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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... matters , and Wordsworth has made this point by allowing us to recognize , in a moment of apparent confu- sion , that sun ... matter is transposed from a mathematical to a poetic affair . It is not merely that human observation is at all ...
... matter if different enthusiasms are accompanied by assumptions which are inconsistent with each other . This is surely the case with the early Words- worth : enthusiasm for nature is accompanied by assumptions about associationism and ...
... matter in a pun of childlike simplicity . When the shepherd and his dog have stolen , As is their wont , a pittance from strict time , For rest not needed or exchange of love , Then from his couch he starts ; and now his feet Crush out ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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