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
Results 1-3 of 29
... become aware of the pic- ture as a picture , rather than as an instant in an unfolding action , and its details become available to me in a way they are not when in action . But at the same time I am aware that the projector has stopped ...
Jeffrey Baker. them while the film was in motion . I become aware of the discrete nature of the images . I become ... becomes aware of the sensuous detail of the visible world in a heightened way , but he also feels that he knows reality ...
... become part of the store of memories available for our healing , for another aspect of the dignity of the mind is its power of selective and disciplined memory . We can , at need , recall the visionary moment . What we felt we may no ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown