Dorothy Wordsworth, Writer

"Dorothy Wordsworth: Wonders of the Everyday is an exhibition catalogue. It was written to accompany an exhibition which ran at the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere. The exhibition focused on Dorothy’s life, using contemporary watercolours, artefacts, manuscripts, and selections from her writings. Pamela Woof, who edited the Alfoxden and Grasmere Journals, was very well equipped as a scholar to curate the exhibition, and she’s also put together this wonderful book to accompany it. She includes a careful analysis of how Dorothy went about writing her journals, as well as accounts of her relationships with friends, with William and with her family. No-one has written quite as well as Pamela Woof about Dorothy Wordsworth’s prose. This book, alongside Dorothy Wordsworth, Writer, is the best way into understanding Dorothy as a creative person in her own right. I wouldn’t want to put the question like that. Both of them should get credit for their own writings, and for each other’s as well. William was just as important to Dorothy’s writing as she was to his – it was an equal partnership. William himself credited Dorothy both publicly and privately, again and again, for the enormous influence that she had on him intellectually as well as emotionally. There are long passages in the Prelude devoted to thanking her for what she’s given him. Hers was a mind that he regarded as equal to his own. It’s nonsense to see the relationship as hierarchical, with her subordinated to his creative genius. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . But it’s not a case of someone filching a poem from a journal. That poem was written several years after the journal entry, and we need to consider how the Wordsworth household used the Grasmere Journal – what its place was in their daily lives. In reconstructing what happened, I like to imagine them sitting by the fireside and recalling a walk they had enjoyed together – perhaps trying to reconstruct its details. I believe it was a shared scene of remembering that prompted one of them to check out Dorothy’s journal account of seeing the daffodils. Being reminded of it then inspired William to write his marvelous poem. It’s not a question of intellectual property being stolen. When the poem was published, it spoke on behalf of them both. They were two intertwined lives, and two intertwined minds."