SOURCE: Liu, Alan. “On the Autobiographical Present: Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals.” Criticism 26, no. 2 (spring 1984): 115-37.

In the following essay, Liu asserts that Wordsworth is a master at representing the self as part of its present occupation, a relationship he paraphrases as “I work therefore I am.”

A genius of the journalistic is Dorothy Wordsworth, who in 1801 became the keeper of William's memorial genius. Writes Dorothy to Coleridge on May 22, 1801:

Poor William! his stomach is in bad plight. We have put aside all the manuscript poems and it is agreed between us that I am not to give them up to him even if he asks for them.¹

After William's work on “Home at Grasmere” trailed off in early 1800, and after brother and sister finished sending Lyrical Ballads to the publisher at the end of that year, there was virtually no poetic composition by William until his renewed interest...