The Unfamiliar Shelley

390 Pages·2009·13.388 MB·English

by  Timothy Webb, Alan M. Weinberg

The Unfamiliar Shelley
To Don Reiman
in gratitude for his major contribution to the understanding of Shelley
The Unfamiliar Shelley
Edited by
alan m. Weinberg
University of South Africa, RSA
TimoThy Webb
University of Bristol, UK
First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © alan m. Weinberg and Timothy Webb 2009
alan m. Weinberg and Timothy Webb have asserted their moral right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notices..
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe .
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The unfamiliar Shelley. – (The nineteenth century series)
1. Shelley, Percy bysshe, 1792–1822 – Criticism and interpretation
i. Weinberg, alan m. (alan mendel) ii. Webb, Timothy
821.7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The unfamiliar Shelley / edited by Timothy Webb and alan m. Weinberg.
p. cm. – (The nineteenth century series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6390-4 (alk. paper)
1. Shelley, Percy bysshe, 1792–1822–Criticism and interpretation. i. Weinberg, alan m.
(alan mendel) ii. Webb, Timothy
Pr5438.U64 2008
821'.7–dc22
2007052262
iSbn 9780754663904(hbk)
Contents
General Editors’ Preface vii
List of Illustrations ix
Notes on Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xv
List of Abbreviations xvii
Editorial Note xix
introduction 1
Timothy Webb and Alan M. Weinberg
Poetry
1 Reading as Flight: Fragment Poems from Shelley’s Notebooks 21
Michael Bradshaw
2 ‘The Casket of My Unknown Mind’: The 1813 Volume of Minor Poems 41
David Duff
3 happily ever after? The necessity of fairytale in Queen Mab 69
Christopher R. Miller
4 laon and the hermit: Connection and Succession 85
Jack Donovan
5 ‘Peter Bell the Third’: Contempt and Poetic Transfiguration 101
Stephen C. Behrendt
6 Scratching at the Door of absence: Writing and reading
‘letter to maria gisborne’ 119
Timothy Webb
7 Shelley’s neapolitan-Tuscan Poetics: ‘Sonnet: Political greatness’
and the ‘republic’ of benevento 137
Michael Rossington
Art
8 Shelleyan inspiration and the Sister arts 159
Nancy Moore Goslee
vi The Unfamiliar Shelley
Prose
9 noises on: The Communicative Strategies of Shelley’s Prefaces 183
Hugh Roberts
10 Contemplating facts, Studying ourselves: aspects of Shelley’s
Philosophical and religious Prose 199
Merle A. Williams
11 a Place to Stand: Questions of address in Shelley’s
Political Pamphlets 221
Martin Priestman
12 emulating Plato: Shelley as Translator and Prose Poet 239
Michael O’Neill
13 ‘These Catchers of Men’: Imposture and Its Unmasking in
‘a Philosophical View of reform’ 257
Alan M. Weinberg
Drama
14 Porcine Poetics: Shelley’s Swellfoot the Tyrant 279
Timothy Morton
15 Shelley’s late fragmentary Plays: ‘Charles the first’ and the
‘Unfinished Drama’ 297
Nora Crook
Afterword: Tracking Shelley 313
Donald H. Reiman
Bibliography 327
Index 349
The nineteenth Century Series
general editors’ Preface
The aim of the series is to reflect, develop and extend the great burgeoning of
interest in the nineteenth century that has been an inevitable feature of recent
years, as that former epoch has come more sharply into focus as a locus for our
understanding not only of the past but of the contours of our modernity. it centres
primarily upon major authors and subjects within romantic and Victorian literature.
it also includes studies of other british writers and issues, where these are matters
of current debate: for example, biography and autobiography, journalism, periodical
literature, travel writing, book production, gender, non-canonical writing. We are
dedicated principally to publishing original monographs and symposia; our policy
is to embrace a broad scope in chronology, approach and range of concern, and
both to recognize and cut innovatively across such parameters as those suggested by
the designations ‘romantic’ and ‘Victorian’. We welcome new ideas and theories,
while valuing traditional scholarship. it is hoped that the world which predates yet
so forcibly predicts and engages our own will emerge in parts, in the wider sweep,
and in the lively streams of disputation and change that are so manifest an aspect of
its intellectual, artistic and social landscape.
Vincent newey
Joanne Shattock
University of Leicester

list of illustrations
1.1 MS draft of ‘Eagle why soarest thou …’, with sketch of eagle
bodleian mS Shelley adds. e. 8, p. 147 rev. 37
2.1 MS draft of ‘If it were possible’, with sketch of trees
bodleian mS Shelley adds. c. 4, fol. 184r 42
7.1 mS fair copy of ‘Sonnet: Political greatness’
bodleian mS Shelley adds. c. 5, fol. 132v 141
8.1 Title page of A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote, with
sketches of trees
bodleian mS Shelley e. 3 [title-page] 162
8.2 mS draft from Laon and Cythna, with sketch of trees in river scene
bodleian mS Shelley adds. e. 14, p. 27 164
8.3 mS draft from Laon and Cythna, with sketch of classical temples
and semi-human figure
bodleian mS Shelley adds. c. 4, fol. 2v 165
8.4 mS draft from Laon and Cythna, with sketch of tree
bodleian mS Shelley adds. e. 19, p. 29 166
8.5 MS draft from ‘The Triumph of Life’, with boat sketch
bodleian mS Shelley adds. c. 4, fol. 26v 177