Wordsworth Museum(2). 글라스미어(Grasmere)

Wordsworth Museum(2). 글라스미어(Grasmere). 영국(England)

wordsworth.org.uk

 

Many of the items displayed in the Museum have been purchased with the generous help of others. The Wordsworth Trust thanks the many organisations and individuals who support its acquisitions, and acknowledges in particular the generosity of the following institutions over many years.

 

The W.W. Spooner Charitable Trust

The MLA/V & A Purchase Grant Fund

The Art Fund

The Friends of teh National Libraries

The Heritage Lottery Fund

The National Heritage Memorial Fund

 

 

William Wordsworth

(1770-1850)

 

'But in imaginative power he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed and his own.'

 

 

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Life in Grasmere

The Yeoman Farmer

During Wordsworth's lifetime the most dominant social group in Grasmere - and indeeds, the Lake District - were the yeoman farmers. In a letter to politician Charles Fox the poet described this class of men as 'small independent proprietors of land called statesmen, men o f respectable education who daily labour on their own little properties'. (January 1801.)

 

His House

Much of the farmhouse accommodation in the Lake District was rebuilt during the years 1650-1750. Research has shown that there is a typical design. This has been called the 'Statesman Plan'. This reconstruction of a kitchen-living room (or as it was known locally 'house-place') takes account of this plan. Wordsworth's portrayal of the life of a typical Grasmere farmer in his poem Michael, includes a description of the interior of such a room.

 

His day had not been passed in singleness.

His Helpmate was a comely matron, old-

Though younger than himself full twenty years.

She was a woman of a stirring life,

Whose heart was in her house : two wheels she had

Of antique form ; this large, for spinning wool;

That small, for flax ; and if one wheel had rest,

It was because the other was wt work...

                                 When day was gone,

And from their occupations out of doors

The Son and Father were come home, even then,

Their labour did not cease ; unless when all

Turned to the cleanly supper-board, and there,

Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk,

Sat around the basket piled with oaten cakes,

And their plain home made cheese. Yet when the meal

Was ended, Luke (for so the Son was named)

And his old Father both betook themselves

To such convenient work as might employ

Their hands by the fire-side ; perhaps to card

Wool for the Housewife's spindle, or repair

Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,

Or other implement of house or field.

 

Down from the ceiling, by the chimney's edge,

That in our ancient uncouth country style

With huge and black projection overbrowed

Large space beneath, as duly as the light

Of day grew dim the Housewife hung a lamp;

An aged utensil, which had performed

Service beyound all others of its kind...

This light was famous in its neighbourhood,

And was a public symbol of the life

That thrifty Pair had lived. For, as it chanced,

Their cottage on a plot of rising ground

Stood single, with large prospect, north and south,

High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise,

And westward to the village near the lake ;

And from this constant light, so regular

And so far seen, the House itself, by all

Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,

Both old and young, was named THE EVENING STAR.

Michael - A PASTORAL POEM Imes 78-85, 95-116, 129-139

 

 1. Bellows                                                      2. Peat

 3. Spit                                                           4. Fire crane and pot hooks

 5. Spice cupboard                                           6. Rush light container

 7. Box iron                                                     8. Horn mugs

 9. Wrestling belts                                            10. Thrivel

11. Candle mould                                             12. Vegetable cutter

13. Butter moulds                                             14. Butter squeezers

15. Butter pats                                                 16. Bread cupboard

17. Rushlight and candle holder                           18. Milking pail

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pace Eggs (Easter traditions)

In the following letter extrace Dora Wordsworth describes going to see pace eggs being rolled in Carlisle. She also writes about her father, mother and aunties rolling pace eggs when children at Penrith:

 

'We went the other day to see the Children roll their Pace eggs - but Easter was past before you Rotha reached Rydal last year, & Mima was too young, when she had some one year, to remember so you will both ask "what are pace eggs ?" & I wll tell you - they are common eggs died all sorts of gay colors red, & yellow, & pink, & blue, & green, - & now they are only made use of as play things for Children - they roll one against another each doing his best to break his neighbour's egg - it is supposed ot be a remnant of some old religious ceremony - & that these eggs were then brought as Peace offerings you are both of you Latin scholars enough to know that Pax pacis means peace & thence comes the word Pace -'

 

The children are all dressed in their very best & if they can afford one new frock in the year it is always new on at this time - Had the day been warm it wd have been a gay & pretty sight but unluckily it was damp & cold so the bare arms & white frocks & pink & blue sashes looked anything but comfortable. Then all the Workpeople men & women have holyday & they go to look at their children - & booths were are erected all over the large field so that it had the appearance of a large fair - This custom is kept up in this town with more spirit than in any other except it be Penrith - their my Father & Mother & all my Aunts used when little children to roll their eggs - Fancy my Father braking my Mothers pretty eggs - does i not make you laugh to think of it ? but so in truth it was - & they used also on Easter Sunday to say thier Catechism in Church - when they were only some of them three years old - My Father has written a sonnet on this which I dare say Papa will shew you someday if you ask him'

 

Letter from Dora Wordsworth, to Rotha and Jemima Quillinan, 17 April 1832

 

William Rollinson in his book Life and Tradition in the Lake District, p. 47, writes'

 

'And of course Easter Day was associated with pace eggs, hard-boiled and coloured with redwood, alum or onion skins. Traditionally children met at some appointed place and bowled the eggs against one another until the shells cracked, like some great "conker" game."

 

The pace eggs we have in the museum were painted by the Wordsworths' servant at Rydal Mount James Dixon.

 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Portrait by Richard Carruthers

1818

Oil on canvas

The Wordsworth Trust, bequest of Joanna Hutchinson, 1966

 

 

"I wandered lonely as a cloud"

(Daffodils)

Please lift headphones and listen

 

Wordsworth's Lake District

 

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Cockermouth & Penrith 1770~1779

'The fairest of all rivers'

The River Derwent runs at the bottom of the garden behind Wordsworth's home in Cockermouth. As he put it in the first lines to be wirtten for his autobiographical poem The Prulude : the river 'flowed along my dreams'.

 

 

                                      Was it for this

That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved

To blend his murmurs with my Nurse's song,

And from his alder shades, and rocky falls,

And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice

That flowed along my dreams ? For this didst thou

O Derwent, travelling over the green plains

Near my "sweet birth-place," didst thou beauteous Stream

 

Make ceaseless music through the night and day,

Which with its steady cadence, tempering

Our human waywardness, composed my thoughts

To more than infant softness, giving me,

Among the fretful dwellings of mankind,

A knowledge, a dim earnest of the calm

Which Nature breathes among the fields and groves ?

The Prelude 1799, 1-15

 

 

 

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Hawkshead & Esthwaite 1779~1787

'My school days'

In May 1779, Richard and William ~ the two elder Wordsworth boys ~ went to Hawkshead Grammar School (founded in 1585). Though a small school, it was at this time an extremely good one, with a record of successes at Cambridge.

 

For eight years Wordsworth was taught in this room

 

Lodgings

At first, Wordsworth lived at Ann & Hugh Tyson's home at Hawkshead

 

Thy Tysons moved to Colthouse in 1783, and Wordsworth stayed with them in this hamlet just outside Hawkshead until he left school.

 

The Death of Wordsworth's Father (30th December 1783)

In December 1783, Wordsworth had what proved to be a very important imaginative experience while waiting on a ridge above Hawkshead for horses to take him and his brother home for the holidays :

 

                                    Twas a day

Stormy, and rough, and wikl, and on the grass

I sate half sheltered by a naked wall.

Upon my right hand was a single sheep,

A shistling hawthorn on my left, and there,

Those two companions at my side, I watched

With eyes intensely straining, as the mist

Gave intermitting prospects of the wood

And plain beneath. Ere I to school returned

That dreary time, cre I had been ten days

A dweller in my father's house, he died,

And I and my two brothers, orphans then,

Followed his body to the grave.

 The Prelude (1799), part I 

 

 

 

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Hawkshead & Esthwaite 1779~1787

'A roving school-boy'...

Wordsworth's imaginative experiences were essentially private, but during his schooldays they seem often to have taken place in the midst of quite ordinary 'Boyish sports' and pastimes.

 

 

 

 

Ice~skating on Esthwaite Lake...

Not seldom from the uproar I retired

Into a silent bay, or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,

To cut across the shadow of a star

That gleamed upon th ice. And oftentimes

When we had given our bodies to the wind,

And all the shadowy banks on either side

Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still

The rapid line of motionm, then at once

Have I, reclining back upon my heels

Stopped short - yet still the solitary cliffs

Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round.

Behind me did they strech in solemn train,

Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched

Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

The Prelude (1799) I lines 170-185

 

 

Walking around Esthwaite Lake at dawn with his best friend, John Fleming...

                           My morining walks

Were early; oft, before the hours of school

I travell'd round our little lake, five miles

Of pleasant wandering, happy time ! more dear

For this, that one was by my side, a friend

Then passionately lov'd

The Prelude (1805) II, 348-353

 

A Complete Angler...

                          the rod and line,

True symbol of the foolishness of hope,

Which with its strong enchantment led us on

By rocks and pools, shut out from every star

All the green summer, to forlorn cascades

Among the windings of the mountain brooks.

The Prelude (1805) I, 511-516

 

Riding over to Furness Abbey for the day...

Our steeds remounted, and the summons given,

With whip and spur we by the chantry flew

In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight

And the stone abbot, and that single wren

Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave

Of the old church that, though from recent showers

The earth was comfortless, and, touched by faint

Internal breezes, from the roofless walls

The shuddering ivy dripped large drops, yet still

So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird

Sang to itself that there I could have made

My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there,

To hear such music. Through the walls we flew

And down the valley, and, a circuit made

In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth

We scampered homeward.

The Prelude (1799) part II lines 118-133

 

Sometimes consciously, sometimes not, Wordsworth in all these activities was responsive to the power of Nature. He was also ~ as he became increasingly aware ~ responding to the power of his own imagination.

 

 

                                          An auxiliar light

Came from my mind, which on the setting sun

Bestowed new splendour; the melodious birds,

The gentle breezes, fountains that ran on

Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed

A like dominion, and the midnight storm

Grew darker in the presence of my eye.

The Prelude (1799) part II lines 417-423

 

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Cambridge & London 1787-1795

Academic Bowers

Wordsworth arrived at Cambridge on the 30th October 1787

 

It was s dreary morning when the chaise

Rolled over the flat plains of Huntingdon

And through the open windows first I saw

The long~backed chapel of King's College rear

His pinnacles above the dusky groves.

The Prelude (1805) III : lines 1-5

 

 

St. John's College

'The Evangelist St. John my patron was...' By his own admission Wordsworth was not a dedicated scholar, but he read widely, especially in the classics and English poetry.

 

Famous Predecessors

Isaac Newton (1643~1727)

From his room in St. John's, Wordsworth could see

The antechapel where the statue stood

Of Newton with his prism and silent face,

The marble index of a mind for ever

Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.

The Prelude (1850) III lines 60-63

 

John Milton (1608-1674)

Wordsworth's great precursor had gone to Christ's College. Thomas de Quincey thought that the portrait of Milton below had 'a likeness nearly perfect of Wordsworth' - better by far than any of the portraits he had seen.

 

'The Vortex'

For the young Wordsworth, London (particularly during events such as St. Bartholomew's Fair) was too bewildering to contemplate.

 

                      ... What say you then

To times when half the city shall break out

Full of one passion - vengeance, rage, or fear-

To executions, to a street on fire,

Mobs, riots, or rejoicings ? From those sights

Take one, an annual festival, the fair

Holden where martyrs suffered in past time,

And named of St. Bartholomew, ...

              ... What a hell

For eyes and ears, what anarchy and din

Barbarian and infernal - 'tis a dream

Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound

Below, the open space, through every nook

Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive

With heads ; the midway region and above

Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls,

Dumb proclamations of the prodigies;...

All freaks of Nature, all Promethean thoughts

Of man - his dulness, madness, and their feats,

All jumbled up together to make up

This parliament of monsters. Tents and booths

Meanwhile - as if the whole were one vast mill -

Are vomiting, receiving, on all sides,

Men, women, three-years' children, babes in arms

The Prelude (1805) lines 645-652, 659-667, 689-695

 

Bartholomew Fair

 

DC MS 78 : title page of An Evening Walk, Wordsworth's first published poem

(composed 1787-9, published 1793).

The note at the top of the page was written by Wordsworth for the printer in 1820, when the poem was re-published.

 

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