Wordsworth’s Re-Formation of Individuality: "Spots of Time," the Fragment and the Autobiography

1372
Mikyung Park

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Nonetheless, the persona reshapes the traumatic experience into a
moment for growing up after remembering fragmented past scenes.
Although the persona never spells out his intricate mental state, the
implications of the second spot of time emerge on the surface of the tex-
tual construct. In his psyche the young boy might oedipalize himself by
recalling the past. Establishing himself as one of the “Sojourners in [his]
father’s house” (12.307), he seems to want to play a role of the father fig-
ure himself. The “father figure” refers to an independent subjectivity to
the extent that Wordsworth is building his self-hood from his childhood
memories. His extreme sadness caused by the loss of his father appears
to surpass his ability to represent and to reinforce linguistic displace-
ment; however, he cannot undo the hurting past scenes. 
Along with self-transformation through remembering and writing,
Wordsworth’s autobiography consists of diverse encounters with others,
human and in-human alike. The other humans include the forsaken,
vagrants, and the dispossessed, from whom the persona is differentiated
and yet inseparable because he always already engages with them. 
Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites;
From many other uncouth vagrants (passed
In fear) have walked with quicker step; but why
Take note of this? When I began to enquire, 
To watch and question those I met, and speak
Without reserve to them, the lonely roads
Were open schools in which I daily read
With most delight the passions of mankind,
Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed;
There saw into the depth of human souls,
Souls that appear to have no depth at all
To careless eyes. (13.156-67)
Thinking about those whom he meets on the roads is not entirely diver-
gent from questioning his view of the world. The poet educates himself
while reading the living texts of the others he encounters. In both spots of
time, the persona confesses how difficult it is to render in human lan-
guage what he felt in his early days. The above citation shows that
Wordsworth’s rewriting is not an effort to discover and fixate on the
meanings of his letters. On the contrary, rewriting opens up the possibili-
ty to expand creative correspondences with the past and future without
confining them to fixed spatial-temporal points. It is also true that those
Wordsworth’s Re-Formation of Individuality: “Spots of Time,” the Fragment and the Autobiography 1373

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people are not imprisoned in written words as Wordsworth admits:
Others, too,
There are among the walks of homely life
Still higher, men for contemplation framed, 
Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase;
Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink
Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse:
Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power,
The thought, the image, and the silent joy:
Words are but under-agents in their souls;
When they are grasping with their greatest strength,
They do not breathe among them: this I speak
In gratitude to God, Who feeds our hearts
For His own service; knoweth, lovth us,
When we are unregarded by the world. (13.265-78)
For these others, “Words are but under-agents in their souls”; therefore,
the persona is aware of a need for “the language of the heavens.” The
uniqueness of those people, which seems to elude the grasp of human
language, implies a level of meaning that may exist free from linguistic
references. The remembered people may not be identical with the real
counterparts. This kind of extraordinary representation is suggested in
Wordsworth’s motivation to rewrite two spots of time in the Twelfth
Book.
In view of the overall structure of The Prelude, the transition from his
involvement in the French Revolution (Books 9, 10, and 11) to his early
childhood (Book 12) seems to be too abrupt. Yet the persona appears to
have no other choice than to go through an achronological narration. It is
only after dealing with the most difficult part of his life, i.e., the French
Revolution in the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Books, that Wordsworth is
enabled to highlight his early childhood memories in the Twelfth Book.
The preceding attempt to narrate the French Revolution, though he is not
sure of succeeding in articulating it, bears witness to the heavy weight
embedded in baffling feelings:
Even as a river,—partly (it might seem)
Yielding to old remembrances, and swayed
In part by fear to shape a way direct,
That would engulph him soon in the ravenous sea__
Turns, and will measure back his course, far back,