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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... moon " ( five times in twenty - one lines ) is conscious and purposeful ; the tension of the poem is developed by in- sisting on the same symbol while adroitly changing the mood symbolized . The evening moon is a lovers ' moon , and ...
... moon is reflected in a lake of " sullen water " ( 1. 704 ) and is unlike the moon we have seen in other poems . The brightness and fixed outlines have gone ; it is dull red and changes its form like a snake . The mere fact that it is ...
... moon broods over this dark abyss as God's majestic intellect broods over the universe he has created : the moon's " sovereign ele- vation " is the timeless vantage point from which God views time . But the moon is also the type of man's ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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