''His name is Percy Bysshe Shelley, and he is the
author of a poetical work entitled ''Alastor'', or ''The
Spirit of Solitude''''. With these words, the radical
journalist and poet Leigh Hunt announced his discovery
in 1816 of an extraordinary talent within ''a new school
of poetry rising of late.'' The third volume of the
acclaimed edition of ''The Complete Poetry of Percy
Bysshe Shelley'' includes ''Alastor'', one of Shelley's
first major works, and all the poems that Shelley
completed, for either private circulation or
publication, during the turbulent years from 1814 to
March 1818: ''Hymn to Intellectual Beauty'', ''Mont
Blanc, Laon and Cythna'', as well as shorter pieces,
such as his most famous sonnet, ''Ozymandias''. It was
during these years that Shelley, already an accomplished
and practiced poet with three volumes of published
verse, authored two major volumes, earned international
recognition, and became part of the circle that was
later called the Younger Romantics. As with previous
volumes, extensive discussions of the poems'
composition, influences, publication, circulation,
reception, and critical history accompany detailed
records of textual variants for each work.Among the
appendixes are Mary W. Shelley's 1839 notes on the poems
for these years, a table of the forty-two revisions made
to ''Laon and Cythna'' for its reissue as ''The Revolt
of Islam'', and Shelley's errata list for the same. It
is in the works included in this volume that the
recognizable and characteristic voice of Shelley
emerges-unmistakable, consistent, and vital. |
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