Victim of her time

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Allan Gienheart

Victim of her Time
As the world continues to promote equality in all areas of modern life, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine how dramatically the conditions of one’s life would change if placed in the culture of a previous era. Most shocking however, would be the reaction of the modern woman if placed in a subservient, powerless, and extremely limited role. The increased power of the female ego seen in the modern world is fairly new, and it wasn’t too long ago, specifically the 18th and 19th centuries, that a woman was widely assumed to be worth, both intellectually and psychologically, less than a man. One such woman was Dorothy Wordsworth, the diarist and poet sister of the esteemed Romantic poet, William Wordsworth. Contrary to other female Romantic writers of the time, Dorothy was strangely accepting of her subservient role as a woman. Others such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Laetitia Barbauld and Mary Shelley, exhibit attitudes of frustration and intolerance towards their perceived roles as women; Dorothy however, finds comfort in her motherly role as the caretaker for every resident and guest dwelling alongside her. It is quite evident through Dorothy’s myriad journals, poems, and diaries that not only does she accept her role as a woman on a day-to-day basis, but that she adopts her feminine persona to her written work, noticeably undermining her own genius. Due to the dichotomy between the male and female ego during the Romantic Movement, Dorothy Wordsworth’s potential as a writer was never truly realized, nor was she recognized as a talented and exquisite writer during her own lifetime.
The Romantic vision was one that inspired an individual’s connection to the imaginative self, primarily through natural meditation and self-conscious thought. As political philosophies shifted more towards the democratization of society, the shift in literary thought became more inclusive, or democratic, as well. For instance, instead of the neo-classical standard of didactic, rule-implemented, bourgeois-themed literature, the writers of the Romantic era focused on the plight of the common man, the beauty of ordinary experiences and the usage of vulgar (in the old sense, meaning common), everyday language. For many Romantic writers, the sudden importance placed upon the ordinary aspects of life was aimed towards “shatter[ing] the lethargy of custom so as to refresh [one’s] sense of wonder – indeed, of divinity – in the commonplace, the trivial, and the lowly” (Abrams, Greenblatt 11). Romantic ideals stood firm on the foundation that ultimately, it is one’s imagination and creative power (as opposed to one’s reason) that brings to light the many truths of the world and of the self. Seen throughout many pieces of Romantic literature are themes that are presented through nature, symbolism, myth, or some combination of the three. Such images can be seen in the longer meditative poems, where “the presented scene serves to raise an emotional problem or personal crisis whose development and resolution constitute the organizing principle of the poem” (Abrams, Greenblatt 9). The common ground beneath all Romantic ideals is the importance of the individual, which gave way to the forming of the Romantic hero. Whereas neoclassical literature was concerned with drama, form, organizational rules and emotional constraint, Romantic literature fully embraced the arousing effects of an individual’s creative powers. Although both philosophy and religion provide frequent allusions in Romantic literature, “the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create [a personal] system by which to live” (“Romanticism”). As a more liberal attitude was adopted by politicians and societies alike, the inspirational spirit of Romanticism was given room to flourish.
Within the context of Romantic theory remains the role played by the Romantic female. The aforementioned ideals of Romanticism focus primarily on those exhibited by the dominating male writers of the time, writers such as Coleridge, Keats and Shelley. The Romantic woman, however, was somewhat limited in her ability to express herself as an equally important, intellectual and powerful being. Whereas ‘the self’ was of prime importance in nearly all male Romantic literature, it goes unmentioned that these poets “sought a vision that assumed the authority of self-consciousness” (Alexander 4). In general, women writers tended to be more wary of assuming an identity that presupposed an important, self-conscious ego, and found the ideal of selfhood hard to come by, as they were “brought up with a different sense of the self, with constant reminders of how their lives were meshed in with other lives in bonds of care and concern” (Alexander 5-6). A woman’s life (especially during the Romantic Movement) was expected to be molded around family and household duties, while exhibiting a sort of feminine passivity towards all encounters with authority. Although many of the Romantic poets take women into consideration quite frequently and praise their feminine attributes, it must be noted that women are not praised for their mental talents, and that a woman’s presence in a man’s poetry “exists primarily in order to minister to the creative dynamism of the masculine” (Alexander 21). Due to the limiting and subservient expectations placed upon women during the Romantic era, there was hardly any time allotted for the discovery of self-fulfillment. Women were expected to keep busy through housework and domestic chores, and since it was widely assumed that a woman had less intellectual capabilities than a man, it was thought that she need not look any further for personal fulfillment than the limits of her own familial world. A woman was given no intellectual outlet by which to openly express the understanding of herself or the world in which she lived.
An unconscious victim of societal feminine barriers during the Romantic Movement was Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the well-known poet, William Wordsworth. With both of her parents having died by the time she was twelve years old, Dorothy was separated from her four brothers and spent most of her teenage and young adult life with distant relatives. She reunited with William at the age of 23, where they immediately became lifelong companions and friends. Dorothy had been an avid letter-writer throughout her youth, but became more in touch with her linguistic self when living with William, where she wrote myriad journals, travelogues, diaries, poems and observations. In return for taking care of domestic tasks (as was expected), William provided his sister with shelter, food, security and friendship.
Although she never married or had any children of her own, almost all of her “adult life was spent as a second mother, an aunt to William and Mary’s children. She was intimately concerned with what it meant to mother” (Alexander 15). Ironically, Dorothy never alludes to any emotional instances that deeply affect her. For instance, it is characteristic of her to record “the books [she has] read and named, but [offers] no comment” (Hamilton xxv). It seems quite odd that a woman, a naturally emotional being, would be able to read, work and experience life without any hint of incidental emotion. Strangely enough, it was precisely Dorothy’s emotional privacy that “stood at risk in the nurturing acts of femininity that Dorothy valued so greatly” (Alexander 14). However, this lack of expressed emotion directly emphasizes one of the barriers placed on women – that they should conduct themselves politely, quietly and passively. Dorothy doesn’t seem to mind her emotional privacy (or the way in which it stunts her writing potential) and instead proves her importance to the outside world through daily chores and natural observations by strongly adhering to “the idea that the equating of creativity and work is necessary to the success of the household unit” (Hamilton xxvii). Concurrently, Dorothy not only equates ‘work’ with domestic activities, but more importantly, with the caring of her brother. In a letter written to Jane Pollard in 1795, Dorothy describes to her friend that by living with William, “[she] shall be doing something” and that it is “a painful idea that one’s existence is of very little use which [she] has always been obliged to feel” (Woof 59). In this letter to her friend, Dorothy realizes that she has never particularly felt any inkling of personal significance within the context of her own life or in the life of others; naturally, anything allowing her to feel important and needed served as a viable reason to change the course of her life. In this case, William needed her to take care of him (domestically) and he placed a high value on Dorothy’s written observations, which only motivated her to continue her writing. Hence, William is ultimately responsible for the many Journals of his sister; without his presence providing both the purpose for and the subject of her writing, Dorothy would most likely not have felt as compelled to write. The fact that William serves as the source of inspiration for her writing illustrates the supposition that Dorothy never intended to write for herself, and therefore, her potential talent as a writer was never fully realized.
It has been widely argued that Dorothy was taken advantage of by William during their time spent living together. He would use Dorothy’s journals for poetic inspiration, often taking images directly from her daily journals and using them as is own. In today’s world, such manipulation and theft of words would be criminal, but considering Dorothy’s subservient and devoted attitude towards her brother, it makes sense that since he provides for her, she is more than willing to “record the days for [him], [which will] give him pleasure, and, in time, [the ability] to write down possible subjects for his poems [given] the stories of people she meets, stories usually of pathos and the poor” (Woof 42). Dorothy’s completely selfless surrender to William’s writing career borders on martyrdom, but it is natural to wonder whether or not her devotion to him caused her to undermine her own capabilities as a writer and therefore, never take credit for her own personal and creative self. In his Preface to Lyrical Ballads, William writes that “the poet considers man and the objects that surround him as acting and re-acting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure” (Abrams, Stillinger 242). Dorothy, on the other hand, although deeply inspired by William, chooses not to confront the complexities so cherished by her self-conscious brother; it “seems, rather, that she seek[s] self-forgetfulness and absorption, not [mental] dialogue” (Woof 41). It is entirely possible that Dorothy’s desire to avoid personal mental confrontation is due to her unstable psychology, as the “last two and a half decades of her life were lived out in the darkness and confusion of repeated mental breakdowns” (Alexander 9). More likely, however, is the assumption that she didn’t feel it was necessary or appropriate of her to explore the inner-workings of her mind so deeply that she would begin to feel a sense of self-empowerment. Furthermore, it is quite intriguing that Dorothy avoided confrontation with her brother to such an extent that she completely dismissed the very idea of being a published writer. In fact, she clearly states that “[she] should detest the idea of setting [her] self up as an author,” and instead, decides to “give Wm. (William) Pleasure by it” (Selincourt, Preface). It is not only the fear of self-realization or potential conflict with William that deters Dorothy from pursuing the publication of her work, but her “feminine, nurturing virtues were in conflict with the public estate of authorship. As a woman, she grasped the public world as inimical to her expressive self and thought it best not to enter it” (Alexander 117). Concerning her many written works, Dorothy asserts in a letter that if her narrative had been an “invention of [her] own, it might have been published without a name, and nobody would have thought of [her]” (Moorman, Selincourt 25). Since most of her narratives focus on the actual lives of the Greens, she feels that she does not deserve authorial recognition for simply publishing written observations about the lives of others. Once again, as is characteristic of Dorothy and of women at the time, she challenges her own authority as a writer, especially when compared to her brother. While gazing upon Grasmere Island one moonlit evening, she writes that “when [she] saw this lowly Building in the waters among the Dark and lofty hills, with that bright soft light upon it, it made [her] more than half a poet” (Moorman, Selincourt 51). The fact that she judges herself as being less than a poet (i.e. less than her brother) clearly illustrates “the passive and helpless […] reaction” that is typical of women in the Romantic era (Woof 42). Referring back to authorship, Dorothy dismisses the idea of publishing her work due in part to her intention to keep her journals strictly between William and herself. In context, it makes perfect sense that Dorothy would want to avoid recording certain intimate details about her own life, for William might not approve of the candid expression of his sister’s introspective and egotistical thoughts; if anything, he might feel slightly threatened. In order to fit within the feminine boundaries placed upon her by society, Dorothy wrote with a type of feminized knowledge, one that is “non-confrontational, valu[es] the present and the boundaries of discrete and palpable phenomena, [is] concerned with giving care and nurture, [and is] not anxious to enter into the realms of overt power” (Alexander 15). Because she was a woman, Dorothy never assumed the role as an individual who deserved self-expression; instead, she conforms to the style of writing that was expected of women during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Although she is grateful that William has provided her with a purposeful and secure lifestyle, one cannot help but wonder whether or not her psychological and emotional self is clearly portrayed throughout her written work. When Thomas De Quincey arrived at Dove Cottage to write an essay on William for Tait’s Magazine (1839), he interacted with Dorothy, and noted that “her manner was warm, even ardent [and she] checked, in obedience to the decorum of her sex and age in her maidenly condition” (Woof 73). While such a description paints Dorothy as a quite feminine and composed woman, De Quincey also notes upon further observation something unsettling about her disposition, that the “self-counteraction and self-baffling of her feelings, caused her even to stammer…” (Woof 74). Although she is widely viewed on the outside as a placid and proper woman, it appears that Dorothy possessed a whirl of emotions that had no healthy outlet due to her brother’s role as the creative genius in the household. This suppression of extreme emotion is undoubtedly what De Quincey noticed in Dorothy’s strange mannerisms while visiting her and William in Grasmere.
Conclusively, it is quite evident that Dorothy Wordsworth was unable to develop her talent and passion as a writer due to her role as a woman during the Romantic Era and the altruistic offering of her conscious self to her brother, William. Dorothy not only lacked a strong foundation upon which to live her conscious life (due to her unstable past), but she relied so heavily on her brother’s approbation and neediness that her own artistry became diluted, and was used only to foster the genius of William, not of herself. In this sense, Dorothy’s genius is inseparable from and “intimately bound to the complicated, meditative powers of her poet brother” (Alexander 2). Hence, the outside world will never be able to dissect the inner workings of the mind of Dorothy Wordsworth, as her retrieved work was written solely for and at the volition of her brother. The only possible recollection of Dorothy’s emotional state can be understood through the many letters she wrote to friends and family throughout her life, but ultimately, beyond mere written fragments, it is impossible to know what may have come from Miss Dorothy Wordsworth.










Works Cited

Abrams, M.H. and Stephen Greenblatt. "The Romantic Period." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000.

Alexander, Meena. Women in Romanticism. Maryland: Barnes & Noble Books, 1989.


Hamilton, Paul. Selections from the Journals. New York: New York University Press, 1992.

Romanticism. 23 Sep. 2001. English Department, Brooklyn College. 24 May 2006. .

Selincourt, E. de. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd, 1952.

Selincourt, E. de and Mary Moorman. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Middle Years. London: Clarendon Press, 1969.

Woof, Pamela. Dorothy Wordsworth, writer. Grasmere, Cumbria: The Wordsworth Trust, 1988.

This is a satirical website. Don't take it Seriously. It's a joke.