Shelley's Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry

Sperry, Stuart M.:

ISBN 10: 0674806255 / ISBN 13: 9780674806252

Published by Harvard University Press 10.1988., 1988

About this Item

231 Seiten Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langjährigem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). Fresh and clean hardcover copy. Frisches und sauberes gebundenes Exemplar. Contents: Preface - Our Proper Destiny: Queer Mab - Broodings in Solitude: Alastor - The Triumph of Love: The Revolt of Islam - The Human Situation: Prometheus unbound Act I - Hope and Necessity: Prometheus Unbound, Act II - The Transforming Harmony: Prometheus Unbound Acts III and IV - Sad Reality: The Cenci - Romantic Irony: The Witch of Atlas - Loves Universe: Epipsychidion - Tragic Irony: The Triumph of Life - Notes - Index ISBN 9780674806252 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 540.

Seller Inventory # 1261171

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shelley's Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry
• Publisher: Harvard University Press 10.1988.
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674806255
• ISBN 13: 9780674806252
• Binding: , Hardcover/Pappeinband
• Condition: Sehr gut
• Weight: 540 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Varia

About this title

Synopsis

Shelley has long been viewed as a dreamer isolated from reality, a “beautiful and ineffectual angel,” in Arnold’s words. In contrast, Stuart Sperry’s book emphasizes the life forces originating in the poet’s childhood that impelled and shaped his career, and reasserts Shelley’s relevance to the social and cultural dilemmas of contemporary life.

Concentrating on the major narrative and dramatic poems and the patterns of development they reveal, Sperry reintegrates Shelley’s poetry with his life by showing how, following the traumatic events of his early years, the poet sought to preserve and extend those life impulses by creating a network of personal relationships that provided the inspiration and model for his poems. As the circumstances of his life and his relationships to others changed and as his thought evolved, he was led to reshape his major poems. Three chapters at the center of the book, devoted to Shelley’s visionary masterpiece Prometheus Unbound, provide the finest introduction so far to its conceptions and intent as well as a powerful vindication of the poet’s enduring idealism. In defining Shelley’s true originality, Sperry defends the poet against his harshest critics by suggesting that his vision of human potential may represent a vital resource against the competitive drives and self-destructive compulsions of our own day.

Sperry’s approach to the poetry through the formative events of Shelley’s early life provides an excellent biographical introduction. His reinterpretation of the major works and the career will appeal to first-time readers as well as to mature students of Shelley.

From the Back Cover

This book attempts to rectify the imbalance by beginning to reintegrate the poetry with the life. We know relatively little about Shelley's earliest days. There can be little doubt, however, that as an infant and a child he knew the force of love, inevitably in the first instance from his mother. It is my argument that love provides the life force of Shelley's verse and that it accounts for the enduring quality and power of his voice.