Lonely Clouds and Shunned Sisters

William Wordsworth, a Romantic poet known as one of "the greats," has always confused me with his poetry. Maybe it's his style or the subject matter, or perhaps even the values he held. Even more of a mystery to me is his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth. Little is known about her because little of her writing has survived. 

She is said to have been a writer in the Romantic period today, but in her time, she was widely known for hanging exclusively around Wordsworth and his poet friends. I read a section in a book called "What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food that Tells their Stories" by Laura Shapiro before I enrolled in the Romantic Literature course taught by Dr. Reiger. 

A section of Shapiro's novel is dedicated to Dorothy Wordsworth herself as a kind of forgotten Romantic writer, partly to the condemnation of her brother William and partly becuase of societal expectations of her. This section talked about, instead of poetry, her day-to-day journals. It analyzes some of her entries and notes that she talked about food and nature in a Romantic light. More importantly, it gives a different perspective on the Romantic Period in retrospect becuase it adds a new perspective. 

Little details are mentioned in D. Wordsworth's journal about the walks that she would often take with William and a friend (who was also a poet, but I can't think of the name). They used to walk around thirteen miles a day to glean inspiration from nature for poetry and philosophy and the growth of personal intellect. 

While reading W. Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud," I remembered this small fact that Dorothy would walk daily with him along with a friend, too. Their relationship was said to be strong during their adult life, meaning that Wordsworth may not have actually been in nature alone when experiencing the sublime daffodils mentioned in the poem, but he may have been with Dorothy. He may not have even been wandering. 

This little bit of information made this poem, and the Romantic sublime's impact harder to imagine for me. And when I saw nature I saw Dorothy and the bond between the two among all the imagery. 

That's Dorothy Wordsworth above. If you need a good read, check out that book! It's in the Erie County Public Library catalog.