Inquiring readers, frequent contributor, Tony Grant, has done it again and brought the 19th century alive through his discussion of poetry. One can walk the paths along Grasmere in the Lake District with him and William Wordsworth, inhaling the clean crisp air and regarding the sad cautionary tale of Martha Ray, the woman in the scarlet cloak. Visit Tony’s blog at London Calling.
Saturday August 23rd 1798.
“ A very fine morning. Wm was composing all the morning. I shelled peas, gathered beans and worked in the garden till half past twelve. Then walked with William in the wood. The gleams of the sunshine, and the stirring trees, and gleaming boughs, cheerful lake, most delightful. After dinner we walked to Ambleside…”
Thus Dorothy Wordsworth describes the division of labour in the Wordsworth house hold at Dove Cottage, Grasmere in Cumbria. She did the labour and William her brother did the,” Romanticising.” But it shows the division of experience wasn’t as clear cut as might appear at first. Dorothy shows her emotional response to the world she inhabits too, as much as her esteemed brother does in his poetry.
Romanticism was a way of seeing and experiencing the world and which Wordsworth promoted in his poetry. It wasn’t necessarily about being romantic however. It was about an emotional response to the world that balanced a logical factual approach. It promoted the importance of feelings, myth, symbolism and intuition as well as taking into account the facts of a situation.
”The Thorn,” written by William Wordsworth in 1789 is very melodramatic and tells the story of a solitary, rejected woman, Martha Ray, who’s baby has died and the mythology that builds around her.
Wordsworth, in the opening stanzas introduces us immediately to the thorn describing it as , “so old and grey,” “stands erect,” “A wretched thing forlorn.” And takes the personification to a higher degree saying it is,” Not higher than a two year’s child.”
He is setting us up to respond to natural things in an emotional way.
He then balances this emotional approach with factual evidence as he gives us the thorns location ,”high on a mountains highest ridge,” and the minutest detail, telling us that three yards from the thorn is, “a muddy pond,” and close beside the thorn is,
“A beauteous heap, a hill of moss.
Just half a foot in height.”
A mixture of fact and emotion balanced.
Three things are described in close proximity and we wonder how they relate to each other.
Colour is very important. The mound of earth near the thorn has, “vermilion dye,” “lovely tints,” “olive green, “scarlet bright,” “green red and pearly white.” Vivid in our minds eye.
Then, “A woman in a scarlet cloak,” Martha Ray, is introduced into this setting and we are asked,
“Now wherefore, thus, by day and night,
In rain, in tempest, and in snow,
Thus to the dreary mountain top
Does this poor woman go?”
The question all the local villagers ponder too. Observation, and imagination create a myth. Many believe she has killed her baby and buried it next to the thorn but they don’t actually know that. Wordsworth keeps pulling us back to reality, tempering our emotional response, “I cannot tell; I wish I could; for the true reason no one knows.”
Wordsworth also begins to use the personal pronoun. It is an egotistical device but we are with him. It is us as well as Wordsworth asking the same questions. He has got involved in this apparent tragedy and so have we.
Wordsworth relates to us the story of Martha Ray and what makes her mad.
“Full twenty years are past and gone
Since she (her name is Martha Ray)
Gave with a maidens true good will
Her company to Stephen Hill”
Stephen Hill, we are told, gets Martha pregnant but leaves her and marries somebody else. As result she has the baby but it is never seen by other people.
Then imagination intervenes again,
“For many a time and often were heard
Cries coming from the mountains head
Some plainly living voices were:
And other, I’ve heard many swear,
Were voices of the dead:
I cannot think, whate’er they say,
They had to do with Martha Ray.”
Wordsworth then draws us back to a cool scientific approach,
“But what’s the Thorn? And what the pond?
And what the hill of moss to her?”
And what the creeping breeze that comes
The little pond to stir?”
You can almost imagine Wordsworth and us being explorers into this mystery using investigative questions.
However, finally, myth is triumphant
“…but some will say
She hanged her baby on the tree
Some say she drowned it in the pond
Which is a little step beyond
But all and each one agree
The little babe was buried there
Beneath the hill of moss so fair.”
Fact, imagination, emotion, have combined to create a myth.
What use would this mythologizing be to those people in the hills and mountains of the Lake District? Would it help them make moral decisions? They wanted to bring Martha Ray to public justice based on what they thought and felt. Would it help them to create their own response to Martha’s predicament without having to experience it themselves? Is that the purpose of mythologizing? The purpose of fairy tales and myths have always been important to childhood and early emotional development and moral growth. Wordsworth has created an adult myth. So does the need for myths go beyond childhood and remain important to all?
……………………………………………………………………………………….
In a few weeks, a good friend of mine, Clive, is coming over from Canada for a reunion of old school friends. Some of us are reaching 60 this year and we are getting together for a celebration in Liverpool. Clive and I are going on further north into the Lake District for a couple of days. We will be staying in Ambleside, not far from Grasmere and Wordswoth’s Dove Cottage. We will visit Dove Cottage and I promise we will listen out for the cry of Martha Ray caught in the winds blowing about the peaks surrounding Grasmere and we will too be able to say,
“That I have heard her cry,
“Oh misery! Oh misery!
Oh woe is me! Oh misery!”
- The Thorn: Read the poem
- Penguin Classics : “Dorothy and William Wordsworth. Home at Grasmere. Extracts from the journal of Dorothy Wordsworth and from the poems of William Wordsworth.”
- The Wordsworth Museum at Dove Cottage
- A Year in the Lakes: Lakeside Stroll
Wonderful article, Tony.
I just saw a benefit performance of Oliver on Broadway Monday night for Irish Rep with Brian Stokes Mitchell, James Barbour and Melissa Errico – a dream cast. The reason I mention Oliver is that it’s easy to forget that Oliver was an orphan. His mother who was from a wealthy family was ashamed of being pregnant so she ran away to have her baby in the poorest area of London and died giving birth. The 19th Century was unforgiving about unmarried pregnant women.
Thank you for your insights, Tony. I liked the way you walked us through the poem with your narratives. Are you going to report when you get back from your trip?
Thanks Patty and kfield2. Yes I will report back about our trip to The Lakes. I’ll take masses of photographs.
The lake District is a brilliant place to go on holiday by the way.
Not only has it got it’s poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge, but also many artists have portrayed that area.
If you are into what is termed these days,”extreme sports,” it’s a rock climbers paradise, canoeing (kayaking) and walking in beautiful wildernesses is a great pasttime up there too. There are many ancient stone built pubs hidden away in desolate valleys where you might come across folk singers performing live and the beer flowing late into the night.
Beatrix Potter lived there. She owned a farm called Hill Top near Sawrey and learned the techniques of fell farming and of raising livestock, including pigs, cows and chickens;She also became an expert on sheep. She was known as Mrs Heelis. She married a local solicitor called William Heelis. I’m not sure the locals knew about her alter ego.
Loved the beautiful, evocative walk with William and Dorothy, and especially your walk through the poem, Tony. Brought back memories of my own visit to Dove Cottage, though I heard not Martha’s cry! (Merely saw William’s umbrella.) Needless to say, I’m one of those who eagerly await your report on your trip – and a very happy birthday to you, in advance.
It’s a sad tale, made more poignant by the beautiful landscape of the poem, and your descriptions, Tony.
Without a supportive family it was almost impossible for a woman to bring up a child alone, and illegitimate births carried a terrible stigma then. Women in service, and in most other jobs would automatically lose their employment if pregnant and the finding of dead babies was more common-place than we might think.
There were also the terrible “baby-farms” that took in children for a fee, to be later used as child-labour, or sadly, in many cases, allowed to die from malnourishment or neglect.
Wordsworth is perhaps prompting people not to judge too harshly and to consider the circumstances that led to what often happened – even if this particular story is a myth.
There’s an interesting website for a foundling hospital which has preserved tokens left by women in the hope that they might one day be re-united with their children. In some cases all they had to leave was a fragment of cloth or a button from the dress they were wearing.
http://www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk/collections/the-foundling-hospital-collection/
Thanks for this Paul. I didn’t mean Martha Ray was a myth. She may well have existed and much of the story might be true. Wordsworth presents the facts for us. What I meant by mythologising was the bits filled in by the locals imaginations. They didn’t know that she had killed her baby. They were letting their imaginations and feelings run wild. They created a myth about her. I tried to discuss the value and purpose of myths.
Just catching up on my favorite sites and read this. I’m turning 60 this year (even though I can’t believe it) and I wish I could go with you!
Wonderful discussion of Wordsworth and the region. I used Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal as a primary resource for the novel I just completed and I feel I know her like a sister. The Lakes District and the county (known as Cumberland, then) has such a distinctive culture and flavor to it. These snapshots given to us by William and his sister (and her journal was also one of his primary resources) reveals so much about a place and time.