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
Results 1-3 of 15
... turn they " ministered to human comfort . " The object which Wordsworth spies on the " slimy foot - stone , " although in one sense a natural time symbol ( ordinary processes of weathering and decay are the obvious time measures ) , is ...
... turn to the sylvan Wye for those sweet sensations and their spiritual therapy . These moments , then , are brief glimpses of a kind of reality normally hidden from us , and their value for us is that through them , and through our ...
... turn the nuns out of the convent at Chartreuse , Wordsworth seemed to hear the voice of nature herself protesting : " Stay , stay your sacrilegious hands " ( Prelude , 6 : 430 ) . I should note , by the way , that although the ...
Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
Ordered and Disordered Time | 29 |
The Nature and Status of the Mind | 51 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown