Shelley, Svazek 1

This monumental biography of Shelley is filled with unobtrusive scholarship, and the Shelley who emerges is markedly different from the popular conception of him, emerging instead as a highly emotional, supersensitive being with the unwavering purpose of reforming the world. Odd, indeed, he was, and erratic conduct marked his whole life. For one who was so ingenuously devoted to humanity he could be amazingly selfish and blind. But, as this book clearly shows, Shelley learned consideration for others and he learned, too, that the emancipation of mankind lay far in the future and could arrive only after untold suffering and self-sacrifice. Shelley's life is accurately, definitively, and objectively related. The poet's genealogy, the environment from which he came, and the persons with whom he associated are discussed in detail. The greatest contribution of this book for the reader of Shelley will lie in the brilliant analyses of the longer poems and of the prose works. The essential sanity of Shelley's mind, the temperance of his views, and his intellectual growth are perhaps even more observable in his prose works than in his poetry, but the true Shelley emerges only when both his poetry and prose are studied in the light of his character and personality.