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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... course is " earth's diurnal course . " We are time's prisoners , the poem says , and we die in prison . 3 The Nature and Status of the Mind Although Wordsworth 50 Time and Mind in Wordsworth's Poetry.
... course - Michael is too old to adjust his emotional life to the unexpected deprivation . But he makes some effort to do so . He looks for something that will symbolically link the satis- fying memories of the past with the possibility ...
... course , goes the assumption that retreat is always cowardly and never wise ; the possibility is not enter- tained that a mystical retreat may be a falling back pour mieux sauter . But in Wordsworth's scheme we are not encouraged to ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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