Wordsworthshire
I'm on holiday in the Lake District and today my wife and I went to the Wordsworth museum in Grasmere, in the former family home Dove Cottage. We've been before, probably ten years ago. There have been some changes and I know a bit more about the Romantics than I did then.
There's a much greater emphasis on Dorothy, his sister, now. #justice4dorothy. Still, a woman in the tour group asked what became of her once William married Mary Hutchinson, describing her as a 'third wheel' and the guide gallantly explained Dorothy was an integral part of the family, of William's work, and they all lived together for the rest of their lives.
He didn't mention Mary's sister Sara (with whom Coleridge was besotted) also lived with them and that people referred to Wordsworth and his three wives.
Nor were other escapades publicised. A French woman was upset there wasn't a mention of William's French daughter (there was a tiny reference in the nearby gallery). The guide, embarrassed, said the museum concentrated on the years they were in Grasmere.
Similarly no reference to a great burn: Byron called him ‘Turdsworth the grand metaquizzical poet’. He believed Wordsworth sold out by taking a job, which is easy for a baron to say. Again, presumably, outside the remit of this museum. I look forward to it being included in the new museum at Rydal Mount.
Another visitor asked more of a comment really-ed about William supporting the family as a poet. Of course, as any good poet, he made no money from it early in his career and little after. Apparently it is not a well known fact that his bestseller was his guidebook to the Lakes. They lived off an inheritance early on, then a legal settlement, then, you know, he got a job. Which to be fair was a very chill civil service job.
William Wordsworth - in collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and all the women around them including Mary, Dorothy, and daughter Dora - did change poetry. He certainly changed the Lake District.
In Wordsworth’s youth, genteel tourists came to the Lake District in search of the picturesque. After the advent of the railway, the urban middle and working classes came in search of Wordsworth. Numerous guidebooks were published in the course of the second half of the nineteenth century. Instead of pointing out picturesque ‘stations’ or viewpoints, they directed visitors to the settings of Wordsworth’s poems. The district began to be called not just ‘the Lake country’ but ‘Wordsworth country’ and even ‘Wordsworthshire’.
From Radical Wordsworth by Jonathan Bate. A great, unforgiving biography.
Possibly the best part of the morning was getting to try writing with a quill and ink. Also standing in the queue behind an influencer trying to blag a private tour. Or the anecdote that the two-year-old son Thomas was nicknamed Potiphar because he liked playing with the pots and pans to which he lustily replied "Me no Potiphar, me a good boy" which is peak two-year-old behaviour throughout all time.
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