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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... common , though no less seductive , retreat . Margaret prefers the subtly addictive pain of unjusti- fiable hope to common reality . Nonetheless , while the form of her dependency may differ , the penalty is the common . one . The wages ...
... common " with hostile spiritual qualities . Thus the " ordinary sight " of the common and the girl with the pitcher on her head becomes indescribably desolate and menacing - a " visionary dreariness . " But here I am merely making ...
... common dawn , seen not from the point of view of one responding to the spirit of the season , but by a privileged , deliberate idler from the vantage point of ... common . But Wordsworth is not common 154 Time and Mind in Wordsworth's Poetry.
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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