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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... eternal present " which Wordsworth seems to achieve in his visionary experi- ences . There are times when the poet seems to regard it as the durationless " moment " in which the eternal mind dwells and which the mystic seems to share ...
... eternal element will apprehend beauty and truth without such aids . Nevertheless , after a second look at the first 165 lines of book 5 , it is not the asserted final confidence that establishes itself in the reader's mind , but the ...
... eternal present and calmly seen as parts of a benevolent and harmonious unity of all things , then we have achieved an invulnerable security . The need is plain , and the satisfaction of it is plain . Moreover , no one need be censori ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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