Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was one of the major poets of the English Romantic period. This is the final volume of a six-volume edition of The Poems of Shelley, which aims to present all of Shelley’s poems in chronological order and with full annotation. Date and circumstances of composition are provided for each poem and all manuscript and printed sources relevant to establishing an authoritative text are freshly examined and assessed. Headnotes and footnotes furnish the personal, literary, historical and scientific information necessary to an informed reading of Shelley’s varied and allusive verse.
Most of the poems in the present volume were composed between late January 1822 and Shelley’s death on 8 July 1822. These include the lyrics to Jane Williams, Fragments of an Unfinished Drama and The Triumph of Life as well as translations from Goethe’s Faust (1822) and Calderón’s El mágico prodigioso. The appendices include editions of Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things (1811), a poem made publicly accessible by the Bodleian Libraries in 2015 for the first time since its publication, and translations by Shelley from Goethe’s Faust (1815), Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (1817) and Homer’s Odyssey (probably 1817).
In addition to accompanying commentaries, there are extensive bibliographies to the poems, a chronological table of Shelley’s life and publications, and indexes to titles and first lines. Now completed, this is the most comprehensive edition of Shelley’s poetry available to students and scholars.
Contents
Note on Illustrations
Preface to Volume 6
Acknowledgements
Chronological Table of Shelley’s Life and Publications
Abbreviations
THE POEMS
430 To — (‘The serpent is shut out from Paradise’) [To Edward Williams]
431 To Jane. The invitation
432 To Jane — The recollection
431/432 Appendix The Pine Forest of the Cascine, near Pisa
433 ‘Swifter far than summer’s flight’ / Remembrance [A Lament]
434 ‘And if I dedicate thee not to fill’
435 ‘When wilt thou come —’ / ‘Of whom thou speakest?’
436 Fragments of an Unfinished Drama
437 ‘When the lamp is shattered’ [Lines]
438 ‘The rude wind is singing’
439 ‘One word is too often profaned’ [To —]
440 May-day Night [Scenes from the Faust of Goëthe]
441 Cyprian [Scenes from the ‘Magico Prodigioso’ of Calderon]
442 ‘The bat and the owl like barn-door fowl’ [Herne’s Feast: a Fragment]
443 ‘One word has changed the Universe for me’
444 ‘A schoolboy lay near a pond in a copse’ [Herne’s Feast: a Fragment]
445 ‘And have we trodden the same paths together’
446 With a guitar. To Jane
447 Prologue in Heaven [Scenes from the Faust of Goëthe]
448 The prophet
449 The magnetic lady to her patient
450 ‘Far far away, O ye’ [Lines]
451 ‘The earthquake is rocking’
452 The Triumph of Life
452 Appendix Lines connected with The Triumph of Life
453 To Jane (‘The keen stars were twinkling’)
454 ‘Tell me star, whose wings of light’ [The World’s Wanderers]
455 ‘The hours are flying’
456 ‘Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven’ [Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici]
456A ‘That moment is gone for ever’ [Lines (‘We meet not as we parted’)]
Appendix A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things
Appendix B ‘They approach you again, fluctuating Shapes!’ (Translation of Goethe, Faust ll. 1-32 and 243-1213)
Appendix C Prometheus Chained (Translation of Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound ll. 1-316)
Appendix D ‘A belated sleep fell on his eyelids then’ (Translation of Homer, Odyssey xiii 79-80)
Appendix E ‘It is a singular world we live in — and’ (Translation of Calderón, La vida es sueño ll. 2153-64, 2168-71, 2175-77 and 2182-87)
Index of Titles (Volume 6)
Index of First Lines (Volume 6)
Cumulative Index of Titles (Volumes 1-6)
Cumulative Index of First Lines (Volumes 1-6)
Index of Shelley’s verse translations (Volumes 1-6)
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