Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1974. This book concerns the archetypal quality of Wordsworth's The Prelude, specifically the ways in which it develops and defines concepts of language, time, and narrative that influenced writers who came after Wordsworth. Frank D. McConnell sees the philosopher and theologian St. Augustine as the most suggestive analogue for the Wordsworthian quest for lost time and for the redemptive power of memory. McConnell maps similarities and dissimilarities between Wordsworth's Prelude and Augustine's Confessions. Each chapter of the book centers on an aspect of Wordsworth's confessional procedure in writing the poem. Chapter 1 ascribes peculiarities in the mode of address to The Prelude's definitive auditor, Coleridge, as a felt presence that shapes the overall form of the poem. Chapter 2 discusses the confessionaland Wordsworthianview of the human career, contrasting the holistic and organic ideal of man's development with a more ancient and allegorical, or daemonic
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Poem to Coleridge
Chapter 2. The Sense of the Human
Chapter 3. The Tyrant Eye
Chapter 4. Edenic Words
Appendix 1. James Nayler
Appendix 2. William Cowper
Appendix 3. Silas Told
Bibliography
Index
