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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Few of Shelley's poems have received a wider variety of explanations and interpretations than Alastor. Most critics would probably admit that the poem is difficult, and some would even go so far as to say that a clear understanding of it is impossible, agreeing with Havens that “the reader of Alastor is confused because its author was confused.”1 Hoffman attempts to explain it as largely autobiographical,2 while Mueschke and Griggs come to the conclusion that the prototype of the poet is Wordsworth.3 The poet's vision has also been interpreted in a number of ingenious ways. Woodberry calls it “Alastor or evil genius,” which “drives him on in search of its own phantasm till he dies.”4 Du Bois describes it as “a materialization of an ideal man, free, true, beautiful, loving poetry,”5 and Forman believes that it is the ideal of female perfection.6 The Preface has also given difficulty. Havens complains that the statements of the Preface are at variance with the action of the poem,7 Du Bois believes that there is no inconsistency,8 and Stevens, Beck, and Snow that the difference is only one of emphasis.9 It is hoped that the present discussion will add clarity rather than confusion to the understanding of this early example of Shelley's deep-set convictions and powers of imagery.
1 Raymond D. Havens, “Shelley's ‘Alastor,‘ ” PMLA, xlv (1930), 1108.
2 Harold L. Hoffman, An Odyssey of the Sold: Shelley's Alastor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933).
3 Paul Mueschke and Earl L. Griggs, “Wordsworth as Prototype of the Poet in Shelley's ‘Alastor’, ” PMLA, xlix (1934), 229-245.
4 G. E. Woodberry, Shelley's Complete Poetical Works (Boston: Houghton, 1901), p. 615.
5 Arthur E. Du Bois, “Alastor: The Spirit of Solitude,” JEGP, xxxv (1936), 538-539.
6 H. Buxton Forman, Complete Works of Shelley (London: Reeves, 1880), i, 26 n.
7 Op. cit., pp. 1108-1109.
8 Op. cit., p. 537.
9 J. Stevens, E. L. Beck, and R. H. Snow, English Romantic Poets (New York: American Book Company, 1933), p. 886.
10 Op. cit., p. 1109.
11 Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck, The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (New York: Scribner's, 1926), viii, 280.
12 Ibid., vi, 201-202.
13 Ibid.
14 Woodberry, loc. cit.
15 Havens, op. cit., p. 1102.
16 M. C. Wier, “Shelley's Alastor Again,” PMLA, xlvi (1931), 950.
17 Op. cit., p. 535 n.
18 Op. cit., pp. 1102-1103.
19 Op. cit., p. 545.
20 Op. cit., p. 1107.
21 O. W. Campbell, Shelley and the Unromantics (London: Methuen, 1924), p. 190.
22 Op. cit., p. 34.
23 Thomas Love Peacock, Memoirs of Shelley (London: Frowde, 1909), pp. 55-56.
24 Op. cit., pp. 949-950.
25 Havens, op. cit., p. 1099; Hoffman, op. cit., pp. 36-37.
26 Op. cit., p. 1102.
27 Op. cit., pp. 38-39.
28 Op. cit., p. 1100.
29 Ibid., p. 1102.
30 Op. cit., p. 537.
31 Ingpen and Peck, op. cit., vi, 194.
32 Ibid., vi, 361.
33 Ibid., vi, 186.
34 Op. cit., p. 1109.
35 Ingpen and Peck, op. cit., viii, 100.
36 Ibid., vi, 194.
37 Marcel Kessel, “The Poet in Shelley's Alastor, a Criticism,” PMLA, li (1936), 308 n.
38 T. V. Moore, Percy Bysshe Shelley, an Introduction to the Study of Character (Princeton: Psychological Review Company, 1922), p. 17.
39 Op. cit., p. 230.
40 N. I. White, Shelley, I, 419. Professor White has recently informed me, however, that he did not intend this statement to be understood as a complete interpretation of the poem. It should, therefore, be regarded only as a concise statement of the opinion to be found in a number of recent critical works, e.g., Hoffman, op. cit., or Carl H. Grabo, The Magic Plant; the Growth of Shelley's Thought (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1936).
41 Preface to Prometheus Unbound.
42 Op. cit., p. 1109.
43 On Love, loc. cit.