Shelley's Poetry and Prose

by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Donald H. Reiman (Editor), Neil Fraistat (Editor)

This Second Edition is based on the authoritative texts chosen by the editors from their scholarly edition of The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley . Each selection has been thoroughly reedited, and the order of the poems has been rearranged in light of redating or other reconsiderations. All headnotes are new or updated, and many footnotes have been added, replaced, or revised.

"Criticism" reflects the recent renaissance in Shelley studies, the greatest renaissance since 1870-92. All twenty-three essays are new to the Second Edition; among them are the work of Harold Bloom, Stuart Curran, Annette Wheeler Cafarelli, Michael Ferber, James Chandler, and Susan J. Wolfson.

A Chronology, an updated Selected Bibliography, and an Index of Titles and First Lines are included.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Romanticism, Literature, Fiction, British Literature, Literary Criticism

786 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, British romantic poet, include "To a Skylark" in 1820; Prometheus Unbound , the lyric drama; and "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.

The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.

People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .

Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.

Reviews

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I’m actually not that blown away by this. I’m a little disappointed. I keep feeling my concentration flow—-SQUIRREL!

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's no Romantic I adore as much as Shelley. I can't wait to read Richard Holmes' Shelley The Pursuit and get a little more acquainted with the Shelley mythology. This Norton edition of his writings has a good deal of introductory material before each piece, and is a worthy biographical study in its own right. I can't imagine a more complete edition of his works. Essential.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shelley's philosophy is debatable, but his genius is undeniable. This volume sheds light on his poetry, and thereby adds to the reader's enjoyment. Top picks include Mont Blanc, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Ozymandias, Adonais, The Cloud, and Ode to the West Wind.

Mont Blanc:
The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark - now glittering- now reflecting gloom - Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters, - with a sound but half its own....Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, Mont Blanc appears, still, snowy, and serene....The secret strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?

Adonais (elegy on the death of Keats)
The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar: Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The sould of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

[Nada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelley’s influence as a Romantic poet on subsequent generations is evident in the many phrases and images that survive in our collective consciousness even today: His Sky-Lark with its “rain of melody,” His West Wind sweeping away the “Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red” leaves, Ozymandias’s “sneer of cold command” and his echoing statement “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” His style is exuberant and at times bombastic, and he seems to impose on his readers his boundless and insatiable youthful energy inherent in the young and the young at heart. But too much of Shelley can be exhausting; impetuous youth is great while it lasts, but we all have to grow up at some point. In the end, I find it always a joy and a wonder to see how writers from different backgrounds and with different philosophies have essentially addressed the same subjects in their work. Whether it is the Greeks or the Romans, the Romantics of the Victorians, all writers throughout the ages have tried to capture in words the beautiful mysteries of life and the inexplicable ironies of human existence, and Shelley is no exception. He has earned critical respect and secured his immortality with his unique way of expressing those universal truths.

[John Pistelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please read my complete review here. A sample:

The Norton Critical Edition, Shelley's Poetry and Prose, contains all of Shelley's most famous poems long and short, from briefer lyrics like "The Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," the "Ode to the West Wind," and the immortal sonnet about the evanescence of tyranny, "Ozymandias," to such longer pieces as the bloody Renaissance revenge tragedy The Cenci and the ferocious political protest "The Mask of Anarchy." I intend below to discuss only a handful of the poet's major long works. The critical materials in the back of the book chart the vicissitudes of Shelley's reception. Following his canonization by Victorian poets like Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne, a detailed biography in the 1880s damaged his reputation with its disclosures about his personal life: his abandonment of his pregnant first wife, Harriet, who later killed herself; his elopement with the 19-year-old Mary Godwin, the daughter of radicals Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin; and his later estrangement from Mary amid several attractions to other women, until his untimely death by drowning in the Italy to which the young revolutionary had fled to lead a life impossible in conservative England.

The biography occasioned a famous review by Matthew Arnold, who'd already soured on the Romantics in favor of a more measured, classical view of life. Arnold's irresistibly sarcastic asides throughout the review ("Complicated relationships, as in the Theban story!" "What a set! what a world!" "one feels sickened for ever of the subject of irregular relations") prepared the way for Shelley's later dismissal by most of the modernists (except the worshipful Yeats) and their New Critical academic disciples. Shelley was only revived in the second half of the 20th century, most notably by Harold Bloom, who hailed him as an especially lyrical and urbane representative of a visionary Protestant tradition in English poetry going back to Spenser and Milton, that unruly tradition more conservative intellects like Arnold and T. S. Eliot sought to bury.

Read more...

[Angela]

Read for my English class, British Literature and Culture: Romanticism and the Anthropocene.

[inkdle · Rating 5 out of 5]

giving this 5 stars in hopes that i can score for my lit 🤞🤞

[Natalie Corsello · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a huge fan of romantic poetry, but some of his poems are great. Specifically I enjoyed Julius and Maddalo the most

[Micah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love, Love Shelley. I reread daily!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

O Wind! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

You had me at "O Wild West Wind!"

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Norton Critical Edition combines several of Shelley’s poems, both long and short, three of Shelley’s essential essays (“On Love,” “On Life,” and “A Defence of Poetry”), and fifteen critical essays that aid in understanding. It was the perfect book to help me understand this Romantic poet.

I found I had to revise my picture of the romantic poet as one merely gushing emotion, despite Shelley’s habit of idealizing a series of sixteen-year-old girls like any lovelorn adolescent, with the difference that his language and technical poetic skill are far superior. Beyond that, I learned that he was well-informed on philosophy, science, and other topics. He was politically engaged.

As for the language, I was grateful for the notes, which elucidate his idiosyncratic vocabulary (“pinion” for “wing”), as well as his frequent references to mythology.

While some of his shorter lyrics (“such Ode to Freedom,” “To a Skylark,” and “Ode to the West Wind”) are excellent, I learned that Shelley’s strength was mastery of the long form, which makes him difficult to anthologize. The best of them, such as “Adonais” and the poem left unfinished at his death with the ironic title “Triumph of Life,” are impressive achievements. “Hellas,” on the other hand, was difficult for me. “Queen Mab,” perhaps not on the same level, contains a wonderful description of the universe, anticipating the photos sent back from the James Webb telescope and a memorable passage of how greed drives out truth.

Although a full appreciation of Shelley requires careful reading of entire poems, I was often struck by perfectly crafted couplets, such as the one that opens “Ode to Heaven”: “Palace-roof of cloudless nights/Paradise of golden lights.”

One of the challenges for me in coming to terms with Shelley, aside from his shabby treatment of the women he loved, is his congenital hatred of authority, culminating in his rejection of God. In “Prometheus Unbound,” he imagines that Jupiter (transparent for Yahweh) could be toppled from his throne, after which the Promethean spirit would spread to all mankind. No more sovereign, no more slave. Of course, we live in a world that has long since toppled God, but the human condition is no better for it.

To understand Shelley, I try to imagine where his picture of God comes from. It starts with his defiance of his father, compounded by his experiences in authoritarian, often cruel schools of the time, all justified by an appeal to a sovereign God at the top of the pyramid.
I also found it interesting that many of his visions of the world as it could be reminded me of Isaiah and other Hebrew prophets. For all his rejection of God, he had read his Bible well, and scriptural allusions abound.

Of the essays, I enjoyed Abrams on “Prometheus Unbound,” Chayes on “Ode to the West Wind,” and Matthews on Shelley’s Lyrics. Carlos Baker showed me that Shelley’s play, “The Cenci,” might be better than I thought it was when I read it. Finally, there is an annotated bibliography, which I always think is helpful.

If you don’t already own this, you should be aware that a second edition was published in 2002, incorporating the results of ongoing efforts to establish authoritative texts and a new selection of criticism. For that reason, I’ve withheld a fifth star from this edition.

[Thomas Perscors · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shelley is for me the spirit of poetry. I’ve read through his poems so often that I know many by heart. He is, as Wordsworth said, the best craftsman among the Romantics. This is evident in his skill as a translator. Shelley’s translations of Dante, for example, are often thought to be the best attempt to render Dante into English. Some have gone so far as to say that Shelley is more an Italian than English poet. One pleasure in becoming intimate with Shelley’s poetic canon is you notice he has recurring themes and images that he developed throughout his career. He was interested in philosophy and used poetry to think through ideas. Earl Wasserman’s study, The Subtler language explores how poets, including Shelley (see especially the chapter on Adonais) think through poetry. It’s impossible to summarize Shelley with a single poem, I have many favorites:

Alastor
Julian and Maddalo
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Ode to the West Wind
Prometheus Unbound
The Witch of Atlas
Adonais
Lines Written in the Bay of Lericci
The Triumph of Life

…to name a few. Perhaps it’s best to close with how I opened: Shelley as the spirit of poetry (from Adonais):

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

Yeats was profoundly influenced by Shelley, who he contrasted with the sunny Blake. Shelley’s image was “the star of infinite desire”:

“In ancient times, it seems to me that Blake, who for all his protest was glad to be alive, and ever spoke of his gladness, would have worshipped in some chapel of the Sun, but that Shelley, who hated life because he sought ‘more in life than any understood,’ would have wandered, lost in ceaseless reverie, in some chapel of the Star of infinite desire.

I think too that as he knelt before an altar where a thin flame burnt in a lamp made of green agate, a single vision would have come to him again and again, a vision of a boat drifting down a broad river between high hills where there were caves and towers, and following the light of one Star; and that voices would have told him how there is for every man some one scene, some one adventure, some one picture that is the image of his secret life, for wisdom first speaks in images, and that this one image, if he would but brood over it his life long, would lead his soul, disentangled from unmeaning circumstance and the ebb and flow of the world, into that far household where the undying gods await all whose souls have become simple as flame, whose bodies have become quiet as an agate lamp.

[Greg Hovanesian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I did not finish this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the poetry of Shelley, who I had never really read in-depth before. His poems were dark and visual: I especially enjoyed his early poems.

However, as he matured as a poet, he became more interested in epic poetry. Though I have a lot of respect of epic poetry, it's just not really my thing. I usually end up getting disinterested after 15 pages or so; I wasn't able to finish 'Prometheus Unbound', which is considered by most to be his magnum opus (and took him over two years to write).

Despite the length of most of his later poems, I still enjoyed pretty much all of what he wrote.

I did not read any of his prose or his stage play.

[Romy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might not have read the entire volume, but the single chapters aren't included on goodreads so this will have to do...

Read:
- On the Devil, and Devils
- A Defence of Poetry

I absolutely loved reading "On the Devil, and Devils". I think this might've been my favorite critical piece I've ever read.
Overall, I love Shelley's writing and the way in which he uses Milton in his critical pieces. He's probably one of the few critics whose work I would love to read in my spare time. I might need to buy one of his collections in the future...

[Ian Cragg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelley isn’t a favourite poet or even a favourite Romantic - I’m much more a Byron and Coleridge boy- but I’m fascinated by his circle and there are some works of his that I was interested to read for the first time. I’d absolutely love to see ‘The Cenci’ performed and the breadth of his imagination left me wondering what he would have gone on to write had he had a longer career, although I suspect Victorian England wouldn’t have been for him.

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Norton Critical Edition of Shelley is absolutely fantastic. I'm sad that it doesn't include his two gothic works.
I love the formatting of this edition, I also have a copy of the Oxford World's Classics Shelley, Norton blows them out of the park.

[SOUMEN BISWAS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

可能仍然是最好的选集（major works全部都有，但是这样一来就不剩下别的空间了；得寸进尺小声bb，考虑PBS是一个全部创作生涯都处在成长期的诗人，这种对minor works的挤压也是很大的损失）criticism全都收的当代文章，sad，还以为可以再读一遍CSL手撕艾略特那篇呢。

[Aliza Damintrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous!!!!!!!!

[Matt Colville]

Read:
Prometheus Unbound

[cathedralwindow85 of BRISEIS · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Ozymandias* is a really good read.

[Marjorie Jensen]

writing about Shelley for work

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prometheus Unbound – ** What is this work? It lacks plot, suspense or development, characterization is flat and the poesy is dense and benumbing. Is it a play? A poem? An epic? A philosophical dialogue? The last act was tacked on after its original publication. Need I say more?

Prometheus Unbound is written in a highly complex style – dense, convoluted, expansive and ornate. Sentences go on for 20 or more lines and contain innumerable clauses that dart this direction and that. Some sentences aren’t even sentences. The poetic descriptions are thick and almost unnavigable – the metaphors are piled on top of each other in such numbing succession it’s hard to remember what he was trying to describe in the first place.

The poem appears to be Shelley’s Paradise – a vision of a positive future, a tract on what the world could be if we but freed ourselves from the shackles of tyrants. But this type of prophecy is always fraught with difficulties. The human mind understands misery more than joy. Visions of perfection thus often seem sterile, boring and kind of creepy. It’s the same challenge facing Dante in describing heaven.

The secret is to make paradise less of a paradise – to acknowledge human suffering will always be present. Shelley hints at this, but never comes to grips with it. The good vs evil in the play is so simplistic it allows no shade of grey. Shelley’s Paradise seems to be just an highly ornate heaven.

So, to answer my original question: What kind of work is this? Let me take a stab. This not a play, though written as one. It is more like a courtly masque – a highly stylized pageant or tableaux. It isn’t meant to convey a story or a character. Everyone knows how it ends. It’s meant to dazzle with rich language and exotic setting and song – to present a vision of the world as it could be.

Granted that unique format, the poem/pageant still seems a failure. Shelley’s thickets of impenetrable poetry and his unsympathetic characters put off the reader/audience. Only Robert Browning, who greatly admired Shelley, could write a more obtuse, uninviting, tortured-syntax poetry.

I’m taking an online course in November on Prometheus Unbound. We’ll see if that changes my mind.

[Ricky Ganci · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book that began science fiction, it reeks of a tragedy too perfectly concocted to fully capture in a quarter-page book journal entry. I love every character in this book for what they bring to it, and it is one of the few books I can read effortlessly, even though it contains almost no dialogue. It is a joy to teach, because every year I learn something new about it, and not many books present that kind of “replay value.” I’m actually pretty glad that I didn’t have to study this one in college, because I don’t think that I’d appreciate it as much as I do. Perhaps my love for it has something to do with the fact that it was the first novel that I ever taught at the high-school level, but I think that the story and the thematic questions the book raises make me enjoy it for all the more reasons. I love how real and how human the creature seems, and the idea that Victor is the real monster. Whether or not Mary Shelley had that in mind when she wrote is a question worth asking.

[Annalise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Romantic era. His poetry is known for its lyrical beauty, its exploration of political and social themes, and its celebration of nature and the human imagination. His poems often explore the relationship between humanity and nature, and he celebrates the power of the human imagination to transcend the limitations of the physical world: "Prometheus Unbound" celebrates the human spirit's ability to resist tyranny and oppression, and his poem "To a Skylark" celebrates the beauty of the natural world. There are also political and social themes: "The Mask of Anarchy" is a powerful indictment of the British government's brutal response to a peaceful demonstration in Manchester in 1819. His poem "Ozymandias" is a meditation on the transience of power and the inevitable decline of all empires.

[J.E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say that Shelley does have some of the best imagery, and that alone makes reading most of his poetry worth while for me. However, I was disappointed with all other aspacts of his work.

First of all, his longer poems seem to either go in circles or have a rather chaotic line of thought.

Secondly, whenever he puts in a theme, message, etc. they will often contradict one another.

Lastly, at times one has to put a lot into understanding the simplest words because of how many different ways Shelley will not only fit them to his own way of thinking, but also use them the usual way as well.

In the end, I have no way of knowing what others will think of it, but I personally found it difficult to push my way through his odd line of thought.

[Andrew Pitkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had overlooked Shelley because I used to hate the Romantics. He's excellent, and far more than appearances might dictate. The self-absorption of the Romantics is definitely true - they are some of the most narcissistic writers in English literature, but Shelley wrote amazing stuff.

Which, I will add, was not entirely narcissistic. He was somewhat of a bastard, though - cheated repeatedly on Mary Shelley. Also a hot-headed political mind. It's probably why I prefer the Modernists -- or most other eras of literature. I was never with the Romanticist crowd during my English literature degree. But they intrigue me as an intellectual and personal challenge to read - I like puzzles, and I never say no to a challenge.

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shelley always brings me back to the truth about myself. I am glad to have re-read his work. I want to write a book about him one day, but it's not now. His poems have reminded me of what I need to do. Shelley was a true visionary, like Rimbaud, like Goethe, like Milton. He lived his work. I want to do that.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shelley is the quintessential Romantic. I first became interested in his poetry as a high school senior, and he has remained one of my favorite poets. This is an excellent collection, including Shelley's famous Defense of Poetry.

[Mr. Hollis]

Reading Queen Mab at the moment. Had to do some background research into Edmund Spencer's "Faery Queen." I'm finding significant parallels with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in both works. This is my intial impression.