Percy Bysshe Shelley : A Literary Life

In Percy Bysshe Shelly: A Literary Life, Michael ONeill gives a knowledgeable and balanced account of Shelleys literary career from his earliest published work to his last unfinished masterpiece, The Triumph of Life . The book draws on recent research about the poet and his age, but its sense of the ways in which texts and contexts interact is sharply independent. Issues discussed include Shelleys social background, his radical politics and his complex response to Enlightenment rationalism. ONeill stresses Shelleys often disappointed search for an audience, connecting it with the growing sophistication of his poetry and poetics. For Shelley, a poet was the combined product of internal powers and external influences (Preface to Prometheus Unbound ); this book explores how such a combination manifests itself in his own writings.