The Shakespeareans visit the Lake District

Dove Cottage, Grasmere. Photo credit: Brian Clift, Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0.

submitted by Joan Gaughan, Shakespeare Club 

When students of English literature speak of the Lake Poets, they are normally referring to William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, joint authors of the Lyrical Ballads which has long been considered the inaugural document of the English Romantic movement, as well as their fellow poet, Robert Southey, Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy, and the art critic and general polymath, John Ruskin. Peter Rabbit’s creator, Beatrix Potter, is also associated with the Lake District.

  The District in northwestern England was the subject of Sallie Anderson’s presentation to the Club on February 24. She and her husband, John, visited the area last fall and found it indeed worthy of a poet’s pen.  There really are only two major lakes in the Lake District, Grasmere and Windemere, and these are nestled in the moors that inspired some of the most sublime nature poetry in the English language. So moved by the beauty of his surroundings was Wordsworth that he could imagine hearing in them, “the still, sad music of humanity”. Dove Cottage, the cozy home of the Wordsworths, as well as John Ruskin’s equally cozy home, Branwood, are standard stops on any journey to the Lake District. 

  The area has inspired more than poetry, however. Beatrix Potter also fell under its spell and became, not a poet, but the author of many children’s books in addition to the Peter Rabbit series. Determined to preserve its pristine beauty, in addition to her Hill Top Farm, she also bought several acres upon which she bred and raised Herdwick sheep. In her solitary childhood, her main companions had been dolls so it is not surprising that her cottage is now filled with dolls.

  The numinous solitude that was an inspiration for poets becomes less solitary during tourist season in June and July. So Sallie recommended visiting the area, as she and John did, in the autumn.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and a founder of the Manchester Mirror.