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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... gives Words- worth the stability and optimism Christianity gives to its believers . Have I then found a creed in the poem after all ? Again , unfortunately , no . All this blessed assurance has been undermined earlier in the poem . We ...
... gives no reason for the withering away of the flock . There is certainly no hint of a failing on the shepherd's side , nor is any material disaster explicitly named . All we are told , with insistent repetition , is that times were bad ...
... gives a brief summary of his journeyings before he next saw Margaret . The tone is one of swinging blitheness and tough endurance ; the stride of the verse is long , rapid , and regular ; the marcher seems to be singing or whistling on ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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