"Coming to many ways in the
wanderings
of careful thought.
Shelley
At the moment, the Primal Power of the world
drives him from his usurped throne, and Strength, in the person of
Hercules, liberates Humanity, typified in Prometheus, from the
tortures generated by evil done or suffered. Asia, one of the
Oceanides, is the wife of Prometheus--she was, according to other
mythological interpretations, the same as Venus and Nature. When the
benefactor of mankind is liberated, Nature resumes the beauty of her
prime, and is united to her husband, the emblem of the human race, in
perfect and happy union. In the Fourth Act, the Poet gives further
scope to his imagination, and idealizes the forms of creation--such as
we know them, instead of such as they appeared to the Greeks. Maternal
Earth, the mighty parent, is superseded by the Spirit of the Earth,
the guide of our planet through the realms of sky; while his fair and
weaker companion and attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, receives bliss
from the annihilation of Evil in the superior sphere.
Shelley develops, more particularly in the lyrics of this drama, his
abstruse and imaginative theories with regard to the Creation. It
requires a mind as subtle and penetrating as his own to understand the
mystic meanings scattered throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary
reader by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they are
far from vague. It was his design to write prose metaphysical essays
on the nature of Man, which would have served to explain much of what
is obscure in his poetry; a few scattered fragments of observations
and remarks alone remain. He considered these philosophical views of
Mind and Nature to be instinct with the intensest spirit of poetry.
More popular poets clothe the ideal with familiar and sensible
imagery. Shelley loved to idealize the real--to gift the mechanism of
the material universe with a soul and a voice, and to bestow such also
on the most delicate and abstract emotions and thoughts of the mind.
Sophocles was his great master in this species of imagery.
I find in one of his manuscript books some remarks on a line in the
"Oedipus Tyrannus", which show at once the critical subtlety of
Shelley's mind, and explain his apprehension of those 'minute and
remote distinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or
the living beings which surround us,' which he pronounces, in the
letter quoted in the note to the "Revolt of Islam", to comprehend all
that is sublime in man.
'In the Greek Shakespeare, Sophocles, we find the image,
Pollas d' odous elthonta phrontidos planois:
a line of almost unfathomable depth of poetry; yet how simple are the
images in which it is arrayed!
"Coming to many ways in the wanderings of careful thought. "
If the words odous and planois had not been used, the line might have
been explained in a metaphorical instead of an absolute sense, as we
say "WAYS and means," and "wanderings" for error and confusion. But
they meant literally paths or roads, such as we tread with our feet;
and wanderings, such as a man makes when he loses himself in a desert,
or roams from city to city--as Oedipus, the speaker of this verse, was
destined to wander, blind and asking charity. What a picture does this
line suggest of the mind as a wilderness of intricate paths, wide as
the universe, which is here made its symbol; a world within a world
which he who seeks some knowledge with respect to what he ought to do
searches throughout, as he would search the external universe for some
valued thing which was hidden from him upon its surface. '
In reading Shelley's poetry, we often find similar verses, resembling,
but not imitating the Greek in this species of imagery; for, though he
adopted the style, he gifted it with that originality of form and
colouring which sprung from his own genius.
In the "Prometheus Unbound", Shelley fulfils the promise quoted from a
letter in the Note on the "Revolt of Islam". (While correcting the
proof-sheets of that poem, it struck me that the poet had indulged in
an exaggerated view of the evils of restored despotism; which, however
injurious and degrading, were less openly sanguinary than the triumph
of anarchy, such as it appeared in France at the close of the last
century. But at this time a book, "Scenes of Spanish Life", translated
by Lieutenant Crawford from the German of Dr. Huber, of Rostock, fell
into my hands. The account of the triumph of the priests and the
serviles, after the French invasion of Spain in 1823, bears a strong
and frightful resemblance to some of the descriptions of the massacre
of the patriots in the "Revolt of Islam". ) The tone of the composition
is calmer and more majestic, the poetry more perfect as a whole, and
the imagination displayed at once more pleasingly beautiful and more
varied and daring. The description of the Hours, as they are seen in
the cave of Demogorgon, is an instance of this--it fills the mind as
the most charming picture--we long to see an artist at work to bring
to our view the
'cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all
Sweep onward. '
Through the whole poem there reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of
love; it soothes the tortured, and is hope to the expectant, till the
prophecy is fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the
law of the world.
England had been rendered a painful residence to Shelley, as much by
the sort of persecution with which in those days all men of liberal
opinions were visited, and by the injustice he had lately endured in
the Court of Chancery, as by the symptoms of disease which made him
regard a visit to Italy as necessary to prolong his life.
drives him from his usurped throne, and Strength, in the person of
Hercules, liberates Humanity, typified in Prometheus, from the
tortures generated by evil done or suffered. Asia, one of the
Oceanides, is the wife of Prometheus--she was, according to other
mythological interpretations, the same as Venus and Nature. When the
benefactor of mankind is liberated, Nature resumes the beauty of her
prime, and is united to her husband, the emblem of the human race, in
perfect and happy union. In the Fourth Act, the Poet gives further
scope to his imagination, and idealizes the forms of creation--such as
we know them, instead of such as they appeared to the Greeks. Maternal
Earth, the mighty parent, is superseded by the Spirit of the Earth,
the guide of our planet through the realms of sky; while his fair and
weaker companion and attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, receives bliss
from the annihilation of Evil in the superior sphere.
Shelley develops, more particularly in the lyrics of this drama, his
abstruse and imaginative theories with regard to the Creation. It
requires a mind as subtle and penetrating as his own to understand the
mystic meanings scattered throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary
reader by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they are
far from vague. It was his design to write prose metaphysical essays
on the nature of Man, which would have served to explain much of what
is obscure in his poetry; a few scattered fragments of observations
and remarks alone remain. He considered these philosophical views of
Mind and Nature to be instinct with the intensest spirit of poetry.
More popular poets clothe the ideal with familiar and sensible
imagery. Shelley loved to idealize the real--to gift the mechanism of
the material universe with a soul and a voice, and to bestow such also
on the most delicate and abstract emotions and thoughts of the mind.
Sophocles was his great master in this species of imagery.
I find in one of his manuscript books some remarks on a line in the
"Oedipus Tyrannus", which show at once the critical subtlety of
Shelley's mind, and explain his apprehension of those 'minute and
remote distinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or
the living beings which surround us,' which he pronounces, in the
letter quoted in the note to the "Revolt of Islam", to comprehend all
that is sublime in man.
'In the Greek Shakespeare, Sophocles, we find the image,
Pollas d' odous elthonta phrontidos planois:
a line of almost unfathomable depth of poetry; yet how simple are the
images in which it is arrayed!
"Coming to many ways in the wanderings of careful thought. "
If the words odous and planois had not been used, the line might have
been explained in a metaphorical instead of an absolute sense, as we
say "WAYS and means," and "wanderings" for error and confusion. But
they meant literally paths or roads, such as we tread with our feet;
and wanderings, such as a man makes when he loses himself in a desert,
or roams from city to city--as Oedipus, the speaker of this verse, was
destined to wander, blind and asking charity. What a picture does this
line suggest of the mind as a wilderness of intricate paths, wide as
the universe, which is here made its symbol; a world within a world
which he who seeks some knowledge with respect to what he ought to do
searches throughout, as he would search the external universe for some
valued thing which was hidden from him upon its surface. '
In reading Shelley's poetry, we often find similar verses, resembling,
but not imitating the Greek in this species of imagery; for, though he
adopted the style, he gifted it with that originality of form and
colouring which sprung from his own genius.
In the "Prometheus Unbound", Shelley fulfils the promise quoted from a
letter in the Note on the "Revolt of Islam". (While correcting the
proof-sheets of that poem, it struck me that the poet had indulged in
an exaggerated view of the evils of restored despotism; which, however
injurious and degrading, were less openly sanguinary than the triumph
of anarchy, such as it appeared in France at the close of the last
century. But at this time a book, "Scenes of Spanish Life", translated
by Lieutenant Crawford from the German of Dr. Huber, of Rostock, fell
into my hands. The account of the triumph of the priests and the
serviles, after the French invasion of Spain in 1823, bears a strong
and frightful resemblance to some of the descriptions of the massacre
of the patriots in the "Revolt of Islam". ) The tone of the composition
is calmer and more majestic, the poetry more perfect as a whole, and
the imagination displayed at once more pleasingly beautiful and more
varied and daring. The description of the Hours, as they are seen in
the cave of Demogorgon, is an instance of this--it fills the mind as
the most charming picture--we long to see an artist at work to bring
to our view the
'cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all
Sweep onward. '
Through the whole poem there reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of
love; it soothes the tortured, and is hope to the expectant, till the
prophecy is fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the
law of the world.
England had been rendered a painful residence to Shelley, as much by
the sort of persecution with which in those days all men of liberal
opinions were visited, and by the injustice he had lately endured in
the Court of Chancery, as by the symptoms of disease which made him
regard a visit to Italy as necessary to prolong his life.
