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Stuart M. Sperry - Shelley’s Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry - 9780674806252 - V9780674806252
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Shelley’s Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry

€ 118.06
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Description for Shelley’s Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry Hardback. Shelley has long been viewed as a dreamer isolated from reality, a "beautiful and ineffectual angel," in Arnold's words. In contrast, Sperry's book emphasizes the life forces originating in the poet's childhood that impelled and shaped his career, and reasserts Shelley's relevance to the social and cultural dilemmas of contemporary life. Num Pages: 272 pages, 1ill. BIC Classification: 2AB; DCF; DSBF; DSC. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 240 x 157 x 21. Weight in Grams: 544.

Shelley has long been viewed as a dreamer isolated from reality, a “beautiful and ineffectual angel,” in Arnold’s words. In contrast, Stuart Sperry’s book emphasizes the life forces originating in the poet’s childhood that impelled and shaped his career, and reasserts Shelley’s relevance to the social and cultural dilemmas of contemporary life.

Concentrating on the major narrative and dramatic poems and the patterns of development they reveal, Sperry reintegrates Shelley’s poetry with his life by showing how, following the traumatic events of his early years, the poet sought to preserve and extend those life impulses by creating a network of personal relationships that provided the inspiration and model for his poems. As the circumstances of his life and his relationships to others changed and as his thought evolved, he was led to reshape his major poems. Three chapters at the center of the book, devoted to Shelley’s visionary masterpiece Prometheus Unbound, provide the finest introduction so far to its conceptions and intent as well as a powerful vindication of the poet’s enduring idealism. In defining Shelley’s true originality, Sperry defends the poet against his harshest critics by suggesting that his vision of human potential may represent a vital resource against the competitive drives and self-destructive compulsions of our own day.

Sperry’s approach to the poetry through the formative events of Shelley’s early life provides an excellent biographical introduction. His reinterpretation of the major works and the career will appeal to first-time readers as well as to mature students of Shelley.

Product Details

Format
Hardback
Publication date
1988
Publisher
Harvard University Press United States
Number of pages
272
Condition
New
Number of Pages
231
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass, United States
ISBN
9780674806252
SKU
V9780674806252
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

Reviews for Shelley’s Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry
To trace the life force of his poetry and its transformation and efflorescence in the course of his development, Sperry has taken Shelley’s eight major poetic works—Queen Mab, Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound Acts I–IV, The Cenci, The Witch of Atlas, Epipsychidion, and The Triumph of Love—and examined them chronologically within the context of the poet’s life. Supported by impeccable scholarship, Sperry’s incisive analyses illuminate for modern readers not only Shelley the poet but Shelley the man.
Sharon Wong
Library Journal
One of the finest books on Shelley to appear in recent years. Its special strength lies in its elucidation of Shelley’s extreme idealism. Sperry finds in the major poetry life-values that are not only defensible but even prophetic for both individuals and societies.
Donald H. Reiman

Goodreads reviews for Shelley’s Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry


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