Author: Nancy Moore Goslee
Author info: Professor Emerita of English
Publication Date: August 2011
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Synopsis: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s drafts and notebooks, which have recently been published for the first time, are very revealing about the creative processes behind his poems, and show – through illustrations and doodles – an unexpectedly vivid visual imagination which contributed in a major way to the effect of his poetry. This book analyzes both verbal script and visual sketches in his manuscripts to interpret the lively personifications of concepts such as ‘Liberty’, ‘Anarchy’, or ‘Life’ in his completed poems. Challenging the persistent assumption that Shelley’s poetry in particular and Romantic poetry more generally reject the visual for expressive voice or music, this study combines criticism with a focus upon bibliographic codes and iconic pages.