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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... meaning for " was " ; the improvement con- sisted in a " gain of strength and vividness " ( p . lviii ) . He did not see that the 1850 text creates powerful images where they did not exist before . " The morning rose , in memorable pomp ...
... meaning with a mild shock of sur- prise . We assume that Matthew is mourning his lost youth , but he is not . He grieves for what he retains . His conscious- ness appears to be unaffected by age ; the same sound is in his ears which he ...
... meaning , since although his chief subject is the moral refreshment yielded by these moments , this renovation is a by - product of a mystical in- sight , a sense of a creating , sustaining , and harmonizing power present in nature . A ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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