Time and Mind in Wordsworth's PoetryWilliam Wordsworth was fascinated by the relationship of the creative mind to the created world, and by the effect of time on both of them. In this important new study, Jeffrey Baker explores the significant ways in which the theme of time is manifested in the imagery and diction of Wordsworth's major poetry. He discusses the poet's preoccupation with "clock" and "natural" time, as well as his escape from time through "deliberate holiday" and in the famous visionary "spots of time." Throughout his analysis, Baker concentrateson the texts which the poet himself approved for publication, asserting that the growing practice of citing poetically inferior versions for biographical or other extra poetic reasons misdirects a reader's attention. Only by reexamining the familiar poems as poems, rather than as philosophical or psychological statements, is it possible to appreciate how Wordsworth's changing concepts of the creator, the poet, and the ambiguities of time function as works of art. The volume includes a selected bibliography and an appendix describing the early Christian shrines alluded to in The Prelude. |
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... asserted final confidence that establishes itself in the reader's mind , but the sadness and fear . The misgiving is recurrent . In the first 49 lines it is expressed , in the next 4 lines denied , in the next 100 both expressed and ...
... assertion that God visits the affliction on the shepherd , but we are not told what in the shepherd God is punishing . Wordsworth seems , both in " The Last of the Flock " and in the Excursion passage , to be simply and superstitiously ...
... assert the images they use , because for both of them the special character of the scene does not lie in the beauty ... assertion : " I have enjoyed communication with God ... the absence of such a being as this would be chaos . " The ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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