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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... symbol of time is , of course , " moon , " shamelessly rhymed with " June " ( 1. 6 ) for the enduring clichés ( " Fresh as a rose " [ 1. 6 ] and " I to her cottage bent my way " [ 1. 7 ] ) are precisely the means to indi- cate the ...
... symbol in the tumbled stones and debris of a church which , through centuries of decay , maintained its consecrated status and function . Such a symbol may have been a part of the mystical experiences associated with other ruins , or ...
... symbols of , 12-14 ; London as symbol of , 183-86 ; need for , 13 ; poetic energy created in search for , 23 ; quest for expression of , 178-86 ; religious objects as symbols of , 182 , 183 ; unsatisfactory nature of symbols of , 181-82 ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
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