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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... poet gives us a more vivid picture of the mind encoun- tering and building up its world . " 3 This is perhaps a too compact expression of what Wordsworth's best poetry does and needs a little expanding . The mind encounters a Newto ...
... poet . Denied the myths and gods of the classical past , the Romantic poet must make his own efficaci- ous symbols . If it is true that ideas or sensations experienced together often and vividly will suggest each other when ex ...
... poet's imagina- tion " than he does in the defeated Margaret of " The Ruined Cottage . " 10 There is indeed more to Wordsworth's concep- tion of the self in time than is suggested by weary platitudes about the human condition , and it ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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