Time and Mind in Wordsworth's Poetry

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Wayne State University Press, 1980 - Literary Criticism - 212 pages

William 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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Contents

Acknowledgments
9
Ordered and Disordered Time
29
The Nature and Status of the Mind
51
Copyright

6 other sections not shown

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About the author (1980)

English by birth, Jeffrey Baker was educated at Manchester University, from which he has received a B.A. with honors (1947), M.A. (1965), and Ph.D. (1970). Formerly senior lecturer in English at Manchester Polytechnic, he is currently associate professor of English at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. His earlier studies of Wordsworth's poetry include articles in Criticism and the Antigonish Review.

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