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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... processes as choosing to attend to the ex- ternal world , or , oftentimes , even in selecting an object from that world on which to concentrate . Recollection , too , seems in some cases to involve processes of selection inexplicable ...
... processes begin . At this point in the narrative occurs a passage full of Wordsworthian guile . The Pedlar gives a brief summary of his journeyings before he next saw Margaret . The tone is one of swinging blitheness and tough endurance ...
... processes are natural , but canker and blight are also natural processes , and lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds . A little earlier in The Prelude , Wordsworth presents a picture of the ideal product of this educational ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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