Description
'All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed ... after one person and one age has exhausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar relations enable them to share, another and yet another succeeds...'
Shelley, A Defence of Poetry (1821)
Passionately alive in his life and poetry to questions of radical politics and philosophy, Shelley was also, in Wordsworth's famous words, 'one of the best artists of us all: I mean in workmanship of style'. Concentrating on a number of the major poems, Michael Ferber offers textual criticism that will encourage readers of Shelley to gain a deeper appreciation of his artistry, and of his astonishing emotional and intellectual complexity. There is also a biographical introduction and a bibliography, together with a selection of quotations that illuminate the dramatic vicissitudes of Shelley's reputation.
ISBN:9780140772678
