Article ID: CBB001213338

“Eyes to the Blind”: Telescopes, Theodolites and Failing Vision in William Wordsworth's Landscape Poetry (2007)

unapi

In 1811, during or shortly after a holiday in the south Cumberland village of Bootle, William Wordsworth drafted a poem about the mountain of Black Combe, which loured over the village. The inscription `Written with a Slate Pencil on a Stone, on the Side of the Mountain of Black Combe' posed as a carving on a rock, on the side of the mountain. It addressed passing climbers, and reminded them of a geographic Labourer, a mapmaker, who had ascended to the summit before them. Upon pulling out his map and his topographic sketch-pad at the top of the mountain, darkness fell, and: The whole surface of the out-spread map, Became invisible: for all around Had darkness fallen -- unthreatened, unproclaimed - As if the golden day itself had been Extinguished in a moment; total gloom, In which he sat alone, with unclosed eyes, Upon the blinded mountain's silent top! 1 I, Michael Wiley, John Wyatt, and Ron Broglio have all previously placed Wordsworth's Black Combe Inscription against the background of the Ordnance Survey's project to create the first complete, accurate map of the United Kingdom. We have independently suggested that this geographic Labourer was based upon the figure of William Mudge, who was the director of the Ordnance Survey mapping project between its inception in 1791 and his death in 1818. 2 Wordsworth referred to Mudge by name in his Guide to the Lakes as that experienced surveyor, and in the unpublished Tour as the best authority on Lake District geography.

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Authors & Contributors
Henniges, Norman
William Spaggiari
Altić, Mirela
Buchholz, Amrei
Bertini, Maria Augusta
Ilyushechkina, Ekaterina
Concepts
Geography
Maps; atlases
Cartography
Science and literature
Poetry and poetics
Landscape; landscapes
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century, early
16th century
Early modern
Medieval
Places
Great Britain
Russia
Germany
Lithuania
Montenegro
Americas
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