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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... clock and calendar time , while inner time is the time of memory and intuition , more readily responsive to nature's time than to clock time . He recognizes too Words- worth's conception of two distinct realms , eternity and time , and ...
... clock might as well be crazy . There is a serious irony here , and its implication should not be overlooked . When Wordsworth comes across a clock whose chimes really do bewilder him , the effect is neither liberating nor reassuring ...
... clock can read a clock . And Wordsworth has made himself other than a clock in two ways : first , and most obvi- ous , while the spirit of the season prompts man to rouse and go forth , Wordsworth is on his way home to bed ; second ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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