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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... perhaps a too compact expression of what Wordsworth's best poetry does and needs a little expanding . The mind encounters a Newto- nian universe " out there , " but brings to it an imaginative force which builds up a new creation ...
... Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves The violets of five seasons re - appear And fade , unseen by any human eye ; Where fairy water - breaks do murmur on For ever ... ( Ll . 14-21 , 30-34 ) The stars are not mentioned in this ...
... perhaps , to the opening lines of Ben Jonson's Volpone . Good morning to the day , and next , my gold ! Open the shrine , that I may see my saint ! That there is no formulated creed at the back of these words is obvious ; that they are ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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