Abstract
Wordsworth is forcibly reminded in Wales of Alpine impressions dating back thirty-four years. The resulting sonnet is of interest because of its neartraumatic conflation of times and places, and because this kind of experience, associated with feelings of sublimity, is conveyed in a style alternating between the grand opening and such clichés as “in life’s mom.” Wordsworth questions the possibility of localizing the sublime by means of referential language (names or place names). “Devil’s Bridge” and “Viamala,” the conflated places, connect naming with speech-acts of blessing and cursing, while “How art thou named?” is ultimately addressed to a “luciferic” imagination that reveals “the sad incompetence of human speech.” Wordsworth’s later style is, correspondingly, sad and sublime, subdued yet charged.
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