ABSTRACT
H. D. Rawnsley was perhaps exceptional among the writing gentlemen. He collected various anecdotes of Wordsworth from the neighbouring people and compiled them as Reminiscences of Wordsworth amongst the Peasantry of Westmoreland. H. D. Rawnsley, Reminiscences of Wordsworth among the Peasantry of Westmoreland, ed. William Knight. There is a paradox here: while ordinary local people were sought after to collect reminiscences of Wordsworth, the reminiscence hunters themselves were largely educated literary men and women who were seeking a poet who had little to do with common people. Rawnsley would eventually admit Wordsworth's unpopularity with the dalesmen. The poet's reputation for literary tourists and local people differed, and reminiscences of Wordsworth were a mingled fabric of facts and fancies. This chapter explores how the divergent views of Wordsworth were gradually integrated to form an iconic image of Wordsworth as the Poet of the English Lakes. It discusses how personal memories were converted into collective memory and materialized as memorials in the cultural landscape.
