PAGE 162 163 15. For "unbodied" Professor Craik substituted "embodied." This change also is wholly without warrant. The lark is a "blithe spirit," a "sprite,' a scorner of the ground." It may safely be said that too many corrupt passages in literature have become so through editorial blindness and perversity rather than through original creative carelessness. 32. The succeeding stanzas attempt to answer the question. Cf. Wordsworth's To the Daisy (second poem), stanzas 2-5. 65. Among all of Shelley's conquests over the apathy and heaviness of words there is none more triumphant than this felicitous line. 164 80. Cf. To 165 ("When passion's trance is overpast") and Lines ("When the lamp is shattered"). 86 sq. Note the autobiographical value of the stanza. 101 sq. Cf. Poe's Israfel, Il. 45–51. 165 Ode to Liberty. 166 167 168 "In the spring of the year [1820], moved by the uprising of the Spaniards, he had written his Ode to Liberty, in which the grave Muse of History is summoned to utter oracles of hope for the cause of freedom." Life, II, 343. Dowden's The motto is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV, stanza 98. 15. a voice." Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, England and Switzerland, 1802. "the same." A weak phrase, flatting the line. The "voice" reviews the rise of Liberty and appeals for her fuller welcome. 66 18. dædal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. 19. "island." A favourite image and idea with Shelley. Cf. 11. 108, 206. Cf. Introduction, p. xliv. 31. "then." A weak use. 38. "For thou wert not." Note that this phrasing is iterated in precisely the same place in stanzas 2 and 3. Contrast 1. 72. 41. "sister-pest." Ecclesiasticism, or traditional religion. Cf. 1. 83. 47. "dividuous." Dividing. 51. "unapprehensive." Unable to apprehend. See note on Arethusa, 1. 60. 69-75. Liberty a condition of art. 74. "that hill." The Acropolis. 87-90. Cf. Adonais, stanzas 52 and 54. 92. 'Cadmæan Mænad." A Theban worshipper of Bacchus. Euripides makes them nurses of young wolves. See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 93. "thy dearest." Athens. 98. "Camillus." Marcus Furius Camillus was a renowned Roman hero, who relieved his people when besieged by PAGE 169 171 172 173 174 175 the Gauls. "Atilius." Or, Regulus, a Roman consul, who, 66 114, 115. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 52–55. 115. "Scald's." A Scald was an ancient Scandinavian minstrel. Among the Celts the word equals ‘bard.' 119. "The Galilean serpent." Christianity. 171-173. A reference to the French Revolution. 175. Anarch." Napoleon. 180. Cf. Gray's The Bard, stanzas 2 and 3. 186. "Pithecusa." An island in the Bay of Naples. "Pelorus." A Sicilian headland. 192. "Twins of a single destiny." England and Spain. 194. " 'the dim West." Possibly America; possibly the Past, though this latter interpretation would hardly be in accord with Shelley's idea of the youth of Liberty; more probably the ripe Future of humanity, as the West is the day-old sun's glory and solace. “impress us." Mrs. Shelley suggests 'as' for 'us.' 196. "Arminius." An early German hero, who defeated the Romans. 204. "thou." Italy. 212. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, III, 4, 439. 254-255. Understand 'if Wealth can rend.' 266. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode to Duty, 1. 2. 271-285. The student will note the powerful felicity in general of Shelley's finales. See Introduction, p. lxiv. 283. " great voice." Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 132. 175 The Sensitive Plant. In this lovely allegory Shelley expresses the cardinal truth of idealism and romanticism, that "The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly." Though the Spirit of Light and Love is impotent to prevent the apparent material decay of all things beautiful, it is potent in the world of ideas to redeem for ever from death and destruction. Cf. Browning's Abt Vogler, 11. 69 sq. Lady Mountcashell (Mrs. Mason), with whom the Shelleys were very friendly during their stay in Pisa, was, according to Medwin, "a superior and accomplished woman, and a great resource to Shelley, who read with her Greek. He PAGE 176 177 178 179 182 183 184 told me that she was the source of the inspiration of his Sensitive Plant, and that the scene of it was laid in her garden, as unpoetical a place as could be well imagined." It will interest the student also to note the following passage from a letter of Shelley to Leigh Hunt: "Williams is one of the best fellows in the world; and Jane, his wife, a most delightful person, who, we all agree, is the exact antitype of the lady I described in The Sensitive Plant, though this must have been a pure anticipated cognition, as it was written a year before I knew her.' 13 sq. Cf. with this series of exquisitely wrought flowerpictures The Question, 11. 9–32, and see note on same. 17. "wind-flowers." See note on The Question, 1. 9. 34. Mænad. A bacchante, a frenzied female worshipper of Bacchus, bearing the thyrsus, a slight staff crowned with a pine-cone. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 3, 314; III, 3, 287; IV, 473. 54. "asphodel." In Greek mythology a pale and delicate flower growing in Hades among the dead. 70-73. The last line of this stanza is rather obscure. The passage may be thus re-phrased: 'The Sensitive Plant, unable to reveal its love, like the other flowers, in blossoms of beauty and fragrance, nevertheless on that very account was more richly dowered than they, since the love it so strongly felt but could not express, having no outlet ("where none wanted but it"), struck into the " deep heart" of the plant itself and expended all its power in gracing and purifying that heart. "could belong to the giver," i. e. the would-be giver; hence, ideally, a giver indeed. 98. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 41-42. 177. "Baiæ." See note on Ode to the West Wind, 1. 32. 189. Cf. A Dirge ("Rough wind, that moanest loud.") 210-211. Cf. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 11. 220223. Shelley was very fond of Coleridge's poem. 12. 220-221. Cf. Tennyson's In Memoriam, Lyric 72, 11. 9 230, 231. The sense will be apparent if "stretched" is mentally related to "hemlock," and "stifled" to all the baneful weeds. 232-247. These stanzas show a marked reaction toward Shelley's interest in the horrible and sinister. See Introduction, pp. xi and xiv. Coleridge, in revising The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, omitted, after the first edition, the following stanza: "His bones were black with many a crack, Jet black and bare, save where with rust Of mouldy damp and charnel crust PAGE 185 186 Would not The Sensitive Plant have gained in poetic power if Shelley had, similarly, made some modification here? Note the finer art shown in the more austere pictures of 11. 264-279. 256. "forbid." Accursed. 287. "griff." Grip; clutch. 302-303. Cf. Adonais, 1. 344; Swinburne's sonnet, On the Death of Robert Browning. 188 To Night. Cf. Longfellow's Hymn to the Night. 189 19. Rossetti uses the feminine pronoun, justifying the change by reference to ll. 10 and 11. It is probable, however, that in this instance "Day" and "the Day" appealed to Shelley's imagination precisely as the gender of the original pronouns indicates. 34, 35. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 1, 15. 189 Sonnet to Byron. Not technically a legitimate sonnet. The student should consult any work on poetics such as Gummere's Handbook for a discussion of the canonical sonnet forms. See Introduction, p. lxiv. For remarks concerning the relations of Byron and Shelley, see Introduction, pp. xxxv, xxxvi, xl, xlvii, and xlviii. 6. "rise as fast and fair." Byron's Cain, Heaven and Earth and The Vision of Judgment were written in rapid succession, about this time. 190 To Emilia Viviani. See Introduction, p. xliv, for an account of this beautiful and unfortunate girl. Cf. also Shelley's Epipsychidion, addressed to her. 191 To ("Music, when soft voices die "). 3. "odours." Note Shelley's fondness for this word as inducing sensuous appeal. Cf., with the stanza, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Act I, Sc. 1, ll. 1-16. 192 To ("When passion's trance is overpast"). The haunting melancholy of this lyric finely expresses the poet's sense of the mutability of human life and of the incompleteness of human love. Cf. Shelley's remark to Gisborne: "I think one is always in love with something or other; the error consists in seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal." Cf. also Mutability and Lines ("When the lamp is shattered"). 10. Cf. Byron's Elegy on Thyrza, stanza 7, and his Youth and Age, stanza 5. 193 Mutability. Cf. Robert Herrick's To Daffodils, Spenser's unfinished canto to Mutability (The Faerie Queene), and Bacon's last completed Essay, Of Vicissitude of Things. Cf. also Shelley's other Mutability. 5. Shelley had slight enthusiasm for historical study as such. 8. "obscene." Ugly. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 95.. 195 A Lament ("O World! O Life! O Time!") 8. Rossetti inserts "autumn" after "summer," most improperly, as regards both music and content. 197 Adonais. See Introduction, pp. xlv, xlvi, lxi, lxiii, and lxiv. The most notable personal elegies or elegiac poems in our language may be stated as follows: The more canonical and literary- by no means therefore the less vital —- among these elegies, including Adonais, show the influence of the memorial idylls of Theocritus, Bion and Moschus. Shelley, more particularly, is indebted to Bion's Lament for Adonis and to Moschus's Lament for Bion. Keats's death, though the circumstances attending it and its meaning for him and for humanity are treated with poetic energy, is yet made but the occasion of a penetrating glance into the problems of physical decay and spiritual futurity. While Milton's elegy makes its chief burden clerical insincerity and undutifulness, corruption versus incorruption; Tennyson's, the difficult restoration of the indispensable minimum of faith; and Browning's, the intellectual veracity of the idea of the Soul; Shelley, for his part, wings through palpable darkness his flaming way into the slow sunrise of Eternal Love and Beauty. His own opinions of the poem are given freely in such passages as these: "You may announce for publication a poem entitled Adonais. It is a lament on the death of poor Keats, with some interposed stabs on the assassins of his peace and of his fame." (Letter to Ollier.) "I have received the heart-rending account of the clos |