The Unfamiliar Shelley [Hardcover]

Stimulated by new editions of Shelley's writings and the evidence of notebooks, the editors have assembled an outstanding group of international Shelley scholars to work through the implications of recent advances in scholarship. With particular attention to texts that have been neglected or underestimated, the contributors consider many important aspects of Shelley's prolific and remarkably diverse output, including the verse letter, plays, prose essays, satire, pamphlets, political verse, romance, prefaces, translations from the Greek, prose style, artistic representations, fragments and early writings. Revaluations of Shelley's youthful works, often criticized for their over-exuberance, pay dividends as they reveal Shelley's early maturation as a writer and also shed light on his later achievement. Taken as a whole, the collection makes evident that Shelley's reputation has been based largely on surprisingly imperfect and incomplete edited publications, driven by Victorian taste and culture. A writer very different from the one we thought we knew emerges from these essays, which are sure to inspire more reappraisals of Shelley's work.Contents: Introduction, Timothy Webb and Alan M. Weinberg. Poetry: Reading as flight: fragment poems from Shelley's notebooks, Michael Bradshaw; 'The casket of my unknown mind': the 1813 volume of minor poems, David Duff; Happily ever after? The necessity of fairytale in Queen Mab, Christopher R. Miller; Laon and the hermit: connection and succession, Jack Donovan; 'Peter Bell the Third', contempt and poetic transfiguration, Stephen C. Behrendt; Scratching at the door of absence: writing and reading 'Letter to Maria Gisborne', Timothy Webb; Shelley's Neapolitan-Tuscan poetics: 'Sonnet: Political Greatness' and the 'Republic' of Benevento, Michael Rossington. Art: Shelleyan inspiration and the sister arts, Nancy Moore Goslee. Prose: Noises on: the communicative strategies of Shelley's Prefaces, Hugh Roberts; Contemplating facts, studyl