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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... reality of discreteness , in fact , which produces the illusion of con- tinuity . And when I read one of Wordsworth's passages deal- ing with his visionary experiences , I am aware of a temporal context for the stilled moment as I am ...
... reality that is other than our own mind at the very moment when we are most aware of the nature of our own mind ; the mystical act of knowing is also an act of self - knowing . And once we have seen what the mind is , of what , and to ...
... reality and permanence is again be- wildered . Although the effigies are as immediately present as the boys , they represent a reality belonging to the remote past . We must assume a time when knights and abbots moved about the abbey as ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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