In a weekend when I was thinking about blogging and its links to the Picturesque and Tour, we also visited Allan Bank in Grasmere, and viewed the latest exhibition: Wordsworth the Influencer.
This exhibition, comprises early editions of Tour Guides, including a first edition of Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes. Wordsworth's Guide was written whilst he was living at Allan Bank and it subsequently shaped the Lake District we know today. This is why the exhibition examines how Wordsworth was an early "influencer" in today's parlance.
There is also an edition of J B Pyne's The Lake Scenery of England on display. The book has beautiful illustrations, but the most interesting aspect for me is that the text (unaccredited) is by Charles Swain, the Manchester Poet. I discovered Swain's poetry a few years ago and really enjoy this, mostly forgotten, poet. I had no idea that as well as writing poetry, Swain also contributed to many guides and travel books.
The exhibition demonstrates that Wordsworth was concerned about the effects of modernity, tourism and the built environment on the Lake District. Ironically his poetry has played a significant part in bringing tourists to the area, and to this extent he was definitely what we today call an "influencer".
Charles Swain in his text for The Lake Scenery of England quoted Wordsworth's Sonnet, which was published in the Morning Post in 1844, and which he later regretted:
Is then no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault? Schemes of retirement sown
In youth, and mid the busy world kept pure
As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown,
Must perish; - how can they this blight endure?
Pyne's illustration demonstrates Wordsworth's poem in pictorial form. In the far left corner of the illustraion is a train, steaming towards Kendal, taking tourists away from Wordsworth's beloved Lake District!
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| Windermere as seen from Orrest Head |