
This work is a continuous text made up of extracts from Dorothy Wordsworths Journal" & a selection of her brothers poems. Dorothy Wordsworth kept her journal because I shall give William pleasure by it. In doing so she never dreamt that she was giving future readers not only the chance to enjoy her fresh & sensitive delight in the beauties that surrounded her at Grasmere but also a rare opportunity to observe the progress of a poets mind. Colette Clarks skilful & perceptive arrangement of Dorothys entries alongside Williams poems throws a unique light on his creative process & shows how the interdependence of brother & sister was a vital part in the writing of many of his great poems. By reading these poems in relation to the journal it is possible to trace the processes by which they were committed to paper & so achieve a fuller understanding of them. A writer in her own right Dorothy kept her journal sparse in personal & emotional detail. Yet there is nevertheless a deep emotional undercurrent running beneath the surface which only falters when William marries Mary Hutchinson. Never again was Dorothy to achieve the freedom spontaneity & the limpidly beautiful prose with which she infused & irradiated the Grasmere journals."