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. |
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Jeffrey Baker. Appendix : The Ruined Shrines There is good reason to suppose that Wordsworth as a boy had some knowledge of the history of the shrines he visited . Such ruins become part of the folklore of the district in which they are ...
... shrines were a sudden onset of historical consciousness and a sense of a mystical persistence of the tradition of prayer among the ruins . I hope that the reader may get a better sense of these features with the help of the following ...
... shrine was a chauntry . The first mention of it in historical documents occurs in an inquisition post mortem into the property of Walter de Lyndesay in 1272. He held , among other things , the lake known as Wynandermer , containing an ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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