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The Metaphor of Memory in Wordsworth's Spots of Time
Author(s) -
Møller Lis
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/oli.12051
Subject(s) - metaphor , motif (music) , eleventh , literature , representation (politics) , reading (process) , history , art , philosophy , linguistics , physics , aesthetics , politics , political science , acoustics , law
On expanding the two‐part Prelude of 1799 to The Prelude of 1805, Wordsworth made several important alterations to the two ‘spots of time’ childhood memories as he transferred them from Part One of the 1799 version to Book Eleventh of the 1805 version. One of these revisions concerns the poet's account of his childhood experience of accidentally arriving at a spot where in former times a murderer had been hanged. In the 1799 version, a ridge shaped like a grave marks the site of execution. In later versions this grave‐shaped mound is replaced by an inscription: the murderer's name carved on the turf. The insertion of the motif of the inscription turns the scene of execution into a literal site of memory, but it also functions as a metaphorical representation of the phenomenon of memory. The paper explores the implications of the inscription as metaphor of memory in a reading of the two spots.