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. |
From inside the book
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... important than the similarity . Because the human situation is different , the total situation is different , no matter how exactly the spatial rela- tionships are repeated . The repetitions can be counted- thirty years have passed ...
... important of these . Sensationalist theories of knowledge can- not tolerate the mystical awareness which was so important to Wordsworth , whereas " a philosophy of imagination is not so limited .... Imagination aids mystical intuition ...
... importance that Wordsworth does not ascribe equal importance to stone and shell , and neither does the dream Arab . The shell is " something of more worth " than Euclid's Elements ; the stone represents a reason undisturbed by space and ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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