The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Oxford Handbooks)

The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley takes stock of current developments in the study of a major Romantic poet and prose-writer and seeks to advance Shelley studies in new directions. It consists of forty-two chapters written by an international cast of established and emerging scholar-critics. This Handbook is divided into five thematic sections: Biography and Relationships; Prose; Poetry; Cultures Traditions Influences; and Afterlives. The first section reappraises Shelleys life and relationships including those with his publishers through whom he sought to reach an audience for the Ashes and sparks of his thought and with women creative collaborators as well as muse-figures. The second section gives his under-investigated prose works detailedattention bringing multiple perspectives to bear on his conceptual positions and demonstrating the range of his achievement in prose works from novels to political and poetic treatises. The third section explores Shelleys creativity and gift as a poet emphasizing his capacity to excel in many different poetic genres. The fourth section looks at Shelleys response to past and present literary cultures both English and international and at his immersion in science music theatre the visual arts and travel. The fifth section concludes the volume by analysing Shelleys literary and cultural afterlife from his influence on Victorians and Moderns to his status as the exemplary poet for Deconstruction. Packed with stimulating insights and readings The Oxford Handbook of Percy ByssheShelley brings out the relevance to Shelleys own work of his dictum that All high poetry is infinite ..