Title: Shelley and his readers : beyond paranoid politics /
Authors: Wheatley, Kim, 1960-
Publisher: University of Missouri Press,
Year: 1999
Subjects: Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Criticism and interpretation History.; Politics and literature Great Britain History; Authors and readers Great Britain History; Criticism Great Britain History; Poetry History and criticism Theory, etc.
Abstract: "In Shelley and His Readers, the first full-length critical analysis of the dialogue between Shelley's poetry and its contemporary reviewers, Kim Wheatley argues that Shelley's idealism can be recovered through the study of his poetry's reception. Incorporating extensive research in major early-nineteenth-century British periodicals, Wheatley integrates a reception-based methodology with careful textual analysis to demonstrate that the early reception of Shelley's work registers the immediate impact of the poet's increasingly idealistic passion for reforming the world." "Shelley and His Readers offers a new approach to the question of how to recuperate Romantic idealism in the face of challenges from both deconstructive and historicist criticism. Its innovative use of reception-based analysis will make this book invaluable not only to specialists of the Romantic period but also to anyone interested in new developments in literary criticism."--Jacket.
Contents: 1. Paranoid Politics -- I. The Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews -- II. Shelley and the Tory Reviewers -- 2. Contagion and Personification in Queen Mab and Its Reception -- I. Contagion and Conspiracy -- II. Personifications and Personal Attacks -- 3. Prometheus Unbound: Reforming the Reviewers -- I. Defying Heaven -- II. "Nonsense" -- III. "Beautiful Idealisms" -- 4. The Elegiac Reception of Adonais -- I. Forms of Consolation -- II. "A Poetical Character" -- III. The Circle of Mourners.