by Adam Neikirk   On the Rock of Names my own initials come Just after William’s, to signify His love for me and quietly confirm A change in the settled order. (“Mary Hutchinson, At Gallow Hill” ln. 1-4, pp. 76)   Vital Stream is a sequence of 135 sonnets, and a new collection of poetry […]

by Gareth Evans   Let’s play a short game. Imagine you are sitting silently in a darkened room waiting for a small group of early Romantics to enter. First come Dorothy and William Wordsworth. Their footfalls are contrasting in tone, although from the many miles of walking they have undertaken together they are curiously co-ordinated. […]

by Connor James   While discussing “fluxes… of the mind” in his Preface to the 1802 edition of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth draws attention to the mind as a faculty which is subject to constant change. This is evident in the familiar ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,’ which, whether he would have liked it or […]

by Hannah Britton On the afternoon of 18th May, Senior Hospice Nurse Lilian Simmonds addressed a group gathered opposite Dove Cottage and asked us to ponder the question: ‘Why should we read Dorothy Wordsworth?’  So began an afternoon that would take us on a journey in Dorothy Wordsworth’s footsteps, walking across a landscape that she […]

by Jayne Thomas   In his 1879 essay on Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold maintains that by the publication of Tennyson’s 1842 Poems ‘the ear and applause of the great body of poetry-readers’ turn decisively toward Tennyson and away from Wordsworth, a transition of which Wordsworth himself was perhaps aware. Aubrey de Vere records a meeting between […]

by Fred Blick There is a rewarding connection between William Wordsworth’s literary work and Gustav Mahler’s musical compositions. They were both important exponents of Romanticism. Romantic artists throughout the nineteenth century were identifiable as being concerned with the pleasures, fears and pains of individuals and their relationship with Nature. I intend to show that the […]

by Ian O. Brodie Behind and above the Museum at William Wordsworth’s Grasmere home, Dove Cottage, we find the celebrated, perhaps even infamous, Rock of Names, also known as ‘Sara’s Rock’. This reconstructed slab of a Lakeland volcanic outcrop used to be found, in situ, around half-way between the homes of the Wordsworths in Grasmere […]

by Rachael Tarrant   A jade-coloured rectangular box is laid delicately and ceremoniously on the table; hidden inside lies another treasure of the Wordsworth Trust. Our little group – enthused students of Romanticism – have already been shown a first-edition copy of the Lyrical Ballads – ‘shown’ because the book is considered so valuable as […]