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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... contrast to the public way , and the hidden valley is a sharper contrast to Grasmere village . “ No habitation can be seen " ; there is no village school with its regular hours , no church clock to chime the quarters , no carters , no ...
... contrast , for our glance is now directed to the horses , neither timeless nor holy , but merely grazing . The suggestion of a scene exempt scene exempt from time is strengthened in the emphasis on the secluded location of the valley ...
... contrast strike us at once : the contrast of the living boys with the stone figures and the contrast of those figures with the living reality of the past which they represent . And it is in these contrasts of life and death , past and ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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