Editing Lake District (section)

== Literature and the arts ==
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The Lake District has inspired creativity in many fields.
[[File:Mountain mist, sun rise (Lake District).jpg|thumb|"Mountain mist, sunrise", A view in the Lake District by [[Henry Clarence Whaite]]]]

=== Literature ===
The District is intimately associated with [[English literature]] of the 18th and 19th centuries. [[Thomas Gray]] was the first to bring the region to attention, when he wrote a journal of his [[Grand Tour]] in 1769, but it was [[William Wordsworth]] whose poems were most famous and influential. Wordsworth's poem "[[I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud]]", inspired by the sight of [[daffodils]] on the shores of Ullswater, remains one of the most famous in the English language. Out of his long life of eighty years, sixty were spent amid its lakes and mountains, first as a schoolboy at [[Hawkshead]], and afterward living in [[Grasmere (village)|Grasmere]] (1799–1813) and [[Rydal Mount]] (1813–50). Wordsworth, [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]] and [[Robert Southey|Southey]] became known as the [[Lake Poets]].

The poet and his wife are buried in the churchyard of Grasmere; very near to them are the remains of [[Hartley Coleridge]] (son of the poet [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]), who himself lived for many years in Keswick, Ambleside, and Grasmere. [[Robert Southey]], the [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet Laureate]] and friend of Wordsworth (who would succeed Southey as Laureate in 1843), was a resident of Keswick for forty years (1803–43), and was buried in [[St Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite|Crosthwaite churchyard]]. Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived for some time in Keswick, and also with the Wordsworths at Grasmere.

The Lake District is mentioned in [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''; [[Elizabeth Bennet]] looks forward to a holiday there with her aunt and uncle and is "excessively disappointed" upon learning they cannot travel that far.

The opening of [[Charlotte Turner Smith]]'s novel ''Ethelinde'' with its atmospheric description of [[Grasmere (village)|Grasmere]], complete with a Gothic abbey, is supposed to have introduced Wordsworth to it as a possible place to live.

From 1807 to 1815 [[John Wilson (Scottish writer)|John Wilson]] lived at Windermere. [[Thomas de Quincey]] spent the greater part of the years 1809 to 1828 at Grasmere, in the first cottage which Wordsworth had inhabited. Ambleside, or its environs, was also the place of residence both of [[Thomas Arnold]], who spent holidays there in the last ten years of his life, and of [[Harriet Martineau]], who built herself a house there in 1845. At Keswick, Mrs Lynn Linton (wife of [[William James Linton]]) was born in 1822. [[Brantwood]], a house beside Coniston Water, was the home of [[John Ruskin]] during the last years of his life. His assistant [[W. G. Collingwood]] the author, artist, and antiquarian lived nearby and wrote ''Thorstein of the Mere,'' set in the Norse period.

In addition to these residents or natives of the Lake District, a variety of other poets and writers made visits to the Lake District or were bound by ties of friendship with those already mentioned above. These include [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]], [[Sir Walter Scott]], [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]], [[Arthur Hugh Clough]], [[Henry Crabb Robinson]], [[Richard Sharp (politician)|"Conversation" Sharp]], [[Thomas Carlyle]], [[John Keats]], [[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Lord Tennyson]], [[Matthew Arnold]], [[Felicia Hemans]] and [[Gerald Massey]].

Although it is unlikely she ever went there, [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] produced no fewer than sixteen poems on subjects within the Lake District and its surroundings, all associated with engravings within Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books, from 1832 to 1838. Also included there (1834) is ''Grasmere Lake (A Sketch by a Cockney)'', a skit on becoming a 'lakes poet'.
 
During the early 20th century, the children's author [[Beatrix Potter]] lived at [[Hill Top, Cumbria|Hill Top]] Farm; she set many of her famous [[Peter Rabbit]] books in the Lake District. Her life was made into a [[Miss Potter|biopic film]], starring [[Renée Zellweger]] and [[Ewan McGregor]]. Children's author [[Arthur Ransome]] lived in several areas of the Lake District, and set five of his [[Swallows and Amazons series]] of books, published between 1930 and 1947, in a fictionalised Lake District setting. So did [[Geoffrey Trease]] with his five Black Banner school stories (1949–56), starting with ''[[No Boats on Bannermere]]''.

The novelist [[Hugh Walpole|Sir Hugh Walpole]] lived at "Brackenburn" on the lower slopes of [[Catbells]] overlooking Derwent Water from 1924 until he died in 1941. Whilst living at "Brackenburn" he wrote ''The Herries Chronicle'' detailing the history of a fictional Cumbrian family over two centuries. The noted author and poet [[Norman Nicholson]] came from the southwest lakes, living and writing about [[Millom]] in the 20th century – he was known as the last of the [[Lake Poets]] and came close to becoming the [[Poet Laureate.]]

Writer and author [[Melvyn Bragg]] was brought up in the region and has used it as the setting for some of his work, such as his novel ''A Time to Dance'', which later turned into a television drama.

The Lake District is the setting for the 1977 [[Richard Adams]]' novel ''[[The Plague Dogs (novel)|The Plague Dogs]]''. Adams' knowledge of the area offers the reader a precise view of the natural beauty of the Lake District. The story is based on a fictionalised version of the remote hill farm of Lawson Park, overlooking Coniston Water.

The Lake District has been the setting for crime novels by [[Reginald Hill]], [[Val McDermid]] and [[Martin Edwards (author)|Martin Edwards]]. The region is also a recurring theme in [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s 1926 novella ''[[The Torrents of Spring]]'' and features prominently in [[Ian McEwan]]'s ''[[Amsterdam (novel)|Amsterdam]]'', which won the 1998 [[Booker Prize]]. The 1996 [[Eisner Award]] winning [[graphic novel]] ''[[The Tale of One Bad Rat]]'', by [[Bryan Talbot]], features a young girl's journey to and subsequent stay in the Lake District. Also set in the District is Sophie Jackson's mystery novel ''The Woman Died Thrice''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Clara Fitzgerald Mysteries |url=http://sophiejackson1984.wixsite.com/sophiejackson/fiction |website=Sophie Jackson's website |access-date=19 May 2017 |archive-date=19 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170819150201/http://sophiejackson1984.wixsite.com/sophiejackson/fiction |url-status=live }}</ref> It was published in 2016 under Jackson's pen name Evelyn James.

Memoirist and nature writer [[James Rebanks]] has published several books about the Lake District, including two acclaimed books that detail his life as a sheep farmer: ''[[The Shepherd's Life|The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District]]'' (2015) and ''English Pastoral: An Inheritance'' (2020).

=== Visual arts ===
[[File:DV342 Ullswater from above Pattersdale.png|thumb|[[Ullswater]] painted by [[John Parker (cleric)|John Parker]] 1825]]
The Lakes have been an inspiration for many notable artists. Two of the most famous artists to depict the region in their work were [[Alfred Heaton Cooper]] and [[William Heaton Cooper]].

The German artist [[Kurt Schwitters]] visited the Lake District while in exile in Great Britain and moved there permanently in June 1945, remaining there for the rest of his life.

Film director [[Ken Russell]] lived in the Keswick/Borrowdale area from 1975 to 2007<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thelakedistrict.info/2008/11/coombe-cottage.html |title=Coombe Cottage |publisher=Thelakedistrict.info |date=11 July 2006 |access-date=21 April 2010 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090218052207/http://www.thelakedistrict.info/2008/11/coombe-cottage.html |archive-date=18 February 2009}}</ref> and used it in films such as ''[[Tommy (1975 film)|Tommy]]'' and ''[[Mahler (film)|Mahler]]''.

The [[Keswick School of Industrial Art]] at Keswick was started in 1884 by [[Canon Rawnsley]], a friend of [[John Ruskin]].

The base of contemporary art commissioner and residency base [[Grizedale Arts]] since 2007, Lawson Park now hosts artists' residencies, opens to the public on occasion, and has developed a significant garden that includes artworks alongside extensive plantings. Grizedale Arts has produced many internationally significant cultural projects and has proved instrumental in the careers of several [[Turner Prize]]-winning artists, making Laure Provoust's winning installation 'Wantee' at Lawson Park, and bringing the exhibition to Coniston's [[Ruskin Museum]] in 2013. It also supported the refurbishment of the historic [[Coniston, Cumbria|Coniston]] Institute and developed an Honest Shop there (opening in 2012), an unstaffed shop stocking local crafts and produce.

=== Musicians ===
The English composer Sir [[Arthur Somervell]] (1863 – 1937) was born in Windermere.

The 17th track on American singer-songwriter [[Taylor Swift]]'s eighth studio album, ''[[Folklore (Taylor Swift album)|Folklore]]'', released in 2020 as a bonus track, is titled "[[The Lakes (song)|The Lakes]]", and details Swift's experience living in the Lake District. Swift makes reference to the Lake poet William Wordsworth by name.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Spanos |first1=Brittany |title=Taylor Swift Channels Romantic-Era Poetry With 'The Lakes' |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-the-lakes-folklore-1045311/ |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |access-date=19 August 2020 |date=18 August 2020 |archive-date=28 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200828100155/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-the-lakes-folklore-1045311/ |url-status=live }}</ref>