Shelley 5

What were Percy Bysshe Shelley's life dates?

Percy Bysshe Shelley lived from 1792 to 1822.

From which university was Shelley expelled, and for what reason?

He was expelled from Oxford at age eighteen for publishing a tract advocating atheism.

Which philosopher heavily influenced Shelley in London, and whose daughter did Shelley later marry?

He was influenced by William Godwin and later married his daughter, Mary Godwin.

Why did Shelley move to Italy in 1817?

He was in financial trouble and had been condemned by the British public for his political opinions and personal life.

Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry" was written in 1821 as a reply to two main attacks on poetry. What were they?

It was a reply to Plato's attacks on mimetic art in the "Republic" and to Thomas Love Peacock's pamphlet "The Four Ages of Poetry."

In "A Defence of Poetry," Shelley establishes a dialectical opposition between reason and imagination. What Greek terms does he use for these concepts?

He uses 'to logizein' ($\tau\omicron \lambda\omicron\gamma\iota\zeta\epsilon\iota\nu$) for reason and 'to poiein' ($\tau\omicron \pi\omicron\iota\epsilon\iota\nu$) for imagination.

According to Shelley's distinction, reason is the principle of analysis, while imagination is the principle of _.

synthesis

What metaphor does Shelley use to describe the mind's reaction to "external and internal impressions"?

He likens the mind to an Aeolian lyre, which is struck into melody by the wind of its impressions.

In a later metaphor, Shelley likens the poet's mind during inspiration to what object?

He likens it to "a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness."

How does Shelley elevate the status of poets in direct opposition to Plato's ideal state?

Where Plato ejected poets from his Republic, Shelley makes them its masters, calling them "the unacknowledged legislators of the World."

According to Shelley, what is the fundamental nature of any original language near its source?

He states that it is "in itself the chaos of a cyclic [i.e., epic] poem."

In Shelley's view, who are the true creators of language and, by extension, the shapers of human thought?

The poets, defined broadly as innovators of language who create new words and metaphors.

What function does poetry serve in an age removed from the primitive source of language?

It recaptures the immediacy of life and experience, which is lost through the use of logical, analytical thought.

According to Shelley, poetry lifts the _ from the hidden beauty of the world.

veil

How does Shelley expand the definition of a "poet" beyond someone who writes verse?

A poet is anyone who can synthesize a vision of the world and express it in language, including great philosophers like Plato.

What satirical pamphlet by Thomas Love Peacock was a direct inspiration for the middle section of Shelley's "Defence"?

The pamphlet was "The Four Ages of Poetry" (1820).

What are the four ages in Peacock's cyclical theory of poetry?

The age of iron, the age of gold, the age of silver, and the age of brass.

In Peacock's theory, which age produces the finest poetry, such as that of Homer and Shakespeare?

The "age of gold."

How did Peacock characterize the English Romantic period in his four-ages theory?

He characterized it as a decadent "age of brass," in which poetry is mere nostalgic archaism.

In his essay, Shelley defines reason as the mind contemplating the relations between thoughts, while imagination is defined as the mind _ upon those thoughts.

acting

Shelley states: "Reason is to Imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the _."

substance

In the "Defence," what does Shelley call "the expression of the Imagination"?

Poetry.

How does Shelley distinguish the human mind from a simple lyre in its response to impressions?

The mind produces not only melody but also harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds to the impressions which excite them.

According to Shelley, poets are not only authors of language and arts but also the institutors of laws and the founders of _.

civil society

In what sense does Shelley believe poets are prophets?

They are prophets in that they behold the future in the present; their thoughts are the germs of the future.

Why does Shelley argue that it is vain to translate poetry?

He argues that transfusing a poet's creations from one language to another is like casting a violet into a crucible to find its color and odor.

What does Shelley call the popular distinction between poets and prose writers?

A vulgar error.

Who are two examples Shelley provides of great poets who did not write in verse?

Plato and Lord Bacon.

What is the key difference Shelley identifies between a story and a poem?

A story is partial and tied to specific facts, while a poem is universal and expresses eternal truth.

Complete the Shelley quote: "A story of particular facts is as a mirror which obscures and distorts… Poetry is a mirror which makes _ that which is distorted."

beautiful

How does Shelley believe poetry produces moral improvement in humanity?

It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by making it the receptacle for new combinations of thought and by strengthening the imagination.

According to Shelley, what is "the great secret of morals"?

Love, which he defines as a going out of our own nature and an identification with the beautiful which exists in others.

What is the "great instrument of moral good" according to Shelley?

The imagination.

Why does Shelley believe it is a mistake for a great poet to have a direct moral aim in their work?

By assuming the inferior office of interpreting effects, the poet resigns the glory of participating in the cause.

Shelley argues that the highest perfection of human society has always corresponded with the highest _ excellence.

dramatic

According to Shelley, when does corruption in drama begin?

It begins when the poetry employed in its constitution ends.

What historical period does Shelley cite as the grossest degradation of the English drama?

The reign of Charles II.

In Shelley's view, what is the 'true Poetry of Rome'?

It lived in its institutions and the great deeds of its citizens, such as the life of Camillus or the death of Regulus.

Shelley credits the poetry within the Christian and Chivalric systems with two major social advancements. What were they?

The abolition of personal and domestic slavery and the emancipation of women.

The freedom of women, according to Shelley, produced what form of poetry?

The poetry of sexual love.

What work by Dante does Shelley call "an inexhaustible fountain of purity of sentiment and language"?

His "Vita Nuova."

How does Shelley interpret the character of Satan in Milton's "Paradise Lost"?

He sees Satan as a moral being superior to Milton's God, as he perseveres in his purpose despite adversity and torture.

According to Shelley, Milton's neglect of a direct moral purpose in portraying God and Satan is proof of what?

It is the most decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton's genius.

Who does Shelley name as the first, second, and third epic poets in the highest sense?

Homer was the first, Dante the second, and Milton the third.

Shelley describes Dante's words as being instinct with spirit, with each being "as a spark, a _ of inextinguishable thought."

burning atom

In his argument against mechanists, what two types of utility does Shelley distinguish?

A narrow utility (meeting animal wants) and a true utility (producing durable, universal pleasure).

What danger does Shelley see in the "unmitigated exercise of the calculating faculty"?

It leads to an exasperation of the extremes of luxury and want, driving the state between anarchy and despotism.

Complete the Shelley quote: "We want the creative faculty to imagine that which we know; we want the generous impulse to _ that which we imagine."

act

According to Shelley, what are the "God and the Mammon of the world"?

Poetry and the principle of Self (of which money is the visible incarnation).

What does Shelley identify as the twofold functions of the poetical faculty?

First, it creates new materials of knowledge and pleasure; second, it engenders a desire to arrange them according to rhythm and order.

Shelley describes poetry as "at once the and of knowledge."

centre and circumference

How does Shelley describe the mind in the act of creative composition?

It is as a fading coal, awakened to transitory brightness by an invisible influence.

What does Shelley believe is the relationship between inspiration and composition?

He believes that when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline.

What does Shelley define as "the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds"?

Poetry.

According to Shelley, what does poetry redeem from decay?

Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man.

How does poetry defeat the "curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions"?

It creates for us a being within our being, purging our inward sight of the film of familiarity.

Shelley quotes the Italian poet Tasso, who said, "Nobody merits the title of Creator save God and _."

the Poet

How does Shelley describe a poet in the intervals between inspiration?

The poet becomes a man, abandoned to the influences under which others habitually live.

What is the most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people, according to Shelley?

Poetry.

In the final paragraph, Shelley describes poets as the _ of an unapprehended inspiration.

hierophants

In what way are poets like trumpets, according to Shelley?

They are like "trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire."

What famous final phrase concludes "A Defence of Poetry"?

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.

Term: (to logizein)

Definition: Shelley's term for the faculty of reason, which he describes as the principle of analysis that considers the relations of things.

Term: (to poiein)

Definition: Shelley's term for the faculty of imagination, which he describes as the principle of synthesis that composes new thoughts from existing ones.

In his "Defence," Shelley writes that language itself is poetry because it is a network of living, dying, and dead _.

metaphors

How does Shelley use the analogy of the child and the savage in his argument about the origins of poetry?

The child's expression of delight is to higher objects what poetry is, and the savage is to ages what the child is to years in this developmental process.

What does Shelley claim is the effect of tragic drama on the spectator's imagination?

The imagination is enlarged by sympathy with mighty pains and passions, which distend the capacity of the mind that conceives them.

According to Shelley, in periods of social decay, comedy loses its ideal universality and _ succeeds to humour.

wit

What does Shelley identify as the imperfection of the bucolic and erotic poets of late antiquity?

Their imperfection is not what they have (sensibility), but what they lack: thoughts belonging to the inner faculties of our nature.

What is Shelley's view of the poetry of ancient Rome compared to that of Greece?

He viewed it as less original, seeing man and nature through the "mirror of Greece," with its institutions being a shadow of the Greek substance.

According to Shelley, who was the first religious reformer and the "Lucifer of that starry flock" that awakened Europe?

Dante.

Shelley states that the pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than what?

The pleasure of pleasure itself.

What does Shelley claim poetry strips from the world to lay bare its naked and sleeping beauty?

It strips the veil of familiarity.

According to Shelley, man, having enslaved the elements through science, remains himself a _.

slave

What specific argument does the introductory text make about the organizational structure of "A Defence of Poetry"?

It argues the essay is not systematic or philosophically rigorous and should be read like a lyric poem, through its key metaphors and ideals.

How does Shelley describe the relationship between poetry and science?

Poetry is "that which comprehends all science, and that to which all science must be referred."

Shelley believes that the jury which judges a poet must be impanelled by whom?

It must be impanelled by Time from the selectest of the wise of many generations.