A break from our three-mile walk
About ten years ago, The Economist published a series of articles on genius and how the brains of geniuses work. To grossly sum up their studies, geniuses are geniuses in their chosen fields because they are deficient in other areas of their persona or psyche. Michelangelo’s artistic achievements need no listing here, but Michelangelo (the human being) was a misanthrope; he hated people, and people generally returned that sentiment. In fact, Raphael often made fun of Michelangelo’s grouchiness in paintings. In Raphael’s seminal painting, The School of Athens, while all of the other great thinkers of antiquity are enjoying each others’ company and engaging in deep discourse, Raphael painted a grumpy-looking Michelangelo in the corner, picking sores on his feet. Albert Einstein’s name is synonymous with genius, but he was pretty awful at life; if you want to go down a particularly creepy internet rabbit hole, google “Albert Einstein and his cousin.” Today we got to visit the homes of some British literary geniuses, and The Economist study would most definitely apply.
William Wordsworth was one of Great Britain’s most celebrated poets. His works “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and “Tintern Abbey” are widely accepted as some of the most important pieces of Romantic poetry. Today we visited his home at Rydal Mount in the middle of Lake District, the largest national park in England. The Lake District’s natural beauty escapes words and apparently escaped Wordsworth to some extent because he was one gloomy poet. The juxtaposition of the mountains (“fells” to the locals) and glacial lakes, augmented by gentle bleating of newborn sheep in “lambing season”, completely defy description. Rydal Mount is a simple cottage with views of Lake Windemere, Rydal Water (another name for a small lake), and the surrounding mountains. Despite all of the splendor that surrounded Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, he was a pretty dour fellow. He held rather stilted views of his fellow man and developed a rather profound distrust of society. In fact, later in life he was offered the position of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, but he declined, saying he was too old (students saw the actual rejection letter that Wordsworth sent). He eventually relented after being promised he wouldn’t actually have to do anything as Poet Laureate. Students had the opportunity to explore the house and all of the original furniture and decor from Wordsworth’s family and the previous owners of the house. We then ambled through the beautiful gardens and met the estate’s current resident, Dora the Cat (picture credit to Caroline Champa). After visiting Rydal Mount, we walked about three miles through the hills of the Lake District (picture credits to Ms. Frank and Ms. Smith… I forgot my phone on the bus…heh, heh) and got lunch in the small town of Grasmere.
After another short bus ride, we arrived in Haworth, the location of the inspiring picture in the first blog post. Haworth was the home of one of England’s most prolific literary families: the Brontës. Ann, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë are responsible for some of the most indelible characters and images in all of British literature… Jane Eyre, Heathcliff and Catherine, wind-battered moors, et al. In addition to their remarkable skills as writers, all three sisters displayed prodigious visual arts skills as well. Playing together as young children, they developed fantastical, imaginary worlds that became the inspiration for many of their later writings. Along with their brother Branwell, they were a close-knit, loving family… but also an incredibly reclusive family as well. The Brontës lacked any identifiable social graces and had a great deal of difficulty engaging in the world outside their parsonage house in Haworth. When Charlotte started to earn some literary success and notoriety, a friend encouraged her to visit London and mingle in salon society. Charlotte obliged, but those who met her described those meetings as near-disastrous as Charlotte did not speak with anyone, and party-goers just got up and left as Charlotte sat there saying nothing. In fact, recent biographers have argued that Emily (if not all sisters) displayed some symptoms of spectrum disorder. We walked through the house that, much like Rydal Mount, was filled with all of the original furnishings from the Brontës. As the students moved through the house, they had the opportunity to interact with various exhibits showing the artistic genius of the sisters (Branwell never achieved the success of his sisters and eventually died from opiate addiction). After touring the museum, students had their first taste of free time in the United Kingdom and visited the local shops on Main Street in Haworth.
Tomorrow we have a full schedule in York, so there will be much to share with you. Thanks for reading!
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