Summary
For all of the biographical work that has been done on Dorothy Wordsworth, and all the work that is doubtless to come, William Wordsworth's sister, companion and muse remains - and probably will remain - something of a cipher.
Dorothy is an elusive subject, and so she meant to be: She lived not for herself, but for her brother, and in this consecration of herself, Dorothy's life became, as her first biographer put it, "absorbed in [her brother's] own existence." Perhaps this is why Frances Wilson's new biography, "The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth," is riddled with questions, often series of questions, that go unanswered:See the full content of this document
Extract
'She Gave Me Eyes, She Gave Me Ears'
"Do Dorothy's journals describe her joy or dejection? Are her reflections, observations and impressions a metaphor for her interior life, or is she simply documenting what she sees? Is her love for her brother that of a rejected mistress, or sisterly devotion of the kind that is hard for a ...
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