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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... truth of the " indivisible undivided duration . " Nonethe- less , his poetry operates so frequently and so powerfully by associative methods - the repetition of moments of insight to create a sense of self and the nature of self , and ...
... truth . " The stone represents solid geometry , its contours , hardness , and tangibility suggesting the logic and verifiable reasoning of mathematics . The shell is doubly symbolic of poetry : its bright , dazzling exterior represents ...
... truth in this notion as in Blackstone's , but not more . Christianity is a learned religion , inevitably so since it is dogmatic and tied to historical events . The " motions of the viewless winds " may bring to the sensitive man ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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