Dorothy Wordsworth: Muse, Collaborator, and Poet in Her Own Right

Introduction: A Life Journeyed Side by Side

William Wordsworth was the famous Romantic poet. His sister Dorothy was his quiet strength, support, and inspiration. Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) devoted her life to her brother (1770–1850).

Intimate friends and close confidants, they shared an immense mutual dependence and were of extreme significance and value to each other. As William put it in his poem "The Recluse," quoted in the title above, brother and sister journeyed not only to Grasmere but through all of life "side by side," blown by the winds of life, "like two birds, companions in mid-air, / Parted and reunited by the blast" (Clark 28).

Colette Clark begins her introduction to Dorothy's Home at Grasmere with these words:

Dorothy Wordsworth was one of those sweet characters whose only life lies in their complete dedication to a man of genius. Without self-consciousness or self-congratulation she absorbed herself in her brother's life and work and starts the Journal "because I shall give William pleasure by it." This was the only way in which she could fulfil herself, and through it she became an artist in her own right. She is to us, as she was to William, "a breath of fragrance independent of the wind." (Clarke 9)

Shared Lives: From Childhood Separation to Dove Cottage

Dorothy and William's mother died in 1778. Dorothy, then six years old, was separated from all her brothers, including William, aged eight, and was raised by various relatives while he lived at school. As young children, William and Dorothy were very close, and it was perhaps this early separation that contributed to their later need to be always together. When their father died a few years later, they were destined to remain apart, living in near poverty.

It was not until 1795, when William received a bequest of £900 from a close friend, that he and Dorothy managed to set up housekeeping together — first at Racedown, Dorsetshire, then in 1797 moving to Alfoxden, Somersetshire, near Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey. In 1798–1799, William and Dorothy traveled to Germany with Coleridge. Returning to England in 1799, brother and sister settled at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, Westmorland, in the Lake District.

Their lives were constantly intertwined, as they lived together for the rest of their days, even after William's marriage. Wordsworthian authority de Selincourt notes that William wrote the poem "Among All Lovely Things My Love Had Been," dedicated to Dorothy, on his return trip after becoming engaged (Clarke 14). Although William's decision to marry her best friend, Mary Hutchinson, was emotionally traumatic for Dorothy, the devoted sister stayed on to keep house for the couple and to help with their children as the family grew. In 1813 they all moved to Rydal Mount, not far from Dove Cottage, where, except for periods of travel, they spent the rest of their lives.

Dorothy and her brother shared a spiritual harmony (Clarke 10). She was continually his intermediary with nature. Her spontaneous observations, recorded in her journals, often became the precise words of his poems. Scholars speculate endlessly on exactly how much William relied on his sister's descriptions and words. It was the habit of brother and sister to take long walks together daily, during which the great poet shared whatever was on his mind with his beloved sister. She served very much as his sounding board.

Dorothy, William, and Coleridge: Three Persons and One Soul

When scholars discuss the bond between William and Dorothy Wordsworth, they often include a third intimate in the union: Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As Mallaby describes it: "Dorothy Wordsworth had the distinction of being the indispensable sister for two men of genius." Especially in the years from 1797 to 1802, Dorothy was sister to Coleridge as well as to William.

"In that golden period," says Mallaby, "these three persons were an undivided and indivisible trinity. When the triune spell was broken each of them failed — Coleridge fell into a self-deceiving idleness, morbid imaginings of jealousy and mistrust, an opiate confusion of mind and heart; Wordsworth, arming himself with the shield of a rather self-righteous duty, moved boldly but remorsefully away from 'the vision splendid'; Dorothy, overburdened with household cares and perplexed with spiritual disappointments and dismay, surrendered to a senseless melancholy" (Mallaby unpaged).

The bond between them was spiritual. They were, as Coleridge put it, "three persons and one soul." For Coleridge and Wordsworth the bond was intellectual. Dorothy added the realm of feeling. When Dorothy was with them, the spirits of both men were enlarged in vision and in feeling. What she gave to her brother she gave also to Coleridge:

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy (Mallaby unpaged).

Mallaby and many other scholars agree that Dorothy's untrained mind offered the gift of natural description and spontaneity to the more intellectually disciplined males. As to whether there was any sexual energy between Dorothy and Coleridge, or even her brother, scholars are less in agreement. Most, however, argue that this was a "true spiritual union" and a poetic bond far beyond "shallow and vulgar" considerations (Mallaby unpaged).

Dorothy, though not "in love," felt deep love for both Wordsworth and Coleridge. She identified with what they were trying to do and was part of their poetic urge. Her sympathy with their needs was so intense that she understood that "without her delicate perception, her sensitive and tender approach," these men would lose themselves in "disputing, argument and theory." Her sensitivity provided their muse. As Mallaby puts it: "She saw for herself the moods in which they were happiest and most creative and she knew that it was her presence which induced these moods." Her role was to provide support and sustenance — spiritual and physical, in the way of food and household comforts — to their poetic genius.

Dorothy's role of "sympathetic service," when extended to Coleridge, amplifies our understanding of how she saw herself in relation to her brother: as an indispensable and helpful muse whose task it was to nourish and "soften" that powerful imagination (Mallaby unpaged).

Dorothy as Collaborator: Journals, Poems, and the Poetic Exchange

Among scholars, much is written about Dorothy's personal capabilities as a poet and writer. Her journals are straightforward and simple, often eloquently poetic in their descriptive phrases. Examples like the following abound throughout her writing:

"The moonlight lay upon the hills like snow" (Wordsworth 75).

"We had a very fine walk by the gloomy lake. There was a curious yellow reflection in the water, as of cornfields. There was no light in the clouds from which it appeared to come" (Wordsworth 64).

"We walked out before dinner to our favourite field. The mists sailed along the mountains, and rested upon them, enclosing the whole vale" (Wordsworth 85).

"The moon shone like herrings in the water" (Wordsworth 85).

"The reeds and bullrushes — or bullpipes — of a tender soft green, making a plain whose surface moved with the wind" (Wordsworth 41).

In his letters to Coleridge, William regularly quotes Dorothy's manner of describing scenes from nature, evidently admiring her descriptive talents. What he himself saw as "rocks wrinkled over with masses of ice, white as snow," Dorothy saw as "congealed froth" (Clarke 21).

That Dorothy collaborated with William in the creation of his work goes without question. He read their works in progress on walks, by the fireside, and in drifting boats. He solicited her help in "altering" poems, and she forever "copied" his work for him before sending it off to be read by others or published. In Home at Grasmere, Dorothy speaks often of sitting before the fire with William, writing or correcting poems and the preface for Lyrical Ballads. The descriptions and notes she recorded in her journal were drawn upon heavily by her brother (Wordsworth 74–85).

These incidents, carefully documented by scholars, include Dorothy's description of a meeting with a tall woman and her children — recorded in Home at Grasmere — as closely relied upon in William's "Beggars" (Wordsworth 43). As Clark also points out, a description of yellow broom as being like veins of gold appears three times in the journal (once in quotation marks) as well as in William's poem "Joanna" (Wordsworth 43). Dorothy's description of a funeral finds its way into her brother's poem "The Excursion" (Wordsworth 70). "Michael" and other pastoral poems were no doubt influenced by descriptions from Dorothy's journals, such as the following:

The colours of the mountains soft and rich, with orange fern; the cattle pasturing upon the hill-tops; kites sailing in the sky above our heads; sheep bleating and in lines and chains and patterns scattered over the mountains. They come down and feed on the little green islands in the beds of the torrents, and so may be swept away. The sheepfold is falling away. It is built nearly in the form of a heart unequally divided. Look down the brook, and see the drops rise upwards and sparkle in the air at the little falls, the higher sparkles the tallest. (Wordsworth 81)

That Wordsworth heavily relied upon his sister is evidenced in frequent mentions in his poetry, such as the following from Poems on the Naming of Places, III:

And She who dwells with me, whom I have loved
With such communion, that no place on earth
Can ever be a solitude to me,
Hath to this lonely Summit given my Name. (Wordsworth 60)

Soon after settling at Grasmere, William began the long, never-finished poem "The Recluse," in which he characterizes his intimate relationship with Dorothy:

With me
Entrenched, say rather peacefully embowered,
Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot, younger Orphan of a home extinct,
The only Daughter of my Parents dwells...
Mine eyes did ne'er
Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind
Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts,
But either She whom now I have, who now
Divides with me this loved abode, was there,
Or not far off. Where'er my footsteps turned,
Her voice was like a hidden Bird that sang.
The thought of her was like a flash of light,
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Of fragrance independent of the Wind. (Clark 26)

An eloquent poetic embodiment of Dorothy's importance to William appears in "On Nature's Invitation Do I Come":

Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang;
The thought of her was like a flash of light,
Or an unseen companionship; a breath
Of fragrance independent of the wind. (Manley 59)

William includes another hymn of praise to his sister in The Prelude, revealing the characteristics which endeared Dorothy to him:

She welcomed what was given, and craved no more;
Whate'er the scene presented to her view
That was the best, to that she was attuned
By her benign simplicity of life,
And through a perfect happiness of soul,
Whose variegated feelings were in this
Sisters, that they were each some new delight.
Birds in the bower. And lambs in the green field.
Could they have known her, would have loved; methought
Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,
That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,
And everything she looked on, should have had
An intimation how she bore herself
Towards them and to all creatures. (Manley 83)

Thus her soulful sympathy and emotional involvement with all of nature and life, combined with her sweetness and simplicity, provided exactly what the great poet needed to complement his own genius.

Conclusion: An Interdependent Companionship

Dorothy and William Wordsworth journeyed through their adult lives "side by side." For much of her life Dorothy served as nurturer and muse for her brother, to whom she was a significant source of inspiration as well as a constant secretary. Her love for her brother was beyond measure. From 1829 onward, Dorothy suffered from a progressive mental disturbance which may have been a form of what we now call Alzheimer's disease. During the years of her decline, the tables were reversed, and William — now England's Poet Laureate — and his wife Mary lovingly cared for Dorothy (Caroline Alexander 15).

Theirs was an interdependent companionship that lasted a lifetime. The physical support and spiritual companionship of the sister, as acknowledged by the brother, had opened the way to his poetic fulfillment.

Works Cited

Alexander, Caroline. "The Other Wordsworth, In England's Lake District." New York Times, 28 February 1999, sec. 6, p. 15, col. 1.

Alexander, Meena. "Dorothy Wordsworth: The Grounds of Writing." Women's Studies, vol. 14, 1988, pp. 195–210.

Clark, Colette. Introduction. Home at Grasmere. By Dorothy Wordsworth. Penguin Books, 1978.

Mallaby, George. "Dorothy Wordsworth: The Perfect Sister." The Atlantic Monthly, December 1950.

Manley, Seon. Dorothy and William Wordsworth: The Heart of a Circle of Friends. Vanguard Press, 1974.

McGavran, James Holt, Jr. "Xanadu, Somersetshire, and the Banks of the Wye: A Study of Romantic Androgyny." Papers on Language & Literature, vol. 26, no. 3, Summer 1990.

Thomson, Douglass H. "'Sport of Transmutations': The Evolution of Wordsworth's 'To Lycoris.'" Studies in English Literature, vol. 27, no. 4, Autumn 1987, pp. 581–593.

Wordsworth, Dorothy. Home at Grasmere. Edited by Colette Clark. Penguin Books, 1978.