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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... hour , once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit , may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length ; on the other hand , an hour may be accurately repre- sented on the timepiece of the mind by one second ...
... hour , when , from excess Of happiness , my blood appeared to flow For its own pleasure . ( Ll . 178-88 ) The whole scene is a sundial : morning casts brightness on the hills ; evening throws them into silhouette . But sundials do not ...
... hour to hour We sate and sate , wondering , as if the night Had been ensnared by witchcraft . On the rock At last we stretched our weary limbs for sleep , But could not sleep , tormented by the stings Of insects , which , with noise ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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