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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... relationship between people and their natural environment . The closer the relationship , the clearer the visual record will initially be , and it will fade more slowly . Wordsworth represents the relationship of the cotta- gers to ...
... relationship between people and nature . Furthermore , such a relationship seems to imply certain moral matters . The Ped- lar suggests continually that Margaret and her husband ought to tend the garden and ought to offer refreshment to ...
... relationship with season and natural environment is maintained , and only when this fails will the fatal processes begin . At this point in the narrative occurs a passage full of Wordsworthian guile . The Pedlar gives a brief summary of ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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