Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (Oxford Paperbacks, 248)

Dorothy Wordsworth's journals are an exquisite and delicate record of everyday life with the Wordsworths (Dorothy, William, Mary, his wife, and their close network of friends like Coleridge and Sara Hutchinson). Most interesting are her depictions of the landscapes and her descriptions of the marginalised peoples. Her journals note down destitute figures, a begger woman and her sons, a woman who drowned herself, two beggers, the plodding mail man etc.Dorothy opens the window to a domesticated William Wordsworth, the Poet, at work in the acts of creation. Sunday Morning [14th of March 1802] reads, "...while we were at Breakfast that is (for I had breakfasted) he, with his Basin of Broth before him untouched and a little plate of Bread and butter he wrote the Poem to a Butterfly! He ate not a morsel, nor put on his stockings but sate with his shirt neck unbuttoned, and his waistcoat open while he did it."Many literary critics have chosen to see Dorothy Wordsworth as a shadow of her brother, these readers say that Dorothy does not pocess a coherent self and they fault the patriarchal powers for her lack of an active self. I see Dorothy Wordsworth as a delicate, compassionate and kind person with "A Passion for the Particular."* She is, I feel, well aware of her self as a self, and also well aware of other selves as themselves. Her journal is littered with what she does achieves in her daily life. This journal is a fantastic bedtime read. Her unique and careful narrative style, her emphasis and focus on truthful detail, all these make reading the journal a real pleasure. I only wish I discovered her earlier.* This phrase is taken from the title of Elizabeth Gunn's book on Dorothy Wordsworth.