ABSTRACT

In the process, a merging of the human actor or actors, the name of the place, and the language of the narrative occurs, often producing a curious blend of empirical and imaginative ‘facts’. Certainly human beings have always named places important to them and told stories about the naming, but the great textual precedent for William Wordsworth’s poems is to be found in the etymological tales of the Old Testament. Only in the coincidence of place name and narrative are the person or persons and human acts protected from oblivion. Only in the coincidence of both are the significance and spirituality of place established and preserved. If the place name, actors and events are coincident with an oral narrative, they can ‘live’ and retain their significance and spirit only so long as they survive in the memories of the living.