Dorothy Wordsworth

After reading William Wordsworth, I liked reading Dorothy Wordsworth, his sister’s works. Even though she wrote never expecting to be published, her poetry was still good and competitive to the other romantics writing during her time. Her journals seemed to be her most personal works and in my opinion, her best. In the introduction it says that in her Grasmere journal, she was writing to give William “pleasure.” She seems to be writing more from her heart in this case and is able to really show who she is as a writer.

I enjoyed reading “A Vision of the Moon” from The Grasmere Journals. It is obvious from her writings that Dorothy Wordsworth has some of the same feelings towards nature as her brother William. As nature stirred him to write, it did the same for her as well.

“there was something in the air that compelled me to serious thought – the hills were large, closed in by the sky.”

She feels the presence of the beautiful moon and it causes her to take in all that is around her in serious thought. She also gives nature life in her writing just as her brother does. She describes the sky closing in around the hills. Everything seems to have a purpose and its own spirit. She does not merely see the mountains and sky wholly as nature. Separately they are their own beings.

Her descriptions in the passage really help the reader to be able to imagine her vision of the moon in the dark sky.

“O the unutterable darkness of the sky & the Earth below the Moon! & the glorious brightness of the moon itself! There was a vivid sparkling streak of light at this end of Rydale water but the rest was very dark & Loughrigg fell and Silver How were white & bright as if they were covered with hoar frost.”

She uses contrasting images to show how magnificent the moon is. A bright moon is depicted against a dark sky and earth. It is the center of Dorothy’s attention in her vision and in the image she creates for the reader. The only other light in the sky is the reflection of the moon in the water looking back at itself. As she travels home, she creates another beautiful image from the moon.

“Once there was no moonlight to be seen but upon the Island house & the promontory of the Island where it stands.” She continues to say, “That needs to be a holy place.”

The image of the moon only shining on the house and no where else makes the house seem out of the ordinary and special. In fact, the moon shining on it makes it holy in her eyes. Her deep connection with nature in a spiritual sense is seen here. Her vision of the moon becomes much like a religious and spiritual experience for her. Her writing caused me to see the moon in a different way. It is the one light against total darkness in the sky each night. Seems pretty incredible.