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Lucy Newlyn: William and Dorothy Wordsworth. ‘All in Each Other’

There has been much ongoing speculation about the nature of the siblings William and Dorothy Wordsworth’s literary symbiosis. In the heyday of feminist criticism and subsequent (less ideologically prejudiced) women’s studies, numerous congress papers and periodical articles focused on the evident similarities in diction, imagery, and rhythm between William and Dorothy’s literary productions – poetry as well as prose – and jumped to the conclusion that brother had plagiarized sister. To bourgeois eyes, of course, women writing poetry instead of novels or conduct books was an affront to decency and nature itself, as was women undertaking study in classics, theology, philosophy, mathematics, natural science, or composing music instead of merely performing it. It was felt women were prostituting themselves by professionally writing or composing for money. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, for one, strongly dissuaded his talented sister Fanny from composing music, let alone selling her compositions, and published them under his own name. As the numerous puns on “pen” and “penis” show, writing or composing was still largely considered to be a male prerogative.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37307/j.1866-5381.2014.01.30
Lizenz: ESV-Lizenz
ISSN: 1866-5381
Ausgabe / Jahr: 1 / 2014
Veröffentlicht: 2014-05-21
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Dokument Lucy Newlyn: William and Dorothy Wordsworth. ‘All in Each Other’