I picked this author because he was very touching in relating past stories and because he had an immense influence on writers such as Ruskin, Dickens (that I liked reading). This author also impressed me because he never gave up when all his work was lost in a fire...
“England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying inanition…with fifteen millions of workers, understood to be the strongest, the cunningest and the willingest our Earth ever had; these men are here; the work they have done, the fruit they have realized is here abundant.” (P1809) The author heart went out to the poor people in this passage, he gave them full credit for what they did; which they deserved. I agree with him when he said the fruit of what they realized is abundant because we are still benefiting from those fruits; we are where we are today because of their sweat. “In the eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but grief and shame and manifold inarticulate distress and weariness; they returned my glance with a glance that seemed to say, ‘Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, we know not why” (P1810) These poor were shamed by their situations, they themselves did not know why they were condemned to such injustice, why the rich treated them so badly without respect or consideration of them being human beings as they were. “A human mother and father had said to themselves, what shall we do to escape starvation? We are deep sunk here, in our dark cellar; and help is far.” (P1811) Over two hundred years later, having read about the difficulties they endured at that time, I am wondering myself what they did to somewhat escape this starvation. It is sad to say that hunger will probably always exits; although the world has came form a long way. “Are they better, beautifuler, stronger, braver? Are they even what they call happier? Do they look with satisfaction on more things and human faces in this God’s Earth? Not so” (P1811) Carlyle confirmed to us that even rich people were not happy then, even though they fought so hard to keep with continuing injustice, they knew it did not make them happy.
“Have we actually got enchanted, then; accursed by some God?” (P1812) I am assuming Carlyle believe in God and knew that the God we preach to could not let his children suffered so much; so he is wondering if it was another forced that was causing this injustice. If I was there then, I would wonder the same thing also…All the authors I read so far impressed me in the way they worded their poems to make the readers understand by letting them draw their own conclusions…
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Henry Mayhew (1812-1887)_Watercress Girl
Like William Godwin, Henry Mayhew was one of those authors who wrote about their interviews with people; one thing that I like about those authors is that they did not only assume what was going thru people mind, they asked them and then related it.
In the Watercress Girl, Mayhew related his exchange with an eight years old working girl; who had lost all concept of being a child and had became a woman. “There was something cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her future had scarcely formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life, with the calm earnestness of one who had endured them all” (P1838) I agree with the author it is pathetic for a eight years old to have this much experience in life as did this little girl (yes little girl is what we call an eight years old now a days). This girl had no way of playing as her age would require, she did not even know if parks existed, where they were or if they would let her go there just to look. “I go about the streets with water creases, crying, ‘four bunches for a penny, water creases’ I am just eight years old, that’s all and I’ve a big sister and a brother…On and off, I’ve been near a twelve month in the streets” (P1839) In order to survive and help her family this little girl sold water creases for pennies. “I used to go to school, but it’s such a long time ago; and mother took me away because the master whacked me…I didn’t like him at all…he hit me three times ever so hard, across the face with his cane, and made me go dancing down the stairs; and when mother saw the marks on my cheek she went to blow him up but she couldn’t see him…That’s why I left school” (P1839) This passage remind me about what Charles Dickens said about the rich being mad and nervous; because of the fact that the teacher abuse a child who was probably four or five at the time and then ran when the mother revolted and came to get him. It is pathetic that this teacher made a child that age dance in front of him in order to make him happy; we must also understand from this passage that poor had no way of going to school considering this situation. “ I don’t have dinner. Mother gives me two slices of bread and butter and a cup of tea for breakfast, and then I got till tea, and has the same. We has meat of a Sunday, and of course, I should like to have it everyday…I never has no sweet stuff; I never buy none, I don’t like it” (P1840) This girl was starved everyday by having only four slices of bread total a day; it made sense that the life expectancy in Manchester during the Industrialism was only twenty years of age for poor, poor were oppressed, starved and used to an inexplicable degree.
Having lived here in America for eight years,I had forgotten that this injustice could happen to even young people; however as I remember where I am coming from, Africa, I realized that it could exist and still exist back home. While reading the Industrialism, it seemed like none of the revolutions that happen in England, USA, France…had any impacts on changing this inequality between human beings; however, since changes did occur, I must say that those authors that I read so far had a lot of impacts on changes in the right direction...we are not there yet
In the Watercress Girl, Mayhew related his exchange with an eight years old working girl; who had lost all concept of being a child and had became a woman. “There was something cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her future had scarcely formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life, with the calm earnestness of one who had endured them all” (P1838) I agree with the author it is pathetic for a eight years old to have this much experience in life as did this little girl (yes little girl is what we call an eight years old now a days). This girl had no way of playing as her age would require, she did not even know if parks existed, where they were or if they would let her go there just to look. “I go about the streets with water creases, crying, ‘four bunches for a penny, water creases’ I am just eight years old, that’s all and I’ve a big sister and a brother…On and off, I’ve been near a twelve month in the streets” (P1839) In order to survive and help her family this little girl sold water creases for pennies. “I used to go to school, but it’s such a long time ago; and mother took me away because the master whacked me…I didn’t like him at all…he hit me three times ever so hard, across the face with his cane, and made me go dancing down the stairs; and when mother saw the marks on my cheek she went to blow him up but she couldn’t see him…That’s why I left school” (P1839) This passage remind me about what Charles Dickens said about the rich being mad and nervous; because of the fact that the teacher abuse a child who was probably four or five at the time and then ran when the mother revolted and came to get him. It is pathetic that this teacher made a child that age dance in front of him in order to make him happy; we must also understand from this passage that poor had no way of going to school considering this situation. “ I don’t have dinner. Mother gives me two slices of bread and butter and a cup of tea for breakfast, and then I got till tea, and has the same. We has meat of a Sunday, and of course, I should like to have it everyday…I never has no sweet stuff; I never buy none, I don’t like it” (P1840) This girl was starved everyday by having only four slices of bread total a day; it made sense that the life expectancy in Manchester during the Industrialism was only twenty years of age for poor, poor were oppressed, starved and used to an inexplicable degree.
Having lived here in America for eight years,I had forgotten that this injustice could happen to even young people; however as I remember where I am coming from, Africa, I realized that it could exist and still exist back home. While reading the Industrialism, it seemed like none of the revolutions that happen in England, USA, France…had any impacts on changing this inequality between human beings; however, since changes did occur, I must say that those authors that I read so far had a lot of impacts on changes in the right direction...we are not there yet
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)_The condition of the working class in England in 1844
Friedrich Engels a German author was amazed by the injustice that existed in Manchester when visiting there. Unlike Dickens, He gave a much more detailed and sad expose on the industrialism in Manchester (London). The book that Engels published in 1845 laid the groundwork for Engels’s collaboration with Karl Marx. The author described London as a beautiful city that had its ugliness hidden form the first look. Two and half million more people were concentrated there during working hours; those are the poor who had transformed London into the commercial capital of the world.
“It is only later that the traveler appreciates the human suffering which has made all this possible. He can only realize the price that has been paid for all this magnificence after he has tramped the pavement of the main streets on London for some days….It is only when he has visited the slums of this great city that it dawns upon him that the inhabitants of modern London have had to sacrifice so much that is best in human nature in order to create those wonders of civilization with which their city teems” (P1832) Dickens said that the first days visiting London it was impossible to realized the sacrifice that was made by poor to make this beauty possible. The people who did the greatest jobs were not allowed to live there; they sacrified everything that is best in them to make that happen; for example their health, their fate, their proud of being to make this happen and did not rejoice from it for a second. “The vast majority of Londoners have had to let so many of their faculties lie dormant, stunted and unused in order that a small, closely knit group of their fellow citizens could develop to the full the qualities with which nature has endowed them.” (P1832) Engels revolted the readers by telling them that the poor worked to death to produce those beautiful places but that they government or managers of those facilities left them unused in order to satisfy a small portion of the population (rich) to the full extend. “Are they not all human beings with the same innate characteristics and potentialities? Are they not all equally interested in the pursuit of happiness?” (P1832) Here Engels wondered why this much gap existed between rich, middle class and working class. Wondering how people born the same way with the same mentality, motivated with the same mean can pass each other without seen each other. “We know well enough that this isolation of the individual, this narrow minded egotism, is everywhere the fundamental principle of modern society. But nowhere is this selfish egotism so blatantly evident as in the frantic bustle of the great city.” (P1832) Engels told us that this self-interest is normal in modern city, meaning capitalist cities; but he recognized that it was too selfish and not fair. The middle class people were not better off from the working class; they all lived packed together with filthy and gutter-less houses. “Here live the poorest of the poor. Here the worst paid workers rub shoulders with thieves, rogues and prostitutes. Most of them have come from Ireland or are form Irish extraction.” (P1834)
I could not still help wondering: how could this commercial capital of the world, this richest country hold so many poor and sadness? The worst of all is that the poor were the smartest since, if I am not mistaking Irish are very smart people. What was happening in the world then and is still happening to some extents now days. Is injustice ever ended in the world? I guess not, it is a never-ending fight…
“It is only later that the traveler appreciates the human suffering which has made all this possible. He can only realize the price that has been paid for all this magnificence after he has tramped the pavement of the main streets on London for some days….It is only when he has visited the slums of this great city that it dawns upon him that the inhabitants of modern London have had to sacrifice so much that is best in human nature in order to create those wonders of civilization with which their city teems” (P1832) Dickens said that the first days visiting London it was impossible to realized the sacrifice that was made by poor to make this beauty possible. The people who did the greatest jobs were not allowed to live there; they sacrified everything that is best in them to make that happen; for example their health, their fate, their proud of being to make this happen and did not rejoice from it for a second. “The vast majority of Londoners have had to let so many of their faculties lie dormant, stunted and unused in order that a small, closely knit group of their fellow citizens could develop to the full the qualities with which nature has endowed them.” (P1832) Engels revolted the readers by telling them that the poor worked to death to produce those beautiful places but that they government or managers of those facilities left them unused in order to satisfy a small portion of the population (rich) to the full extend. “Are they not all human beings with the same innate characteristics and potentialities? Are they not all equally interested in the pursuit of happiness?” (P1832) Here Engels wondered why this much gap existed between rich, middle class and working class. Wondering how people born the same way with the same mentality, motivated with the same mean can pass each other without seen each other. “We know well enough that this isolation of the individual, this narrow minded egotism, is everywhere the fundamental principle of modern society. But nowhere is this selfish egotism so blatantly evident as in the frantic bustle of the great city.” (P1832) Engels told us that this self-interest is normal in modern city, meaning capitalist cities; but he recognized that it was too selfish and not fair. The middle class people were not better off from the working class; they all lived packed together with filthy and gutter-less houses. “Here live the poorest of the poor. Here the worst paid workers rub shoulders with thieves, rogues and prostitutes. Most of them have come from Ireland or are form Irish extraction.” (P1834)
I could not still help wondering: how could this commercial capital of the world, this richest country hold so many poor and sadness? The worst of all is that the poor were the smartest since, if I am not mistaking Irish are very smart people. What was happening in the world then and is still happening to some extents now days. Is injustice ever ended in the world? I guess not, it is a never-ending fight…
Charles Dickens (1812-1870))_ Hard Times: CokeTown
Charles Dickens is one of the industrialism’s authors; the period of industrialism was described by Eric Hobsbawm as “the most fundamental transformation of human life in the history of the world” (P1818). Cotton industry was the first wave of the Industrial Revolution; the wealth in Britain was not shared with any poor. Considering this pollution and suffering Dickens wrote about Manchester, which he called the CokeTown. “It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but, as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.” Here Dickens was telling us about the change in color of the bricks houses due to the industrial pollution (caused by the machinery and tall chimneys). “It contained several large streets all very like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another…. all went in and out around the same hours, with the same pavement, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow” Dickens described the street of Manchester, a town inhabited by the people who worked there, who are the poor. They all did the same work, which was an everyday routine. “The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, and the town hall might have either or both.” (P 1829) Here Dickens left this interpretation to readers, he let us imagine what a jail and infirmary looked like and asked us switch them; imagine an infirmary becoming a jail.... He told us that there were facts and facts about the industrialism everywhere eyes were laid. “…Who belonged to the eighteen denominations… the labouring people did not. It was very strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday morning, and note how few of them…driving the sick and nervous mad” (P1829) Dickens emphasized on the suffering of the working class, they worked far from where they lived; only few of them were seen on the streets on Sunday driving their boss to church because that day was not a working day. I believe he referred to the rich man as a nervous and mad person. I agree with the author because rich people must have been mean and mad to make other human being go through life that way; they were nervous because they must have been waiting to be taken over by the poor at any minute of the life because those rich people still knew of the excessive inequality. “In short it was only in the case, that these same people were bad lot altogether, gentlemen; that do what you would do for them they were never thankful for it, gentlemen that were restless…that never knew what they wanted; that live upon the best…yet were eternally dissatisfied and unmanageable.” (P1830) Dickens denounced the rich; he said they are all bad and unkind; all ungrateful and restless. No matter how hard the poor worked for them they were never satisfied, that made the poor worked to death without satisfying the bosses.
Felicia Hemans (1793-1835)
Felicia Hemans was born in 1793, the year of the execution of the king and queen of France; she was a child of prodigy under the devoted tutelage of her mother and publicized her first volume at fourteen. At nineteen with three volume produced already she married captain Alfred Hemans in 1812. By 1818 she produced three more volume and five sons; unfortunately the captain left her with no reason just before the birth of her last son. She then decided to move in with her mother, brothers and sisters in order to raise her children and survive by continuing to write. After the death of her mother in 1827 she was devastated and her health suffered as a result she died in 1835. I am writing about Felicia Hemans because she is a great write, a brave woman and I was very moved by "The wife of Asdrubal.”
In this poem, Felicia Hemans told us how the day of her death and her children was a triumph for her; after having suffered the consequence of being left by her father and husband she condemned her husband to death by taking her children lives and hers. She spoke “The mean things thou hast done to save thy life shall not avail thee; thou shall die this instant, at least in thy two children.” (P 1736) She is telling her husband that the mean things he had done in order to survive elsewhere without his family will not last or stay without consequences, that he too should dye that day with them (the death of the two children).
In this poem it is written “Her walls have sunk, and pyramids of fire. In lurid splendor from her domes aspire; Sway’d by the wind, they wave while glares the sky….” (P 1736) The narrator is describing Felicia Hemans as a woman who did not have any more walls, any more strength; that she was not holding back any more as the end of her life was beginning. “The flames are gathering round …Full on her features glares their meteor light, but a wild courage sits triumphant there, the stormy grandeur of a proud despair….” (P1737). Here we are given a picture of the temple where Felicia was, there were flames all over, and she was courageous and proud of what she was about to deliver. She knew that this was her only way out, the only way to reach her husband and make him pay for what he did. “Are those her infants, that with suppliant cry cling round her, shrinking as the flame draws night, clasp with their feeble hands her gorgeous vest… Is that a mother’s glance, where stern disdain, and passion awfully vindictive, reign?” (P1737) Here the narrator was wondering if those suppliant children were hers, Felicia face was hard as a rock, she was just seen the end means: vengeance against her husband. “Live traitor, live!” she cries (P1737) This is too sad of story, like the narrator said “O slave in spirit” (P1737) Felicia was mentally ill of her husband’s behavior, her mother was her only strength whose death was unbearable; she then had to show her husband how much she wanted to pay him back for what he did to her. “Think’st thou I love them not? Tis mine with these to suffer and to die. Behold their fate! The arms that cannot save have been their cradle, and shall be their grave” (P1738). Wow!!! Here Felicia was telling the husband and even the readers not think that she did not love her children; that she held their fate, that she rather them to dye that to suffer, that her arms could not save them any more even thought those arms were their cradle; but now those arms were about to become their grave. Felicia was a woman of a kind, she was a typical example of courage and despair, I had mixed emotions when I read this poem, I still cannot imagine or understand that she was able to do it; but I must say that I did not condemned her at all. The more I read the poem, the more I understood what message she was sending us all; if her mother was alive the outcome would have been different.
In this poem, Felicia Hemans told us how the day of her death and her children was a triumph for her; after having suffered the consequence of being left by her father and husband she condemned her husband to death by taking her children lives and hers. She spoke “The mean things thou hast done to save thy life shall not avail thee; thou shall die this instant, at least in thy two children.” (P 1736) She is telling her husband that the mean things he had done in order to survive elsewhere without his family will not last or stay without consequences, that he too should dye that day with them (the death of the two children).
In this poem it is written “Her walls have sunk, and pyramids of fire. In lurid splendor from her domes aspire; Sway’d by the wind, they wave while glares the sky….” (P 1736) The narrator is describing Felicia Hemans as a woman who did not have any more walls, any more strength; that she was not holding back any more as the end of her life was beginning. “The flames are gathering round …Full on her features glares their meteor light, but a wild courage sits triumphant there, the stormy grandeur of a proud despair….” (P1737). Here we are given a picture of the temple where Felicia was, there were flames all over, and she was courageous and proud of what she was about to deliver. She knew that this was her only way out, the only way to reach her husband and make him pay for what he did. “Are those her infants, that with suppliant cry cling round her, shrinking as the flame draws night, clasp with their feeble hands her gorgeous vest… Is that a mother’s glance, where stern disdain, and passion awfully vindictive, reign?” (P1737) Here the narrator was wondering if those suppliant children were hers, Felicia face was hard as a rock, she was just seen the end means: vengeance against her husband. “Live traitor, live!” she cries (P1737) This is too sad of story, like the narrator said “O slave in spirit” (P1737) Felicia was mentally ill of her husband’s behavior, her mother was her only strength whose death was unbearable; she then had to show her husband how much she wanted to pay him back for what he did to her. “Think’st thou I love them not? Tis mine with these to suffer and to die. Behold their fate! The arms that cannot save have been their cradle, and shall be their grave” (P1738). Wow!!! Here Felicia was telling the husband and even the readers not think that she did not love her children; that she held their fate, that she rather them to dye that to suffer, that her arms could not save them any more even thought those arms were their cradle; but now those arms were about to become their grave. Felicia was a woman of a kind, she was a typical example of courage and despair, I had mixed emotions when I read this poem, I still cannot imagine or understand that she was able to do it; but I must say that I did not condemned her at all. The more I read the poem, the more I understood what message she was sending us all; if her mother was alive the outcome would have been different.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Percy Shelley was a young writer who was very talented; he was one of the most radical visionary of the romantics. His poetry carried revolutionary ideas through the century; along with William Blake, he was a celebrity in the youth culture of the 1960 (P1702). Born into a conservative aristocrat family; grandchild of a wealthy landowner and son of a member of the parliament, Shelley was a star to the radical press and an infamy to the conservative press. He later married Mary who was the daughter of his hero William Godwin.
In the Mask of Anarchy, Shelley wrote against the political system that existed in England, he opened his readers’ eyes and rebelled them against the anarchy. “As I lay asleep in Italy, there came a voice from the sea, and with great power it forth led me, to talk in the vision of poesy” (P1711). Here Shelley said that the sea encourage him to talk about the injustice going on in the form of poetry. Shelley denounced murders, fraud, the hypocrisy that existed in church, the masquerade played by bishop and lawyers and last the anarchy. He describe the king as a mean person who ride on a horse splashed with blood; meaning a lot of precious stuff on the horse which came form the sweat of the poor. The king of England had an attitude that said “I am God, and king and Law!” (P1712) “Thou are God, and Law, and King! We have waited, weak and lone… our purses are empty, our swords are cold” (P1713) I think here Shelley told the king (anarchy) that they nation has waited a long time, that they are tired, people are poor and weak, it is time for glory and gold; time for a change. “Men of England, heirs of glory’ heroes of unwritten story, nursing of one mother, hopes of her and one another, rise like lions after slumber, shake your chains to earth…ye are may, they are few.” (P171510 Here, Shelley motivated the people of England by calling them: the fruits of glory, he said that they will be stories written about them where they will be heroes if they fight for what is rightfully theirs. He called them to get up and fight like lions, that the people affected by the bad system are many and that the people doing the anarchy are few. I think Shelley was really convincing in this poem, that people who read it that time took his advice and took action; because England today is exactly what he wanted it to be: great nation with glorious children with heroic great grand parents.
“Tis to see your children weak, with their mother pine and peak, when the winter winds are bleak, they are dying whilst I speak.” (P1715) Anyone in the audience then who read this will be infuriated because it was so true. He said that their children were weak from hunger I believed, that they live in a cold house where they had no money to put windows or heat. He also finished by saying that their children were dying from poverty as he spoke. “ Tis to hunger for such diet, as the rich man in his riot, cast to the fat dogs that lie surfeiting beneath his eyes.” (P1715) he said, you are dying from hunger, not eating when you want; he referred to forced diet when the rich man dogs (not one dog but many) are full and fat. (He is basically telling them in the eyes of the rich those dogs are better than human beings)Shelley reminded me of reading Thomas Paine and specially Mary Woolstonecraft, because of the way that they based their arguments on facts and truth, to open people eyes. Those authors really had impacts on the radical changes that happened in the world: emancipation of people, balancing conservatism and democracy, respect of human beings as a whole. I think those authors are called romantics because they based their views on real events, talked about them in different ways in order to reach the audience, responses to each other views for example Paine, Woolstonecraft against Burke. It is like they are in love with the same subjects (nature, political system, social injustice)
In the Mask of Anarchy, Shelley wrote against the political system that existed in England, he opened his readers’ eyes and rebelled them against the anarchy. “As I lay asleep in Italy, there came a voice from the sea, and with great power it forth led me, to talk in the vision of poesy” (P1711). Here Shelley said that the sea encourage him to talk about the injustice going on in the form of poetry. Shelley denounced murders, fraud, the hypocrisy that existed in church, the masquerade played by bishop and lawyers and last the anarchy. He describe the king as a mean person who ride on a horse splashed with blood; meaning a lot of precious stuff on the horse which came form the sweat of the poor. The king of England had an attitude that said “I am God, and king and Law!” (P1712) “Thou are God, and Law, and King! We have waited, weak and lone… our purses are empty, our swords are cold” (P1713) I think here Shelley told the king (anarchy) that they nation has waited a long time, that they are tired, people are poor and weak, it is time for glory and gold; time for a change. “Men of England, heirs of glory’ heroes of unwritten story, nursing of one mother, hopes of her and one another, rise like lions after slumber, shake your chains to earth…ye are may, they are few.” (P171510 Here, Shelley motivated the people of England by calling them: the fruits of glory, he said that they will be stories written about them where they will be heroes if they fight for what is rightfully theirs. He called them to get up and fight like lions, that the people affected by the bad system are many and that the people doing the anarchy are few. I think Shelley was really convincing in this poem, that people who read it that time took his advice and took action; because England today is exactly what he wanted it to be: great nation with glorious children with heroic great grand parents.
“Tis to see your children weak, with their mother pine and peak, when the winter winds are bleak, they are dying whilst I speak.” (P1715) Anyone in the audience then who read this will be infuriated because it was so true. He said that their children were weak from hunger I believed, that they live in a cold house where they had no money to put windows or heat. He also finished by saying that their children were dying from poverty as he spoke. “ Tis to hunger for such diet, as the rich man in his riot, cast to the fat dogs that lie surfeiting beneath his eyes.” (P1715) he said, you are dying from hunger, not eating when you want; he referred to forced diet when the rich man dogs (not one dog but many) are full and fat. (He is basically telling them in the eyes of the rich those dogs are better than human beings)Shelley reminded me of reading Thomas Paine and specially Mary Woolstonecraft, because of the way that they based their arguments on facts and truth, to open people eyes. Those authors really had impacts on the radical changes that happened in the world: emancipation of people, balancing conservatism and democracy, respect of human beings as a whole. I think those authors are called romantics because they based their views on real events, talked about them in different ways in order to reach the audience, responses to each other views for example Paine, Woolstonecraft against Burke. It is like they are in love with the same subjects (nature, political system, social injustice)
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855)
Dorothy Wordsworth was born in the Lake District of England where she spent eight years of her life with her family. After her mother died, her father sent away from her brothers to live with distant relatives; it is not until 1787 that she reunited with William then they decided to have a home together. After following Coleridge in Germany to learn the language they settled in Grasmere in 1799. Although Dorothy did not intend to be a writer she was very good at it; she made me understand her brother's poems, and his generosity. “ Her Grasmere journal is a fascinating chronicle of early nineteenth-century life in the Lake District: full of brilliant detailed descriptions of nature, account of domestic life and household labor.” (P1618) After reading her, I understood that William wrote about real life events, that he cared about the well being of society, that people should care about each. I actually went back and started reading him again but I still did not understand his poetry ( I just have an idea).
In Home Alone she explained how she was sad when her two brothers William and John (who lived with them) left for Yorkshire to visit Mary Hutchinson who became William Wordsworth’s wife. She described very beautifully the nature, a blind man walking with two sticks driving a beautiful bull and cow. She talked about a well-dressed woman who begged for a half penny that had never done it before; but is obligated because of the hard times. Another woman who came from Manchester came to beg in order to keep her three children and husband’s single grave to be taken away from her. She had a bill form the bank, but it was a cheat from the bank-I assume. I must say that the system back then was very unfair to the poor people, rich people cheated without pity. to say that people as many bodies in one grave is outragious and revolting; specially if poor people worked ten times more than rich but got poorer.
In A Beggar Woman From Cockermouth, Dorothy described the beautiful nature as her and William went to an excursion to meet Coleridge. There, they saw a woman with two little girls all starved and tired from the travel. The woman was 30 years old and had been left by her husband who pursued another woman. Dorothy was again moved by this woman story and gave her more money than asked for. I think that women were cheated by their husbands a lot back in those days, I wonder if William Godwin reach to people by saying that commitment was barbaric :) I can see that Dorothy related a lot on women, she wanted to make sure that readers undeerstood how women suffered more that men.
Dorothy Wordsworth, just like her brother had generosity for people who could not support themselves. She was a modest woman who did not even take credit for her great skills; for example on the letter she wrote to Lady Beaumont, she said that she did not deserved to be praised for her poems (An address to a child where she described the wind so well) that William published in his book. It is hard to believe that Dorothy was just writing in order to please her Brother, she is very creative; I must say that if she was doing it seriously she would have surpassed her brother.
In Home Alone she explained how she was sad when her two brothers William and John (who lived with them) left for Yorkshire to visit Mary Hutchinson who became William Wordsworth’s wife. She described very beautifully the nature, a blind man walking with two sticks driving a beautiful bull and cow. She talked about a well-dressed woman who begged for a half penny that had never done it before; but is obligated because of the hard times. Another woman who came from Manchester came to beg in order to keep her three children and husband’s single grave to be taken away from her. She had a bill form the bank, but it was a cheat from the bank-I assume. I must say that the system back then was very unfair to the poor people, rich people cheated without pity. to say that people as many bodies in one grave is outragious and revolting; specially if poor people worked ten times more than rich but got poorer.
In A Beggar Woman From Cockermouth, Dorothy described the beautiful nature as her and William went to an excursion to meet Coleridge. There, they saw a woman with two little girls all starved and tired from the travel. The woman was 30 years old and had been left by her husband who pursued another woman. Dorothy was again moved by this woman story and gave her more money than asked for. I think that women were cheated by their husbands a lot back in those days, I wonder if William Godwin reach to people by saying that commitment was barbaric :) I can see that Dorothy related a lot on women, she wanted to make sure that readers undeerstood how women suffered more that men.
Dorothy Wordsworth, just like her brother had generosity for people who could not support themselves. She was a modest woman who did not even take credit for her great skills; for example on the letter she wrote to Lady Beaumont, she said that she did not deserved to be praised for her poems (An address to a child where she described the wind so well) that William published in his book. It is hard to believe that Dorothy was just writing in order to please her Brother, she is very creative; I must say that if she was doing it seriously she would have surpassed her brother.
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