The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shelley, by Sydney Waterlow

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Title: Shelley

Author: Sydney Waterlow

Posting Date: September 17, 2008 [EBook #1337]
Release Date: June, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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SHELLEY

By Sydney Waterlow

Published London: T. C. & E. C. Jack
67 Long Acre, W.C., and Edinburgh
New York: Dodge Publishing Co.
1913.

Contents

I. SHELLEY AND HIS AGE
II. PRINCIPAL WRITINGS
III. THE POET OF REBELLION, OF NATURE, AND OF LOVE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Chapter I. Shelley and His Age

In the case of most great writers our interest in them as persons is
derived from out interest in them as writers; we are not very curious
about them except for reasons that have something to do with their
art. With Shelley it is different. During his life he aroused fears and
hatreds, loves and adorations, that were quite irrelevant to literature;
and even now, when he has become a classic, he still causes excitement
as a man. His lovers are as vehement as ever. For them he is the "banner
of freedom," which,

"Torn but flying,
Streams like a thunder-cloud against the wind."

He has suffered that worst indignity of canonisation as a being saintly
and superhuman, not subject to the morality of ordinary mortals. He
has been bedaubed with pathos. Nevertheless it is possible still to
recognise in him one of the most engaging personalities that ever lived.
What is the secret of this charm? He had many characteristics that
belong to the most tiresome natures; he even had the qualities of the
man as to whom one wonders whether partial insanity may not be his
best excuse--inconstancy expressing itself in hysterical revulsions of
feeling, complete lack of balance, proneness to act recklessly to the
hurt of others. Yet he was loved and respected by contemporaries of
tastes very different from his own, who were good judges and intolerant
of bores--by Byron, who was apt to care little for any one, least of
all for poets, except himself; by Peacock, who poured laughter on all
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