Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822) was one of the major poets of the English Romantic period. This is the final volume of a six-volume edition of The Poems of Shelley, which aims to present all of Shelleys poems in chronological order and with full annotation. Date and circumstances of composition are provided for each poem and all manuscript and printed sources relevant to establishing an authoritative text are freshly examined and assessed. Headnotes and footnotes furnish the personal, literary, historical and scientific information necessary to an informed reading of Shelleys varied and allusive verse.
Most of the poems in the present volume were composed between late January 1822 and Shelleys death on 8 July 1822. These include the lyrics to Jane Williams, Fragments of an Unfinished Drama and The Triumph of Life as well as translations from Goethes Faust (1822) and Calderóns El mįgico prodigioso. The appendices include editions of Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things (1811), a poem made publicly accessible by the Bodleian Libraries in 2015 for the first time since its publication, and translations by Shelley from Goethes Faust (1815), Aeschylus Prometheus Bound (1817) and Homers Odyssey (probably 1817).
In addition to accompanying commentaries, there are extensive bibliographies to the poems, a chronological table of Shelleys life and publications, and indexes to titles and first lines. Now completed, this is the most comprehensive edition of Shelleys poetry available to students and scholars.
Recenzijos
[ T]he editors have produced a formidable resource of which earlier readers, including the poems first audiences, could barely have dreamt. In doing so they have fulfilled the foundational, democratizing aim of the Longman series as envisaged by figures such as Bateson and Matthews of making available to the reader the array of influences and contexts that inform a poetic corpus such as Shelleys. If for some readers the pleasures of the novelty of Shelley have ceased, then they are sure to be rekindled by the scrupulous exactness and breadth of explanation to be found in these volumes. - Ross Wilson, The TLS, December 13th 2024
Contents
Note on Illustrations
Preface to Volume 6
Acknowledgements
Chronological Table of Shelleys Life and Publications
Abbreviations
THE POEMS
430 To (The serpent is shut out from Paradise) [ To Edward Williams]
431 To Jane. The invitation
432 To Jane The recollection
431/432 Appendix The Pine Forest of the Cascine, near Pisa
433 Swifter far than summers flight / Remembrance [ A Lament]
434 And if I dedicate thee not to fill
435 When wilt thou come / Of whom thou speakest?
436 Fragments of an Unfinished Drama
437 When the lamp is shattered [ Lines]
438 The rude wind is singing
439 One word is too often profaned [ To ]
440 May-day Night [ Scenes from the Faust of Goėthe]
441 Cyprian [ Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso of Calderon]
442 The bat and the owl like barn-door fowl [ Hernes Feast: a Fragment]
443 One word has changed the Universe for me
444 A schoolboy lay near a pond in a copse [ Hernes Feast: a Fragment]
445 And have we trodden the same paths together
446 With a guitar. To Jane
447 Prologue in Heaven [ Scenes from the Faust of Goėthe]
448 The prophet
449 The magnetic lady to her patient
450 Far far away, O ye [ Lines]
451 The earthquake is rocking
452 The Triumph of Life
452 Appendix Lines connected with The Triumph of Life
453 To Jane (The keen stars were twinkling)
454 Tell me star, whose wings of light [ The Worlds Wanderers]
455 The hours are flying
456 Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven [ Lines Written in the Bay of
Lerici]
456A That moment is gone for ever [ Lines (We meet not as we parted)]
Appendix A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things
Appendix B They approach you again, fluctuating Shapes! (Translation of
Goethe, Faust ll. 1-32 and 243-1213)
Appendix C Prometheus Chained (Translation of Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound ll.
1-316)
Appendix D A belated sleep fell on his eyelids then (Translation of Homer,
Odyssey xiii 79-80)
Appendix E It is a singular world we live in and (Translation of
Calderón, La vida es sueńo ll. 2153-64, 2168-71, 2175-77 and 2182-87)
Index of Titles (Volume 6)
Index of First Lines (Volume 6)
Cumulative Index of Titles (Volumes 1-6)
Cumulative Index of First Lines (Volumes 1-6)
Index of Shelleys verse translations (Volumes 1-6)
Carlene Adamson was formerly Assistant Professor of English at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
Will Bowers is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Thought at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Jack Donovan was formerly Reader in English at the University of York, UK.
Kelvin Everest is A. C. Bradley Professor Emeritus at the University of Liverpool, UK.
Mathelinda Nabugodi is Lecturer in Comparative Literature at University College London, UK.
Michael Rossington is Professor of Romantic Literature at Newcastle University, UK.
