Studying at Dove Cottage
The chance to study in the idyllic setting of Dove Cottage in Grasmere is on offer as part of a scholarship from Lancaster University.
The research, supervised jointly by the English and Sociology departments, will look at how the home of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy influenced their literary creativity.
The Phd student will also investigate how the role of Dove Cottage, now the home of the Wordsworth Trust, has changed from poet’s home to tourist attraction, museum and cultural archive.
The innovative project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council over three years and will include up to eighteen months as a part-time volunteer for the Trust.
Professor Simon Bainbridge of Lancaster University`s Department of English and Creative Writing said : “Dove Cottage is where William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived from 1799 to 1808 and where they wrote their poetry and journals. This project will look at the role of Dove Cottage in relation to their work and also at how the meaning of the site has changed over the past two hundred years.”
The AHRC is also funding a £50,000 project to make Wordsworth’s manuscripts available online.
Dr Sally Bushell from Lancaster’s English department said: “The project will make available “Home at Grasmere” and “ Prelude” manuscript materials in an accessible digital form.
“We’ll be aiming not just at academics but also visitors from across the world and schoolchildren.
“They’ll be able to turn the pages over on computer and see how the poems were written by seeing the corrections and different spellings and overlays.”