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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... examine what he seemed to assume on particular occasions about the nature of the mind and of time . The unique aspects of Wordsworth's time sense are , first , his constant awareness that the pain and fear with which man confronts time ...
... examine them here would be too large a digression . As for the " general deterioration , " Jonathan Wordsworth makes a valid point in identifying it with the poet's habit of making comment and judgment unnecessarily explicit , of ...
... examine briefly the manner in which Wordsworth applies epithets of quality to nouns such as " time , " " season , " and " hour . " Certain phrases , such as " Two blighting seasons " ( 1. 537 ) , " The hardships of that season " ( 1 ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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