Modern judgements SHELLEY MODERN JUDGEMENTS General Editor: P. N. FURBANK Dickens A. E. Dyson Henry James Tony Tanner Milton Alan Rudrum Walter Scott D. D. Devlin Shelley R. B. W oodings Swift A. NormanJeffares IN PREPARATION Matthew Arnold P. A. W. Collins Freud F. Cioffi Marvell M. Wilding 0'Casey Ronald Ayling Pasternak Donald Davie and Angela Livingstone Pope Graham Martin Racine R. C. Knight Shelley MODERN JUDGEMENTS edited by R. B. WOODINGS Macmillan Education Selection and editorial matter @ R. B. W oodings 1968 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1968 Published by MACMILLAN AND CO LTD Little Essex Street London w c 2 and also at Bombay Calcutta and Madras Macmillan South Africa (Publishers) Pty Ltd Johannesburg The Macmillan Company ofAustralia Pty Ltd Melbourne The Macmillan Company ofCanada Ltd Toronto ISBN 978-0-333-01677-0 ISBN 978-1-349-15257-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15257-5 Contents Acknowledgements 7 General Editor's Prefoce 9 Introduction II Chronology 29 FREDERICK A. POTTLE The Case ofShelley 35 c. E. PULOS Thelmportance ofShelley's Scepticism 52 NEVILLE ROGERS Shelley and the West Wind 58 GLENN o'MALLEY Shelley's 'Air-prism': the Synesthetic Scheme ofAlastor 72 HAROLD BLOOM The Quest: Alastor 87 HAROLD BLOOM The Witch ofAtlas 93 K. N. CAMERON The Political Symbolism of Prometheus Unbound 102 EARL R. WASSERMAN MythinShelley'sPoetry 130 D. J. HUGHES Potentiality in Prometheus Unbound 142 G. M. MATTHEWS A Volcano'sVoiceinShelley 162 JOSEPH RABEN Shelley as Translator 196 CARLOS BAKER The Evening Star: Adonais 213 M. WILSON Pavilioned upon Chaos: the Problem of Hellas 228 E. E. BOSTETTER ShelleyandtheMutinousFlesh 241 J. J. McGANN The Secrets of an Elder Day: Shelley after Hellas 253 6 Contents MANFRED WOJCIK lnDefenceofShelley 272 Select Bibliography 286 Notes on Contributors 288 Index 291 Acknowledgements F. A. Pottle, 'The Case of Shelley', from Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LXVn {1952) {The Modern Language Association of America); C. E. Pulos, The Deep Truth (University of Nebraska Press); N. Rogers, 'Shelley and the West Wind', from the London Magazine, m v; Glenn O'Malley, 'Shelley's Air Prism: the Synthetic Scheme of Alastor', from Modern Philology, LV (1958) {University of Chicago Press); The Visionary Company (Doubleday & Co. Inc.; © Harold Bloom 1961); Kenneth N. Cameron, 'The Political Symbolism of Prometheus Unbound', from Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LVIn (1943) {The Modern Language Association of America); Earl R. Wasserman, Shelley's 'Prometheus Unbound' (Johns Hopkins Press); D. J. Hughes, 'Poten­ tiality in Prometheus Unbound', from Studies in Romanticism, XI (1963) {Boston University); G. M. Matthews, 'A Volcano's Voice in Shelley', from Journal of English Literary History, XXIV (1957) (Johns Hopkins Press); Joseph Raben, 'Milton's Influence on Shelley's Translation of Dante's "Matilda Gathering Flowers"', from Review of English Studies, NS XIV (1963) (The Clarendon Press); Carlos Baker, 'The Evening Star: Adonais', from Shelley's Major Poetry: The Fabric of a Vision {Princeton University Press); M. Wilson, Shelley's Later Poetry (Columbia University Press); Edward E. Hostetter, 'Shelley and the Mutinous Flesh', from Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 1 (1959) {University of Texas Press); Jerome J. McGann, 'The Secrets of an Elder Day: Shelley after Hellas', from Keats-Shelley Journal, xv (1966} (The Keats-Shelley Association of America Inc.); Manfred Wojcik, 'In Defence of Shelley', from Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, no. 2 (1963) {VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften). The editor would like to thank Neville Rogers and Geoffrey Matthews for their suggestions, Peter Salus and Mihail Bogdan of Cluj University 8 Acknowledgements for providing reference details, and especially Nicholas Brooke for his kindness in reading and commenting on a version of the Introduction. He is grateful to Jane Lott for her very patient typing. General Editor's Preface LITERARY criticism has only recendy come of age as an academic discipline, and the intellectual activity that, a hundred years ago, went into theological discussion, now finds its most natural oudet in the critical essay. Amid a good deal that is dull or silly or pretentious, every year now produces a crop of critical essays which are brilliant and pro­ found not only as contributions to the understanding of a particular author, but as statements of an original way oflooking at literature and the world. Hence it often seems that the most useful undertaking for an academic publisher might be, not so much to commission new books of literary criticism or scholarship, as to make the best of what exists easily available. This at least is the purpose of the present series of anthologies, each ofwhich is devoted to a single major writer. The guiding principle of selection is to assemble the best modern criticism - broadly speaking, that of the last twenty or thirty years - and to include historic and classic essays, however :&mous, only when they are still influential and represent the best statements of their particular point of view. It will, however, be one of the functions of each editor's Introduction to sketch in the earlier history of criticism in regard to the author concerned. Each volume will attempt to strike a balance between general essays and ones on specialised aspects, or particular works, of the writer in question. And though in many instances the bulk of the articles will come from British and American sources, certain of the volumes will draw heavily on material in other European languages - most of it being translated for the first time. P. N. FURBANK A2 w.s. Introduction IN June 1822 Shelley once more became the centre of public contro­ versy. This time, however, the cause was neither the publication of a new poem, nor the circulation of a new rumour, but the confirmation of news that the poet was dead. The notes heard so many times before in reviews and reports took on a firmer tone. Leigh Hunt, a resolute friend and early admirer of Shelley, lamented in the pages of the Morning Chronicle: 'God bless him! I cannot help thinking ofhim as if he were alive as much as ever, so unearthly he always appeared to me, and so seraphical a King of the elements.' But in their August notice the Courier, one of the Tory journals, announced bluntly: 'Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned, now he knows whether there is a God or no.' 1 The declarations have in common the same fervour, the fervour that drapes Shelley in the borrowed robes of either angel or atheist. For from the beginning Shelley attracted extreme comments, in just the same way as he used to stimulate them. The very mixture that is clearly marked in these comments by Hunt and the Courier writer, of almost personal abuse or moral justification, characterises nearly all of Shelley criticism, and makes him unique even among such a colourful gathering as the Romantic poets. Even today the strife still blazes. In 1950, for example, K. N. Cameron was able to write his study of Shelley's early development as social thinker and revolutionary poet, with an obstinate conviction of the rightness of the youthful writer's actions that turned a scornful eye on all who refused to confess it. He accounted for the 'power and beauty' of Queen Mab as 'the bitter and angry cry of a young revolutionary, its visionary penetration that of a man rising on the wave of a titanic historical struggle to see deep and far'. 2 Representing the alternative challenge 1 Both quotations from N.l. White, Shelley (1947) n 39o-1. a The Yotmg Shelley (New York, reprinted 1962) p. 267. 12 Introduction stands Douglas Bush, who, in the course of writing a scholarly study of the treatment of classical myth by nineteenth-century poets, could slip in some dismissive generalisations about the worth of Shelley's poetry, and facetiously offer the following critical comment on the well-known 'Life ofLife' lyric from Prometheus Unbound: At this point all good Shelleyans face to the east, and regard any attempt to discern the meaning as both prosaic and profane; those who desire more in poetry than rapturous reverie, who ask that feeling shall have direction as well as intensity, must not enter the temple with thick-soled shoes.1 The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that the middle path for the reader of Shelley is hard to come by - you're either for him or against him, and in either case his poetry represents a peak of accomplishment, whether ofsuccess or failure. Any brief review of Shelley criticism shows that moderation has never been one of its virtues. As a result of this, the various attacks and counter-attacks have achieved almost as much fame as their subject, frequently to the point where critical accuracy has been sacrificed to anecdote. What is signi£cant, however, is that the same issues have arisen as each new critical generation has tried to decide on its attitude to Shelley. For his poetry draws attention to certain constant problems in literary theory. Shelley's own theorising, and the nature ofhis poetic practice, brought him up against the apparent critical trespasses that he was committing: the yoking together of didacticism and aestheticism; the reliance on the precise, detailed word beside the emotive, general one; the unity of the personal and the mythic, self-communion and public expression. Since the treatment of these problems tends to pursue certain definable paths, Shelley criticism does display a firm unity over the past 140 years. This pattern, and, as a result, the motives behind much subsequent interpretation, is well illustrated in the fate of his poetry during the last century.