Book contents
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Part I Life and Death
- Part II Intellectual, Cultural, and Political Contexts
- Part III Writings
- Part IV Afterlives
- Chapter 33 Contemporary Reviews
- Chapter 34 Biographers, Memoirists, and Reminiscers (1823–1878)
- Chapter 35 Global Reception and Translation
- Chapter 36 ‘For the Many, Not the Few’
- Chapter 37 The Victorians’ Shelley
- Chapter 38 Twentieth-Century Poetry
- Chapter 39 Lyric Trouble
- Chapter 40 Shelley and Popular Culture
- Chapter 41 Shelley: Palinode/Divagation
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 37 - The Victorians’ Shelley
from Part IV - Afterlives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2025
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Percy Shelley in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Part I Life and Death
- Part II Intellectual, Cultural, and Political Contexts
- Part III Writings
- Part IV Afterlives
- Chapter 33 Contemporary Reviews
- Chapter 34 Biographers, Memoirists, and Reminiscers (1823–1878)
- Chapter 35 Global Reception and Translation
- Chapter 36 ‘For the Many, Not the Few’
- Chapter 37 The Victorians’ Shelley
- Chapter 38 Twentieth-Century Poetry
- Chapter 39 Lyric Trouble
- Chapter 40 Shelley and Popular Culture
- Chapter 41 Shelley: Palinode/Divagation
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines the ways in which Shelley’s works and reputation were mediated to Victorian audiences. It argues that the Victorians’ Shelley was to a large extent the Victorians’ creation; his reception in this period differed from both earlier and later understandings of his life and work. The chapter pays particular attention to the role of women such as Mary Shelley and Lady Jane Shelley in shaping the poet’s posthumous reception. It surveys several sites of reception, including editions, anthologies, sermons, statues, and Chartist meetings, to show how Shelley and his writings were appropriated, reimagined, and redeployed in a variety of new contexts by people with divergent aims and concerns. It briefly examines sculpted memorials to Shelley by Henry Weekes and Edward Onslow Ford. The chapter concludes that the Victorian understanding of Shelley was no more monolithic than the ‘Victorians’ themselves.
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- Percy Shelley in Context , pp. 284 - 291Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025