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. |
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... Michael " and book 1 of The Excur- sion can thus be summed up briefly and tidily ; the differences show themselves in a more general examination of " Michael . " 999 One of the most noticeable peculiarities of the poem is an obtrusive ...
... Michael's only child . Fatherly emotion is inten- sified by this late release . Exceeding was the love he bare to him , His heart and his heart's joy ! For often - times Old Michael , while he was a babe in arms , Had done him female ...
... Michael pitifully vulnerable by creating that unseasonable , and therefore fatal , hope . We have always known that time will transfix the flourish set on youth ; in " Michael " Wordsworth demonstrates that time also has sophisticated ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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