1813. In 1829 Dorothy became dangerously ill and never fully recovered. Her health affected her intellect, and during the last 20 years of her life her mind was clouded, possibly caused by addictions to opium and laudanum.

Grasmere Journals and influence on William Wordsworth

After Dorothy became ill, William was her caretaker. For many years, however, Dorothy served as her brother’s chief amanuensis (literary assistant), and she was his greatest influence, along with Coleridge. She recorded her keen observations of nature during their frequent walks and excursions in the Lake District in her journals, and many of her phrases and descriptions found their way into her brother’s poems. For example, the Grasmere Journals contains material (notably her description of daffodils at Ullswater in April 1802) on which William drew for his much-beloved poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Dorothy’s entry in her journal reads:

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the water-side. We fancied that the sea 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. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above 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.

By comparison, William’s poem includes the lines:

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
…
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.

Another example is in the poem “A Night-Piece.” In January 1798 Dorothy and William visited a friend’s house, and she recorded in her journal:

Went to Poole’s after tea. The sky spread over with one continuous cloud, whitened by the light of the moon, which, though her dim shape was seen, did not throw forth so strong a light as to chequer the earth with shadows. At once the clouds seemed to cleave asunder, and left her in the centre of a black-blue vault. She sailed along, followed by multitudes of stars, small, and bright, and sharp.

Her brother’s poem features almost identical language in the lines:

…and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss

Many critics have debated whether these examples and others constitute plagiarism on William’s part. Yet most scholars think that Dorothy and William were equal collaborators who shared a remarkably similar creative sensibility. English writer Virginia Woolf once described the nature of the Wordsworths’ relationship: “Dorothy stored the mood in prose, and later William came and bathed in it and made it into poetry.”

Many of William’s most famous poems speak of his sister’s importance to him. The “dearest Friend, / My dear, dear Friend” who stands beside him on the banks of the River Wye in “Tintern Abbey” is Dorothy: “May I behold in thee what I was once, / My dear, dear Sister!” In his long autobiographical epic poem The Prelude, in which he relates his experiences in revolutionary France and subsequent disillusionment with its ideals, he describes her as a healing influence (“Maintained for me a saving intercourse / With my true self”) and credits her for nurturing and helping him develop his artistic identity:

She, in the midst of it all, preserved me still
A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,
And that alone, my office upon earth

Other journals and poetry

Dorothy’s 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 prose writings were published in her lifetime, although a few of her poems were published anonymously, including in editions of her brother’s works. She is buried in Grasmere at St. Oswald’s Church, along with William and other family members.