Selected Poems and Prose

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  68 Orlando Furioso … Fairy Queen: Sixteenth-century epics by the Italians Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) and Torquato Tasso (1544–95), the Portuguese Luís de Camões (c.1524–80), and Edmund Spenser (c.1552–99).

  69 a language … inharmonious barbarisms: Dante’s Divina Commedia (c.1308–20) represented a decisive advance in the use of the Italian language for literary purposes. In his De Vulgari Eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular; c.1304–7) he distinguishes between the numerous dialects of Italian in his day and an elevated idiom, distinct from any one of them, which could serve as the vehicle of a vernacular literature.

  70 Lucifer … starry flock: Lucifer (‘light-bearer’) is Venus as the morning star, which (like a shepherd) guides the other stars to their fold at daybreak. Traditionally, Lucifer was identified with Satan before the Fall, as in Paradise Lost V.708–9: ‘His countenance, as the morning star that guides / The starry flock, allured them.’

  71 republican Italy: PBS specifies the medieval republics of Florence and Pisa as fostering masterpieces of Italian literature and painting in Letters II, p. 122.

  72 instinct with: Imbued with, animated by; the phrase occurs in Paradise Lost VI.752.

  73 Boccaccio: Giovanni Boccaccio (c.1313–75), author of the prose stories collected in the Decameron. PBS describes him as ‘in the high sense of the word a poet’ in Letters II, p. 122.

  74 mechanists: Advocates of a ‘mechanical theory of the universe’ (OED). PBS seems to intend those who aim to improve the conditions of life solely by promoting ‘useful art and science’ (‘The Four Ages of Poetry’, Brett-Smith, p. 19).

  75 mechanist: Machine-maker.

  76 combines, labour: Organizes specialized kinds of work for efficiency.

  77 ‘To him … taken away’: PBS’s version of a saying of Jesus in three of the Gospels, e.g. Matthew 13:12.

  78 Scylla and Charybdis: Respectively, a six-headed monster living in a cave overlooking the ocean and a deadly whirlpool opposite; tradition located them in the straits of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Paired, they became an emblem of dangerous extremes: avoiding one entailed risking the other. See Odyssey XII.94 ff.

  79 ‘It is better … house of mirth’: Cp. Ecclesiastes 7:2–4: ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting … The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’

  80 [Shelley’s note]: See note 59 above. In the ‘Four Ages’ Peacock cites Hume, Gibbon, Rousseau and Voltaire as ‘deep and elaborate thinkers’ who challenged ‘every portion of the reign of authority’ (Brett-Smith, p. 13).

  81 Inquisition in Spain: Established in 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was abolished for the three years of Liberal government that followed the Revolution of 1820; restored in 1823, it was finally abolished in 1834.

  82 Raphael and Michael Angelo: Raphael (1483–1520) and Michelangelo (1475–1564) were two of the leading artists of the Italian Renaissance.

  83 Hebrew poetry: Of the Old Testament, e.g. Job, Psalms, Isaiah.

  84 ‘let I dare not … adage’: Quoting Macbeth I.vii.44–5.

  85 the abuse … inequality of mankind: The effect of mechanization and the specialization of labour in the industrial system has been to increase rather than reduce inequality.

  86 curse imposed on Adam: In Genesis 3:19, God afflicts Adam for his disobedience: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.’

  87 God and Mammon: See Matthew 6:24: ‘No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ ‘Mammon’ derives from the Hebrew for ‘money’, ‘wealth’.

  88 Poetry is … knowledge: Cp. Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802): ‘Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge … the first and last of all knowledge’ (ed. Michael Mason (Harlow: Longman, 1992), pp. 76–7).

  89 the intertexture: The weaving-in.

  90 ‘dictated … song’: See Paradise Lost IX.21–4: ‘my celestial patroness, who deigns / Her nightly visitation unimplored, / And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires / Easy my unpremeditated verse’. Cp. ‘To a Sky-Lark’, ll. 1–5.

  91 alledge: Place in evidence.

  92 interlunations: Periods of about four days between the old and the new moon when no moon is visible in the sky.

  93 All things … perceived: PBS elaborates on this principle in ‘On Life’.

  94 ‘The mind … Hell of Heaven’: Satan thus challenges the reality of his damnation in Paradise Lost I.254–5.

  95 film of familiarity: PBS is echoing Coleridge’s account of Wordsworth’s purpose in Lyrical Ballads (1798): ‘to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand’ (Biographia Literaria (1817), chapter 14: ed. James Engel and W. Jackson Bate, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), II, p. 7).

  96 Non merita … il Poeta: ‘None deserves the name of creator but God and the Poet.’ PBS cites Tasso’s dictum in Letters II, p. 30, and in ‘On Life’, and he recalls in Letters II, p. 29, Socrates’ claim in Plato’s Phaedrus 245a, 265b that the inspired poet experiences a kind of divine madness. See also PBS’s translation of Plato’s Ion (Notopoulos, pp. 472–3).

  97 institutor: Teacher, instructor.

  98 arbitration of popular breath: The casual judgement of common opinion.

  99 ‘there … soar’: ‘there sitting where ye durst not soar’: Satan’s recollection of his former eminence (Paradise Lost IV.829).

  100 Homer … poet laureate: This catalogue of charges laid against poets, and one painter, ranges from the fanciful (Homer) to the established (Bacon) through various traditional imputations. A ‘peculator’ is an embezzler. Spenser was not Poet Laureate but had celebrated monarchy by creating an idealized figure of Elizabeth I in the Faerie Queene. PBS deplored the conservative political views of the current Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, whom he had accused of slandering him, anonymously, in print. See Preface to Adonais and note 102 below.

  101 Their errors … redeemer Time: The biblical language of the passage derives from: Isaiah 40:15: ‘the nations … are counted as the small dust of the balance’; Isaiah 1:18: ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’; Revelation 7:14: ‘these … have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ The lamb was a traditional emblem of Christ the Redeemer.

  102 contemporary calumnies … poets: PBS was himself the object of such ‘calumnies’. See note to Peter Bell the Third, Dedication.

  103 judge not … judged: Cp. Matthew 7:1: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’

  104 a Poet becomes a man: PBS insisted on this distinction in a letter of 19 July 1821: ‘The poet & the man are two different natures: though they exist together they may be unconscious of each other, & incapable of deciding upon each other’s powers & effects by any reflex act’ (Letters II, p. 310).

  105 obnoxious to: Subject to.

  106 Theseids … Maevius: Juvenal (Satire I) complains of the tedious epic Theseid by Codrus; Bavius and Maevius were Roman poets castigated for their dull and inferior verses by Virgil (Eclogue III); Horace urges the winds and tide to shipwreck Maevius (Epode X).

  107 For the literature of England: In his peroration to the Defence, PBS borrows from the Preface to Prometheus Unbound, where the principal topics are more amply considered, and from A Philosophical View of Reform, then unpublished, which contains an earlier version of this passage (pp. 640–41). A comparison of the t
hree texts reveals a number of important differences as well as providing a comprehensive view of PBS’s thinking on the topics he considers.

  108 low-thoughted: Mean, small-minded.

  109 spirit of the age: PBS defines this spirit as ‘the new springs of thought and feeling, which the great events of our age have exposed to view’ in a letter of 15 October 1819 (Letters II, p. 127).

  110 hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration: Poets act as interpreters of truths which they intuit rather than grasp rationally.

  111 legislators of the World: In chapter 10 of Samuel Johnson’s The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia (1759), the sage and poet Imlac declares that the poet ‘must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations’ (ed. J. P. Hardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 27). See ‘institutors … civil society’ and note 11 above.

  Chronology

  1792 4 August: Percy Bysshe Shelley (hereafter PBS) born at Field Place, Warnham, near Horsham, Sussex; eldest child of Timothy Shelley, landowner and Whig MP (1790–92, 1802–18), and Elizabeth Shelley, née Pilfold, of a neighbouring family of landed gentry. Four younger sisters and one younger brother follow.

  1793 21 January: Execution of King Louis XVI of France.

  September: ‘Reign of Terror’ begins (continues until July 1794).

  1798 May–September: United Irishmen rebel against British rule.

  1800 July–August: Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland.

  1802–4 PBS at Syon House Academy, Isleworth, near London; here and later at Eton attends lectures on general science by Adam Walker, author of Analysis of a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1766).

  1804–10 At Eton College, rebels against the ‘fagging’ system which required younger boys to perform menial tasks for older ones; befriended by the physician Dr James Lind, author of important research on typhus and scurvy.

  1806 Grandfather becomes Sir Bysshe Shelley, Baronet.

  1808 Opens correspondence with cousin, Harriet Grove; her family will put an end to their attachment in 1810.

  1810 Spring: Publishes Zastrozzi, a Gothic romance.

  September: Original Poetry; by Victor and Cazire, written together with sister Elizabeth, subsequently withdrawn when one of the poems is discovered to be a plagiarism.

  October: Goes up to University College, Oxford; begins friendship with fellow undergraduate Thomas Jefferson Hogg.

  November: Publishes Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson.

  December: Publishes a second Gothic romance, St. Irvyne (dated 1811).

  1811 January: First meeting with sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook.

  George III declared mentally incompetent; Prince of Wales becomes regent.

  March: PBS publishes anonymously the political satire Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, to benefit imprisoned Irish journalist Peter Finnerty, and subscribes to a fund for Finnerty’s support. Distributes a pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism (written with Hogg early in the year).

  25 March: Together with Hogg is expelled from University College after refusing to respond to questions about the authorship of the pamphlet at a disciplinary hearing.

  June: Begins lengthy correspondence with Sussex schoolmistress Elizabeth Hitchener.

  25–29 August: Elopes with Harriet Westbrook and marries her in Edinburgh.

  Winter: Travels to Keswick and meets Robert Southey (November–January 1812).

  1812 January: Introduces himself by letter to William Godwin, whose novels and Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) he had long admired.

  February–April: Travels with Harriet to Dublin, where he speaks in favour of Catholic emancipation and repeal of the Union and distributes two pamphlets: An Address to the Irish People and Proposals for an Association of … Philanthropists. A Declaration of Rights printed. PBS adopts a vegetarian diet.

  April–August: Disillusioned with Irish politics, moves first to Wales (April–June), then to Lynmouth, Devon (June–August), where he writes A Letter to Lord Ellenborough to protest against the imprisonment of Daniel Isaac Eaton for selling the third part of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, and is subject to government surveillance. His Irish servant is imprisoned for distributing A Declaration of Rights and a satirical poem, ‘The Devil’s Walk’.

  May: British prime minister, Spencer Perceval, assassinated in the House of Commons; succeeded by Lord Liverpool.

  September: PBS Moves to Tremadoc, north Wales, where he supports construction of embankment and model village.

  October–November: Close association with William Godwin and first meeting with Thomas Love Peacock in London; meets for first time Mary, daughter of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Transcribes early poems into ‘Esdaile Notebook’ (from November to early 1813); most remain unpublished until 1964.

  1813 27 February: Leaves Tremadoc suddenly, claiming that a nocturnal intruder had fired two shots at him at Tan-yr-Allt, the house where the Shelleys were staying.

  March: Travels to Dublin and Killarney.

  5 April: Returns to London.

  May: Publishes A Vindication of Natural Diet (on the benefits of vegetarianism); Queen Mab printed and circulated privately.

  23 June: Daughter, Eliza Ianthe, born.

  July–October: PBS attains legal majority of twenty-one years (4 August). Moves to Bracknell, Berkshire, associates with a radical circle of supporters of the French Revolution, including the vegetarian and naturist John Frank Newton and his sister-in-law Harriet de Boinville.

  1814 Divides time between Windsor, London and Bracknell, raising loans for his own and Godwin’s benefit, avoiding creditors and regularly visiting the Godwin household. A Refutation of Deism printed and privately circulated early in the year.

  April: French monarchy restored after Allied defeat of Napoleon.

  26 June: Mary Godwin declares her love for PBS.

  28 July: Elopes with Mary to France and Switzerland, accompanied by her stepsister, Claire Clairmont (hereafter CC).

  25–26 August: Begins composition of the prose tale ‘The Assassins’.

  September: Returns to London (13 September); pursued by creditors, attempts to raise money over the following months.

  Congress of Vienna convenes to determine the shape of post-Napoleonic Europe.

  30 November: Son, Charles, born to Harriet.

  December: PBS’s review of Hogg’s novel Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff published.

  1815 January–February: Death of grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley (5 January). Meets with radical publisher George Cannon, editor of the Theological Inquirer, which will reprint A Refutation of Deism and large extracts from Queen Mab.

  22 February: Mary gives birth to premature infant, who dies 6 March.

  26 February: Napoleon escapes from Elba.

  May: Financial settlement with PBS’s father allows PBS to pay debts, make gifts to Harriet and Godwin, and grants him an annual income of £1,000, £200 of which is allocated to Harriet.

  18 June: Final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

  August–September: PBS moves with Mary to Bishopsgate, at the eastern entrance to Windsor Great Park. Ten days’ excursion up the Thames with Mary, Peacock and CC’s brother Charles.

  26 September: Treaty of the Holy Alliance signed by Austria, Prussia and Russia.

  Autumn: PBS composes Alastor.

  1816 24 January: Son, William, born to Mary.

  February: Alastor volume published.

  3 May: PBS travels to Switzerland with Mary and CC.

  27 May: Meets Byron in Geneva.

  June: Mary conceives the idea for Frankenstein. PBS tours Lake Geneva with Byron; drafts ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’.

  July: Visits Chamonix with Mary and CC; drafts ‘Mont Blanc’.

  September: Returns to England (8 September) and moves to Bath.

  October: Mary’s half-s
ister Fanny Imlay (daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and her lover, Gilbert Imlay) commits suicide (9 October).

  November: Harriet Shelley drowns herself in the Serpentine, London (her body is found 10 December).

  PBS frequents Leigh Hunt’s social gatherings together with Keats, J. H. Reynolds and Horace Smith.

  December: Learns of Harriet’s death (15 December). Marries Mary (hereafter MWS) (30 December); marriage reconciles the couple with Godwin.

  1817 12 January: Birth of Alba (later ‘Allegra’), CC’s daughter by Byron.

  March: Habeas Corpus suspended in England until 1 February 1818 in response to agitation for reform (4 March).

  PBS publishes the pamphlet A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote under the nom de plume ‘The Hermit of Marlow’. The Shelleys, together with CC and her child, occupy Albion House, Great Marlow; Peacock is near neighbour.

  27 March: PBS denied custody of the children of his first marriage in the Court of Chancery, on a decision of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon.

  Composes Laon and Cythna (March–September).

  2 September: MWS gives birth to a daughter, Clara.

  October: PBS detained briefly for debt.

  November: Anonymous publication of History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (which includes ‘Mont Blanc’), co-authored with MWS.

  Death of the Princess Charlotte and execution of the ‘Pentridge Martyrs’ for leading an armed revolt in Derbyshire (6–7 November) – PBS composes pamphlet linking the two events, An Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte (11–12 November).

  Drafts ‘On Christianity’ (late 1817).

  December: Writes ‘Ozymandias’; Laon and Cythna published and withdrawn from sale.

  1818 January: Revised version of Laon and Cythna, its attack on religion toned down and incest theme removed, published as The Revolt of Islam.

  March: MWS’s Frankenstein published anonymously.

  11 March: PBS departs for Italy, accompanied by MWS, CC, their children and two servants.

  4 April: Arrives in Milan.

  28 April: Allegra sent to Byron in Venice.