Literature of Place

The white house stands at the top of a hill, just a little past two neat stone pillars with the words “Greta Hall” inscribed on them.  As I drove up the drive and parked my minuscule rental car in the turnaround, I couldn’t help feeling a bit of amazement and awe.  For months, I had been researching the lives of the British poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and now I was standing in front of the house where Coleridge lived with poet laureate Robert Southey and a house where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy often visited.

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As I stood outside the house, I wondered which set of windows was Coleridge’s study, the room where he wrote poems like:  “Frost at Midnight,” and “Dejection:   An Ode.”  I wondered about how Wordsworth approached and even what door he came up to.  You see, these are the things I think about.

For me, the stories in literature come alive when I can see the places that inspired them.  The lives and places of poets and writers have always fascinated me.  As a teacher, I had my students study not just James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but the Dublin and Ireland that gave rise to it.  As a traveler, I was the one who chose to go to William Shakespeare’s cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon when my friends hit the pub.  And now, as a writer, I am drawn to subjects connecting the literary with geography.

My first two books were what we’ve called “literary travel guides.”  The first, A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England , explores the nineteenth century New England that fostered the thinking and writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and others.  My second book is one in the same series and is titled A Journey into the Irish Literary Revival.  In it, I was able to visit the towns, towers, and tenement streets that inspired the poetry of William Butler Yeats, the drama of John Millington Synge, and the folk collections of Isabella Augusta Gregory.  Even my third book, Walking Boston, wove in places and stories from writers like Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe.

In fact, it was what I was doing standing in front of “Greta Hall,” just outside of the town of Keswick in England’s Lake District.  I was there to research Coleridge’s life there and actually spent a full week living in the house (you can rent rooms there), spending a few nights sleeping in Coleridge’s study.  I will tell the stories of that visit in a book I’m still working on, A Journey into the Romantic’s Lake District.

But my favorite story of place and literature actually spans my first two books.  In an earlier post on this A Traveler’s Library, I talked about the impact of Henry David Thoreau’s book, Walden .  It has been used around the world for everything from buttressing philosophical arguments to selling yoga tapes.  It has inspired world leaders, rock stars, and bumper sticker makers.  It also inspired a young, lanky Irish boy whose father read Walden to him in the mornings before school.  On summer holidays in the west of Ireland, that young boy dreamed of building a cabin on an island and living as Thoreau did. He even picked out the perfect island and spent a night reconnoitering it.  As it turned out, the boy never lived out his dream, but years later in London, the young man, now a poet, heard the sound of water and it reminded him of his former dream.  He then wrote a poem about it.  The poem is called “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and the boy is the Nobel-prize winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

I love to tell that story at book events because it connects the shore of a small lake in New England and the thoughts and aspirations of a man who lived there for a time with an island in a much larger lake in Ireland and the thoughts and aspirations of a man who wanted to live there.  It shows how literature of place can inspire even the most inspirational of poets.  The echoes of Walden in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” are clear:

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

So, as I wrap up this post, I’m interested in the literary places near you.  What is closest to you and what is special about that place?  What inspirational moments have you had at a literary site?  What do you read and where?  If you leave a comment, you have a chance to win an autographed copy of Walking Boston.  You can also find out more about literary travel at Open Page, Open Road.  You can see more photos from all three books at my Photoshelter page. Good luck and thanks for listening,

Robert Todd Felton

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About Vera Marie Badertscher

A freelance writer who loves to travel. When she is not traveling she is reading about travel. When she is not reading or traveling, she is sharing with the readers of A Traveler's Library, or recreating her family's past at Ancestors In Aprons . She has written for Reel Life With Jane, Life is a Trip and other websites. Also co-author of a biography, Quincy Tahoma, The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. Contact Vera Marie by e-mail.

6 thoughts on “Literature of Place

  1. One of my favorite ways to travel is through mysteries. I find that in advancing the plot authors bring me face to face with people, situations and places that I’d never meet otherwise. I’ve met the former governor of Florida who dines on road kill and has private libraries stashed in various inaccessible spots in the pages of Carl Hiaasen’s stories. I’ve visited various spots in Sweden and met some amazing people through the adventures of the girl with the dragon tattoo. (Too bad there won’t be more!) I’ve traveled to New Jersey, China and various other parts of the world with Mrs. Pollifax. One of my pals is the red-haired 6’2″ female cab driver who lives in a Victorian house in Cambridge and is addicted, as am I, to Suan La Char Chow at Mary Chung’s. I met her through Linda Barnes.

    Tomorrow I’m going to St. Petersburg, Russia, in person. I can’t remember reading about it in a story outside of Russian novels. Maybe I’ll be inspired to write my own. . .

    1. Susan: Enjoy St. Petersburg! We read a wonderful biography of Peter the Great in preparation for our trip there,and consequentlyspent our too-short three days mostly at buildings related to him.
      Thanks so much for your detailed review of places you’ve been with mystery writers, although I can’t share your enthusiasm for the girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I certainly did love visiting Sweden in other books and in person.

  2. A lovely post – and an evocative picture of the white house through the gates, just perfect. I too have good memories of the Lake District and Dove Cottage.

    My special places would include: trying to find Byron’s palace “like a garrison” in Pisa, and Lawrence Durrell’s “Turkish house” in Bellapaix, northern Cyprus.

  3. P –

    Great to read your thoughts on Ithaca. I lived there for 7 years (actually two of them were in McLean) and have great memories of Ithaca. We’ll be back to visit soon!

    Todd

  4. Hi there. I’ve been writing about place in my blog:
    forgottenithaca.wordpress.com Check it out.
    You’ve got some nice stuff here.

    -P.

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