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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... single sensations ! Who ever felt a single sensation ? Is not everyone at the same moment conscious that there coexists a thousand others , a darker shade , or less light , even as when I fix my attention on a white house , or a grey ...
... single wren Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave Of the old church , that — though from recent showers The earth was comfortless , and touched by faint Internal breezes , sobbings of the place And respirations , from the roofless ...
... single detail , the vision focuses on a particular scene noted on a particular visit : " along the smooth green turf / Our horses grazed . " Out of the shifting composite of memories , a single picture has separated itself . But this is ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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