Chapter 37 - The Victorians’ Shelley

Summary

This chapter examines the ways in which Shelley’s works and reputation were mediated to Victorian audiences. It argues that the Victorians’ Shelley was to a large extent the Victorians’ creation; his reception in this period differed from both earlier and later understandings of his life and work. The chapter pays particular attention to the role of women such as Mary Shelley and Lady Jane Shelley in shaping the poet’s posthumous reception. It surveys several sites of reception, including editions, anthologies, sermons, statues, and Chartist meetings, to show how Shelley and his writings were appropriated, reimagined, and redeployed in a variety of new contexts by people with divergent aims and concerns. It briefly examines sculpted memorials to Shelley by Henry Weekes and Edward Onslow Ford. The chapter concludes that the Victorian understanding of Shelley was no more monolithic than the ‘Victorians’ themselves.