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WORDSWORTH, DOROTHY (1771-1855)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 826 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WORDSWORTH, DOROTHY (1771-1855) , See also:English writer and diarist, was the third See also:child and only daughter of See also:John Wordsworth of See also:Cockermouth and his wife, See also:Anne Cookson-Crackanthorpe. The poet See also:William Wordsworth was her See also:brother and a See also:year her See also:senior. On the See also:death of her See also:father in 1783, Dorothy found a See also:home at See also:Penrith, in the See also:house of her maternal grandfather, and afterwards for a See also:time with a See also:maiden See also:lady at See also:Halifax. In 1787, on the death of the See also:elder William Cookson, she was adopted by her See also:uncle, and lived in his See also:Norfolk See also:parish of Forncett. She and her brother William, who dedicated to his See also:sister the Evening Walk of 1792, were See also:early See also:drawn to one another, and .in 1794 they visited the Lakes together. They determined that it would be best to combine their small capitals, and that Dorothy should keep house for the poet. From this time forth her See also:life ran on lines closely parallel to those of her See also:great brother, whose See also:companion she continued to be till his death. It is thought that they made the acquaintance of See also:Coleridge in 1797. From the autumn of 1795 to See also:July 1797 William and Dorothy Wordsworth took up their See also:abode at Racedown, in See also:Dorsetshire. At the latter date they moved to a large See also:manor-house, Alfoxden, in the N. slope of the Quantock hills, in W. See also:Somerset, S. T.

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Cole-See also:ridge about the same time settling near by in the See also:town of Nether Stowey. On the loth of See also:January 1798 Dorothy Wordsworth began her invaluable See also:Journal, used by successive biographers of her brother, but first printed in its quasi-entirety by See also:Professor W. See also:Knight in 1897. The Wordsworths, Coleridge, and See also:Chester See also:left See also:England for See also:Germany on the 14th of See also:September 1798; and of this See also:journey also Dorothy Wordsworth preserved an See also:account, portions of which were published in 1897. On the 14th of May 1800 she started another Journal at See also:Grasmere, which she kept very fully until the 31st of See also:December of the same year. She resumed it on the 1st of January 1802 for another twelve months, closing on the lrth of January 1803. These were printed first in 1889. She composed Recollections of a Tour in See also:Scotland, in 1803, with her brother and Coleridge; this was first published in 1874. Her next contribution to the See also:family See also:history was her Journal of a See also:Mountain Ramble, in See also:November 18os, an account of a walking tour in the See also:Lake See also:district with her brothel. In July 1820 the Wordsworths made a tour on the See also:continent of See also:Europe, of which Dorothy preserved a very careful See also:record, portions of which were given to the See also:world in 1884, the writer having refused to publish it in 1824 on the ground that her " See also:object was not to make a See also:book, but to leave to her niece a neatly-penned memorial of those few interesting months of our lives." Meanwhile, without her brother, but in the See also:company of See also:Joanna See also:Hutchinson, Dorothy Wordsworth had travelled over Scotland in 1822, and had composed a Journal of that tour. Other See also:MSS. exist and have been examined carefully by the editors and biographers of the poets, but the records which we have mentioned and her letters See also:form the See also:principal See also:literary See also:relics of Dorothy Wordsworth. In 1829 she was attacked by very serious illness, and was never again in See also:good See also:health.

After 1836 she could not be considered to be in See also:

possession of her See also:mental faculties, and became a pathetic member of the interesting See also:household at Grasmere. She outlived the poet, however, by several years, dying at Grasmere on the 25th of January 1855. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of Dorothy Wordsworth's companionship to her illustrious brother. He has left numerous tributes to it, and to the sympathetic originality of her perceptions. " She," he said, " gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares, and delicate fears; A See also:heart the See also:fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy." The value of the records preserved by Dorothy Wordsworth, especially in earlier years, is hardly to be over-estimated by those who See also:desire to form an exact impression of the revival of English See also:poetry. When Wordsworth and Coleridge refashioned imaginative literature at the See also:close of the 18th See also:century, they were daily and hourly accompanied by a feminine presence exquisitely attuned to sympathize with their efforts, and by an intelligence which was able and anxious to move in step with theirs. " S. T. C. and my beloved sister," William Wordsworth wrote in 1832, " are the two beings to whom my See also:intellect is most indebted." In her pages we can put our See also:finger on the very See also:pulse of the See also:machine; we are See also:present while the New Poetry is evolved, and the sensitive descriptions in her See also:prose lack nothing but the accomplishment of See also:verse. Moreover, it is certain that the sharpness and fineness of Dorothy's observation, " the See also:shooting See also:lights of her See also:wild eyes," actually afforded material to the poets. Coleridge, for instance, when he wrote his famous lines about " The one red See also:leaf, the last of its See also:clan," used almost the very words in which, on the 7th of See also:March 1798, Dorothy Wordsworth had recorded• " One only leaf upon the See also:top of a See also:tree . . . danced See also:round and round like a rag blown by the See also:wind." It is not merely by the See also:biographical value of her notes that Dorothy Wordsworth lives.

She claims an See also:

independent See also:place in the history of English prose as one of the very earliest writers who noted, in See also:language delicately chosen, and with no other object than to pre-serve their fugitive beauty, the little picturesque phenomena of homely See also:country life. When we speak with very high praise of her See also:art in this direction, it is only See also:fair to add that it is called forth almost entirely by what she wrote between 1798 and 1803, for a decline similar to that which See also:fell upon her brother's poetry early invaded her prose; and her later See also:journals, like her Letters, are less interesting because less inspired. A Life by E. See also:Lee was published in 1886; but it is only since 1897, when Professor Knight collected and edited her scattered MSS., that Dorothy Wordsworth has taken her independent place in literary history. (E.

End of Article: WORDSWORTH, DOROTHY (1771-1855)

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