This study of the poetry and drama of Percy Bysshe Shelley reads the letters and their biographical contexts to shed light on the poetry, tracing the ambiguous and shifting relationship between the poet's art and life. For Shelley, both life and art are transfigured by their relationship with one another where the 'poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one' but is equally bound up with and formed by the society in which he lives and the past that he inherits. Callaghan shows that the distinctiveness of Shelley's work comes to rest on its wrong-footing of any neat division of life and art. The dazzling intensity of Shelley's poetry and drama lies in its refusal to separate the twain as Shelley explores and finally explodes the boundaries between what is personal and what is poetic. Arguing that the critic, like the artist, cannot ignore the conditions of the poet's life, Callaghan reveals how Shelley's artistry reconfigures and redraws the actual in his poetry. The book shows how Shelley's poetic daring lies in troubling the distinction between poetry as aesthetic work hermetically sealed against life, and poetry as a record of the emotional life of the poet.

Eternity in British Romantic Poetry explores the representation of the relationship between eternity and the mortal world in the poetry of the period. It offers an original approach to Romanticism that demonstrates, against the grain, the dominant intellectual preoccupation of the era: the relationship between the mortal and the eternal. The project's scope is two-fold: firstly, it analyses the prevalence and range of images of eternity (from apocalypse and afterlife to transcendence) in Romantic poetry; secondly, it opens up a new and more nuanced focus on how Romantic poets imagined and interacted with the idea of eternity. Every poet featured in the book seeks and finds their uniqueness in their apprehension of eternity. From Blake's assertion of the Eternal Now to Keats's defiance of eternity, Wordsworth's 'two consciousnesses' versus Coleridge's capacious poetry, Byron's swithering between versions of eternity compared to Shelleyan yearning, and Hemans's superlative account of everlasting female suffering, each poet finds new versions of eternity to explore or reject. This monograph sets out a paradigm-shifting approach to the aesthetic and philosophical power of eternity in Romantic poetry.

This study of the poetry and drama of Percy Bysshe Shelley reads the letters and their biographical contexts to shed light on the poetry, tracing the ambiguous and shifting relationship between the poet's art and life. For Shelley, both life and art are transfigured by their relationship with one another where the 'poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one' but is equally bound up with and formed by the society in which he lives and the past that he inherits. Callaghan shows that the distinctiveness of Shelley's work comes to rest on its wrong-footing of any neat division of life and art. The dazzling intensity of Shelley's poetry and drama lies in its refusal to separate the twain as Shelley explores and finally explodes the boundaries between what is personal and what is poetic. Arguing that the critic, like the artist, cannot ignore the conditions of the poet's life, Callaghan reveals how Shelley's artistry reconfigures and redraws the actual in his poetry. The book shows how Shelley's poetic daring lies in troubling the distinction between poetry as aesthetic work hermetically sealed against life, and poetry as a record of the emotional life of the poet.

Romanticism and the Letter is a collection of essays that explore various aspects of letter writing in the Romantic period of British Literature. Although the correspondence of the Romantics constitutes a major literary achievement in its own right, it has received relatively little critical attention. Essays focus on the letters of major poets, including Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats; novelists and prose writers, including Jane Austen, Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb; and lesser-known writers such as Melesina Trench and Mary Leadbeater. Moving from theories of letter writing, through the period's diverse epistolary culture, to essays on individual writers, the collection opens new perspectives for students and scholars of the Romantic period.

The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley takes stock of current developments in the study of a major Romantic poet and prose-writer, and seeks to advance Shelley studies in new directions. It consists of forty-two chapters written by an international cast of established and emerging scholar-critics. This Handbook is divided into five thematic sections: Biography and Relationships; Prose; Poetry; Cultures, Traditions, Influences; and Afterlives. The first section reappraises Shelley's life and relationships, including those with his publishers through whom he sought to reach an audience for the 'Ashes and sparks' of his thought, and with women, creative collaborators as well as muse-figures. The second section gives his under-investigated prose works detailed attention, bringing multiple perspectives to bear on his conceptual positions, and demonstrating the range of his achievement in prose works from novels to political and poetic treatises. The third section explores Shelley's creativity and gift as a poet, emphasizing his capacity to excel in many different poetic genres. The fourth section looks at Shelley's response to past and present literary cultures, both English and international, and at his immersion in science, music, theatre, the visual arts, and travel. The fifth section concludes the volume by analysing Shelley's literary and cultural afterlife, from his influence on Victorians and Moderns, to his status as the exemplary poet for Deconstruction. Packed with stimulating insights and readings, The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley brings out the relevance to Shelley's own work of his dictum that 'All high poetry is infinite' .

Romanticism and the Letter is a collection of essays that explore various aspects of letter writing in the Romantic period of British Literature. Although the correspondence of the Romantics constitutes a major literary achievement in its own right, it has received relatively little critical attention. Essays focus on the letters of major poets, including Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats; novelists and prose writers, including Jane Austen, Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb; and lesser-known writers such as Melesina Trench and Mary Leadbeater. Moving from theories of letter writing, through the period's diverse epistolary culture, to essays on individual writers, the collection opens new perspectives for students and scholars of the Romantic period.

The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley takes stock of current developments in the study of a major Romantic poet and prose-writer, and seeks to advance Shelley studies beyond the current scholarship. It consists of forty-two chapters written by a prestigious international cast of established and emerging scholar-critics, and offers the most wide-ranging single-volume body of writings on Shelley. The volume builds on the textual revolution in Shelley studies, which has transformed understanding of the poet, as critics are able to focus on what Shelley actually wrote. This Handbook is divided into five thematic sections: Biography and Relationships; Prose; Poetry; Cultures, Traditions, Influences; and Afterlives. The first section reappraises Shelley's life and relationships, including those with his publishers through whom he sought to reach an audience for the 'Ashes and sparks' of his thought, and with women, creative collaborators as well as muse-figures; the second section gives his under-investigated prose works detailed attention, bringing multiple perspectives to bear on his shifting and complex conceptual positions, and demonstrating out the range of his achievement in prose works from novels to political and poetic treatises; the third section explores Shelley's creativity and gift as a poet, emphasizing his capacity to excel in many different poetic genres; the fourth section looks at Shelley's response to past and present literary cultures, both English and international, and at his immersion in science, music, theatre, the visual arts, and tourism and travel; the fifth section concludes the volume by analysing Shelley's literary and cultural afterlife, from his influence on Victorians and Moderns, to his status as the exemplary poet for Deconstruction. The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley brings out the relevance to Shelley's own work of his dictum that 'All high poetry is infinite' and continues to generate original critical responses.