The
other was one founded on the Book of Job, which he never abandoned in
idea, but of which no trace remains among his papers.
other was one founded on the Book of Job, which he never abandoned in
idea, but of which no trace remains among his papers.
Shelley
It is not for this that
I think of travelling to Italy, even if I knew that Italy would
relieve me. But I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and
although at present it has passed away without any considerable
vestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the true
nature of my disease to be consumptive. It is to my advantage that
this malady is in its nature slow, and, if one is sufficiently alive
to its advances, is susceptible of cure from a warm climate. In the
event of its assuming any decided shape, IT WOULD BE MY DUTY to go to
Italy without delay. It is not mere health, but life, that I should
seek, and that not for my own sake--I feel I am capable of trampling
on all such weakness; but for the sake of those to whom my life may be
a source of happiness, utility, security, and honour, and to some of
whom my death might be all that is the reverse. '
In almost every respect his journey to Italy was advantageous. He left
behind friends to whom he was attached; but cares of a thousand kinds,
many springing from his lavish generosity, crowded round him in his
native country, and, except the society of one or two friends, he had
no compensation. The climate caused him to consume half his existence
in helpless suffering. His dearest pleasure, the free enjoyment of the
scenes of Nature, was marred by the same circumstance.
He went direct to Italy, avoiding even Paris, and did not make any
pause till he arrived at Milan. The first aspect of Italy enchanted
Shelley; it seemed a garden of delight placed beneath a clearer and
brighter heaven than any he had lived under before. He wrote long
descriptive letters during the first year of his residence in Italy,
which, as compositions, are the most beautiful in the world, and show
how truly he appreciated and studied the wonders of Nature and Art in
that divine land.
The poetical spirit within him speedily revived with all the power and
with more than all the beauty of his first attempts. He meditated
three subjects as the groundwork for lyrical dramas. One was the story
of Tasso; of this a slight fragment of a song of Tasso remains.
The
other was one founded on the Book of Job, which he never abandoned in
idea, but of which no trace remains among his papers. The third was
the "Prometheus Unbound". The Greek tragedians were now his most
familiar companions in his wanderings, and the sublime majesty of
Aeschylus filled him with wonder and delight. The father of Greek
tragedy does not possess the pathos of Sophocles, nor the variety and
tenderness of Euripides; the interest on which he founds his dramas is
often elevated above human vicissitudes into the mighty passions and
throes of gods and demi-gods: such fascinated the abstract imagination
of Shelley.
We spent a month at Milan, visiting the Lake of Como during that
interval. Thence we passed in succession to Pisa, Leghorn, the Baths
of Lucca, Venice, Este, Rome, Naples, and back again to Rome, whither
we returned early in March, 1819. During all this time Shelley
meditated the subject of his drama, and wrote portions of it. Other
poems were composed during this interval, and while at the Bagni di
Lucca he translated Plato's "Symposium". But, though he diversified
his studies, his thoughts centred in the Prometheus. At last, when at
Rome, during a bright and beautiful Spring, he gave up his whole time
to the composition. The spot selected for his study was, as he
mentions in his preface, the mountainous ruins of the Baths of
Caracalla. These are little known to the ordinary visitor at Rome. He
describes them in a letter, with that poetry and delicacy and truth of
description which render his narrated impressions of scenery of
unequalled beauty and interest.
At first he completed the drama in three acts. It was not till several
months after, when at Florence, that he conceived that a fourth act, a
sort of hymn of rejoicing in the fulfilment of the prophecies with
regard to Prometheus, ought to be added to complete the composition.
The prominent feature of Shelley's theory of the destiny of the human
species was that evil is not inherent in the system of the creation,
but an accident that might be expelled.
I think of travelling to Italy, even if I knew that Italy would
relieve me. But I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and
although at present it has passed away without any considerable
vestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the true
nature of my disease to be consumptive. It is to my advantage that
this malady is in its nature slow, and, if one is sufficiently alive
to its advances, is susceptible of cure from a warm climate. In the
event of its assuming any decided shape, IT WOULD BE MY DUTY to go to
Italy without delay. It is not mere health, but life, that I should
seek, and that not for my own sake--I feel I am capable of trampling
on all such weakness; but for the sake of those to whom my life may be
a source of happiness, utility, security, and honour, and to some of
whom my death might be all that is the reverse. '
In almost every respect his journey to Italy was advantageous. He left
behind friends to whom he was attached; but cares of a thousand kinds,
many springing from his lavish generosity, crowded round him in his
native country, and, except the society of one or two friends, he had
no compensation. The climate caused him to consume half his existence
in helpless suffering. His dearest pleasure, the free enjoyment of the
scenes of Nature, was marred by the same circumstance.
He went direct to Italy, avoiding even Paris, and did not make any
pause till he arrived at Milan. The first aspect of Italy enchanted
Shelley; it seemed a garden of delight placed beneath a clearer and
brighter heaven than any he had lived under before. He wrote long
descriptive letters during the first year of his residence in Italy,
which, as compositions, are the most beautiful in the world, and show
how truly he appreciated and studied the wonders of Nature and Art in
that divine land.
The poetical spirit within him speedily revived with all the power and
with more than all the beauty of his first attempts. He meditated
three subjects as the groundwork for lyrical dramas. One was the story
of Tasso; of this a slight fragment of a song of Tasso remains.
The
other was one founded on the Book of Job, which he never abandoned in
idea, but of which no trace remains among his papers. The third was
the "Prometheus Unbound". The Greek tragedians were now his most
familiar companions in his wanderings, and the sublime majesty of
Aeschylus filled him with wonder and delight. The father of Greek
tragedy does not possess the pathos of Sophocles, nor the variety and
tenderness of Euripides; the interest on which he founds his dramas is
often elevated above human vicissitudes into the mighty passions and
throes of gods and demi-gods: such fascinated the abstract imagination
of Shelley.
We spent a month at Milan, visiting the Lake of Como during that
interval. Thence we passed in succession to Pisa, Leghorn, the Baths
of Lucca, Venice, Este, Rome, Naples, and back again to Rome, whither
we returned early in March, 1819. During all this time Shelley
meditated the subject of his drama, and wrote portions of it. Other
poems were composed during this interval, and while at the Bagni di
Lucca he translated Plato's "Symposium". But, though he diversified
his studies, his thoughts centred in the Prometheus. At last, when at
Rome, during a bright and beautiful Spring, he gave up his whole time
to the composition. The spot selected for his study was, as he
mentions in his preface, the mountainous ruins of the Baths of
Caracalla. These are little known to the ordinary visitor at Rome. He
describes them in a letter, with that poetry and delicacy and truth of
description which render his narrated impressions of scenery of
unequalled beauty and interest.
At first he completed the drama in three acts. It was not till several
months after, when at Florence, that he conceived that a fourth act, a
sort of hymn of rejoicing in the fulfilment of the prophecies with
regard to Prometheus, ought to be added to complete the composition.
The prominent feature of Shelley's theory of the destiny of the human
species was that evil is not inherent in the system of the creation,
but an accident that might be expelled.
