No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Alastor Foreshadowed in St. Irvyne
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
If, as Peck supposes, “some students of … [Shelley's] poetry” will be surprised “to learn that the theme implied in the title of Alastor was in Shelley's mind as early as 1811,” these students will probably be still more surprised to learn that Shelley had already developed the Alastor idea in a manner strikingly similar to that of the poem, in St. Irvyne, written probably as early as April, 1810 and published in December, 1810. Alastor was written in September, 1815, and published in February, 1816.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934
References
1 Shelley: His Life and Work, i, 426.—Peck refers to Shelley's letter of May 8, 1811, to Hogg, in which Shelley writes that he loves solitude, but is unable to endure “a continued communion with self.”
2 All italics in the quotations are Shelley's.
3 Cf. Alastor, 67–75:
By solemn vision, and bright silver dream,
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
The fountains of divine philosophy
Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
And knew.
4 Cf. Shelley's Preface to Alastor: “Among those who attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish through the intensity and passion of their search after its communities, when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes itself felt.”
5 Cf. Shelley's Preface: “The Poet's self centered seclusion. …”
6 Nature, on which so much stress is placed by Ginotti, is of course the god of the Poet's idolatry in Alastor. Cf. with Ginotti's statements, Alastor, 20–23, 81–82: “I have watched Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, And my heart ever gazes on the depth Of thy deep mysteries”;—“Nature's most secret steps He like her shadow has pursued.”
7 Cf. Alastor, 140–149: “The Poet wandering on … Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs.”
8 Music, though of a more poetical kind, also attends the vision in Alastor (153–157, 165–72): “Her voice was like the voice of his own soul… its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held His inmost sense suspended in its web … her fair hands Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp Strange symphony.”