Shelley among others : the play of the intertext and the idea of language

423 Pages·2002·2.56 MB·English

by  Shelley

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Shelley among Others
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Shelley among Others
The Play of the Intertext and the Idea of Language
Stuart Peterfreund
The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London
This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance
of the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Dean of the School of
Arts and Sciences, Northeastern University.
' 2002 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2002
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peterfreund, Stuart.
Shelley among others : the play of the intertext
and the idea of language / Stuart Peterfreund.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8018-6751-7 (acid-free paper)
1. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792(cid:150)1822(cid:151)Criticism and interpretation.
2. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792(cid:150)1822(cid:151)Knowledge(cid:151)Language and
languages. 3. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792(cid:150)1822(cid:151)Political and social
views. 4. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792(cid:150)1822(cid:151)Knowledge(cid:151)Literature.
5. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792(cid:150)1822(cid:151)Contemporaries.
6. Intertextuality. I. Title.
PR5438 P47 2002
821’.7(cid:151)dc21
2001000244
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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To Sarah Ruth Peterfreund
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Literary History, Cultural Politics,
and (cid:147)The Nature Itself of Language(cid:148) 1
1: Figures That Look Before and After 25
2: Nothing Beside Remains 49
3: (cid:147)Mont Blanc,(cid:148) the Recuperation of Voice,
the Way of (cid:147)Power,(cid:148) and the Fate of Love 100
4: Toward a Vision of the Nineteenth Century 135
5: The Poet Situated(cid:151)between the Failed Past
and a Hopeful Future 168
6: A Perpetual Orphic Song; or, The Name of the Father? 218
7: Moving toward the Shade of Shelley 267
Notes 319
Bibliography 381
Index 395
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Preface and Acknowledgments
My attempt in writing this book has been to produce a comprehensive study
of Shelley(cid:146)s poetry, including most of the major poems and many of the so-
called minor poems as well. It is a study that discusses and, by so doing,
integrates the intertextual and linguistic conceptions and practices that Shelley
himself deployed in seeking and claiming for himself a place in the Western
literary tradition. My conception of the integration process that brings to-
gether those intertextual and linguistic conceptions and practices has been
informed significantly by the work of a number of philosophers and theorists
of language. Both Shelley(cid:146)s idea of language and his sense of intertextuality
have interesting affinities with contemporary thought and theory.
As my title suggests in part, I believe that an understanding of Shelley(cid:146)s
intertextual conversation with those he identifies as his important conversa-
tion partners and formative figures in the Western literary tradition, espe-
cially as that tradition provides him with the materials to fashion both his
own literary moment and the voice of that moment, is central to forming an
understanding of Shelley(cid:146)s poetry. That this conversation has been remarked
and discussed in some detail over time is evident from even a casual perusal
of the other poets and writers cited by both Shelley himself and his commen-
tators in the notes to the Reiman and Powers edition of his poetry and prose.
Shelley(cid:146)s idea of language has been the object of increased attention during
the last thirty-five years, especially in books such as Earl J. Schulze(cid:146)s Shelley(cid:146)s
Theory of Poetry: A Reappraisal (1966); John Wright(cid:146)s Shelley(cid:146)s Myth of Meta-
phor (1970); William Keach(cid:146)s Shelley(cid:146)s Style (1984); and Jerrold E. Hogle(cid:146)s
Shelley(cid:146)s Process (1988). I join in the conversation in Shelley among Others,
grateful for the contributions of these scholars among others, but also mindful
that, at least since the time of Hogle(cid:146)s book, the discussion of Shelley(cid:146)s idea of lan-
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ix