Legomenon for

{The Kinds of Wildernesses}

As mentioned in {Legomenon for OTHER WRITINGS of UNKNOWN PROVENANCE}, some scholars put forward the person called the Voice from the Locust Grove as the Author of this Writing; others propose the Author known only as M (for Missionary?). Each underwent a period of wandering that could qualify, under a generous definition, as a wilderness experience. These sojourns are recounted in the Writings {"Peripatikos Soter"} and {M the Wanderer}, respectively.

In the opinion of this Curator, however, their tone is wrong: although each Author is capable of quite lyrical language, neither displays what could be called a fictive turn of mind, whereas this Writing, with its fable-like syntax and didactic style, clearly shares the motivation and "feel" of the "Romantic Impluse" sketches.

This tentative attribution seems, however, to be a minority view in current critical opinion. That said, the thoughtful reader will certainly have observed that every notion that is today discredited as the pronouncement of a more naive (or simply ignorant) era was once confidently trumpeted under the banner of "current critical opinion."