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Shelley and Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

E. Herman Hespelt
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Extract

The conjunction of the centenary of Shelley's death with the present interest in things pertaining to Spain and Spanish literature makes opportune an examination of the question: to what extent did Spain interest Shelley? For that this country did interest him will be borne out by even a superficial scanning of the titles in the older editions of his poems, while a perusal of his correspondence will disclose the fact that for at least the last three years of his life Shelley was a devoted student of certain phases of Spain's history and literature.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 1923 , pp. 887 - 905
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923

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References

1 D. F. Mac-Carthy: Shelley's Early Life, London, 1872, p. 126.

2 Percy Bysshe Shelley: Essays, Letters From Abroad, Translations And Fragments, ed. Mrs. Shelley, London, 1840, II, pp. 12-13.

3 Charles I. Elton: An Account of Shelley's Visits to France, Switzerland, and Savoy, in the Years 1814 and 1816 with Extracts from “The History of a Six Weeks' Tour” and “Letters descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni,” first published in the year 1817, London, 1894, pp. 47-48.

4 The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Roger Ingpen, London & New York, 1909, II, p. 601, footnote. (Hereafter referred to as Letters).

5 Letters, I, xviii.

6 Ibid., II, p. 602.

7Ibid., II, p. 602.

8 Ibid., II, p. 667.

9 Mrs. Julian Marshall: The Life and Letters of Mary Wolhtoneeraft Shelley, London, 1889, I, p. 241.

10 Edward Dowden: The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London, 1909, New Edition, p. 427. (Hereafter referred to as Dowden: New Ed.)

11 Letters, II, p. 695.

12 H. Buxton Forman: The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. By Thomas Medwin. A New Edition printed from a copy copiously amended and extended by the Author and left unpublished at his death, Oxford University Press, London et al., 1913, p. 198.

13 Letters, II, p. 702.

14 Curiously enough, this metaphor which so impressed Shelley recurs in Los Dos Amantes del Cielo, Act I, Scene XV, and again Act II, Scene VII.

15 Dowden: New Ed., p. 432.

16 Letters, II, p. 708.

17 Ibid., II, p. 708.

18 Ibid., II, p. 719.

19 Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Edward Dowden, New York & Boston, [1893], p. 531.

20 Letters, II, p. 746.

21 Ibid., II, p. 752.

22 Ibid., II, pp. 749-50.

23 The omission of the v was doubtless inadvertent on Shelley's part. His orthography has been preserved in all quotations.

24 In 1820 Medwin made the following translation of the last two stanzas with aid from Shelley The latter's contribution is displayed in italics:

Hast thou not seen, officious with delight,
Move thro' the illuminated air about the flower
The bee, that fears to drink its purple light,
Lest danger lurk within that rose's bower?
Hast thou not marked the moth's enamoured flight
About the taper's flame at evening hour,
Till kindle in that monumental fire
His sunflower wings their own funereal pyre?
My heart, its wishes trembling to unfold,
Thus round the rose and taper hovering came;
And Passion's slave, Distrust, in ashes cold
Smothered awhile, but could not quench the flame;
Till Love, that grows by disappointment bold,
And Opportunity, had conquered Shame,—
And like the bee and moth, in act to close,
I burnt my wings, and settled on the rose.

25 Letters, II, p. 755.

26 Shelley Memorials: From Authentic Sources, ed. Lady Shelley, London, 1859, p. 129.

27 Marshall: op. cit., I, p. 263.

28 Dowden: New Ed., p. 461.

29 Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, cit., p. 455.

30 Letters, II, p. 831.

31 Ibid., II, p. 833.

32 Ibid., II, p. 834.

33 Ibid., II, p. 839.

34 Forman: op. cit., p. 243.

35 The quotation continues: “It was the quarto Edition, which formed one of the gems in Tieck's Catalogue, an edition of great rarity and value. It was not a perfect work but consisting of several odd volumes, which it may be remarked was the case with Tieck's...”

36 Forman: op. cit., p. 256.

37 Edward Dowden: The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London, 1886, II, p. 359 and Marshall: op. cit., I, p. 272.

38 Utters, II, p. 854.

39 Southey's History of the Peninsular War was not published until 1823-32.

40 Letters, II, p. 857. Adolf Droop: Die Belesenheit Percy Bysshe Skelley's nach den direkten Zeugnissen und den bisherigen Forschungen, Jena Diss., Weimar, 1906, p. 115, suggests that the pamphlet requested by Shelley may have been either of the following: Charles Richard Vaughan: Narrative of the Siege of Zaragoza, 1809; William Buy: Narrative of the second Siege of Zaragoza from the Spanish, 1809.

41 Shelley: A Defence of Poetry, ed. Albert S. Cook, Boston, 1890, p. 17.

42 Ibid., p. 29.

43 Letters, II, p. 866.

44 Letters, II, pp. 912-13.

45 Ibid., II, pp. 919-20.

46 Ibid., II, p. 927.

47 Ibid., II, p. 932.

48 Of this work Medwin's assertion (Forman: op. cit., p. 353.) that “The opening Chorus of Hellas is taken from the Principe Constante of Calderon, as Shelley pointed out to me; and the drama [is] an imitation of the Persians of Aeschylus” implies a greater indebtedness on Shelley's part to Calderon than is borne out by the facts of the case. These are that the Principe Constante opens with the stage directions: “Jardin del rey de Fez. Cautivos, que salen cantando” though there is no actual opening chorus in the sense of Shelley's Chorus of Greek Captive Women. Moreover, the song which the Spanish captives sing at Zara's behest comes at the end of the first scene and not at its beginning.

49 Dowden: New Ed., p. 526.

50 Cf. letter of August 22, 1819 to Peacock and that of November of the same year to Hunt, pp. 891 and 895 ante.

51 Marshall: op. cit., I, p. 319.

52 Edward John Trelawny: Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, London, 1858, pp. 13-14.

53 Dowden: New Ed., p. 526.

54 Forman: op. cit., pp. 244 and 343.

55 The quotation continues: “So much did Shelley admire these stanzas, that he copied them out into one of his letters to Mrs. Gisborne” and refers to the verses appearing in the letter quoted on pp. 893-95 ante.

56 Journal of Edward Ellerker Williams, Companion of Shelley and Byron in 1821 and 1822, ed. Richard Garnett, London, 1902, p. 41.

57 Letters, II, p. 953.

58 Ibid., II, p. 954.

59 Ibid., II, pp. 977-78.

60 Three differing versions of a dream or nightmare are given by Mary-Shelley (Dowden: New Ed., pp. 560-61), by Medwin (Forman: op. cit.,p. 405), and by Lady Shelley (Op. cit., pp. 191-92). The latter two state specifically that the suggestion came from a drama of Calderon's. Medwin even gives as the title El Encapotado. This is presumably the source of the conjecture made by the editor of the Albion edition of Shelley's works (quoted by Droop: op. cit., p. 158) where the title has become El embozado o el encapotado.

In the latest work to appear in this connection (Salvador De Madariaga : Shelley and Calderon and Other Essays on English and Spanish Poetry, New York, [1921], p. 46) the author suggests that the basis of Shelley's dream may have been the incident of Act III, Scene XIII of El Mágico Prodigioso. [This excellent work appeared after all the material for this paper had been assembled.]

All of the above suggestions seem to be far afield in view of the quotation from the letter of June 18, 1822. In both of the plays there mentioned there are situations which could be made to serve as well as any heretofore proposed for such an intangibility as a suggestion for a dream.

61 Letters, II, p. 984.