“Home at Grasmere”: Wordsworth’s Oneiric Gallery

Abstract

This essay seeks to re-define the stamped definition of Dove Cottage as the nature poet’s hut in the wild nature in terms of William Wordsworth’s internalized domestic visuality. Due to the fact that Wordsworth’s withdrawal from the London visual world to the Lake District to recover his imaginary power can be seen in Book Seven of The Prelude, Dove Cottage is understood as the secluded hermit’s hut shut from the London visual world. However, by applying Gaston Bachelard’s notion of the oneiric house, this essay argues that Dove Cottage was Wordsworth’s oneiric gallery stored with recollections of his visual experiences. First, this essay investigates how Wordsworth interacted with the London visual world through not only Sir George Beaumont’s artistic support, but also Wordsworth’s London visual tours during his stays at Dove Cottage. Subsequently, this essay goes on to argue how Wordsworth’s visual memories of London becomes his spatialized mind gallery in accordance with the Bachelardian imaginary space. Dove Cottage can still be called the hermit’s hut, but as will be discussed, this isolated little hut is not only Wordsworth’s individual space, but also the miniature version of the London visual world in Grasmere by synthesizing the image of public visual images in the poet’s inner gallery. Therefore, although Wordsworth was isolated far away from the visual world of London, he possessed the most private, but the most public, visual world at home.