Shelley

An outstandingly fine collection of essays. One is impressed not just by the excellence of the individual contributions but by the uniformly high level of writing and thinking. The traditional, 'aesthetic' approach to Shelley is eschewed, with the emphasis very much on Shelley the political and social thinker. -- Stuart M. Sperry, Indiana University

Dawson, Tilottama Rajan, Linda Brigham, Arkady Plotnitsky.Concentrating on the major poems, Earl R. Wasserman provides a comprehensive critical reading that is organized in terms of conceptual structure of Shelley's work. This achronological structure originates in the poet's contradictory impulses toward wordly perfection and an ideal postmortal existence. Through analyses of discrete poems-- the proper object of criticism-- the author maps Shelley's conceptual universe and traces his efforts to resolve the fundamental contradictions of his philosophy.