Blasphemy and Politics in Romantic Literature: Creativity in the Writing of Percy Bysshe Shelley

by Paul Whickman

Overview

This book argues for the importance of blasphemy in shaping the literature and readership of Percy Bysshe Shelley and of the Romantic period more broadly. Not only are perceptions of blasphemy taken to be inextricable from politics, this book also argues for blasphemous ‘irreverence’ as both inspiring and necessitating new poetic creativity. The book reveals the intersection of blasphemy, censorship and literary property throughout the ‘Long Eighteenth Century’, attesting to the effect of this connection on Shelley’s poetry more specifically. Paul Whickman notes how Shelley’s perceived blasphemy determined the nature and readership of his published works through censorship and literary piracy. Simultaneously, Whickman crucially shows that aesthetics, content and the printed form of the physical text are interconnected and that Shelley’s political and philosophical views manifest themselves in his writing both formally and thematically.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030465698
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	06/06/2020
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	212
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paul Whickman is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Derby, UK. Paul’s research interests lie in the Romantic period, particularly the work of Byron, Shelley and Keats. He has published in journals such as the Keats-Shelley Review and was previously a contributor to the Year’s Work in English Studies (2015-2018).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Blasphemy: History and Definition

1.2. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Blasphemy and Creativity

1.3. Shelley and Romantic Religion

2. Chapter 2: Blasphemy and Copyright in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1695-1823

2.1. Licensing of the Press and Religious Tolerance, 1698-1710

2.2. Copyright, Censorship and Class: The Statute of Anne and ‘Bad Language’, 1710-1745

2.3. Blasphemy, Obscenity or Sedition: John Wilkes to William Hone, 1745-1817

2.4. Chancery and the Dissemination of ‘Injurious’ Texts, 1817-1823

3. Chapter 3: Blasphemy and the Shelley Canon: Queen Mab and Laon and Cythna

3.1. Queen Mab: Readership, Reputation and ‘Respectability’ in the 1820s

3.2. Censoring Queen Mab in the (Il)legitimate Press: William Clark, Richard Carlile, Mary Shelley

3.3. From ‘God’ to ‘Power’: Laon and Cythna to The Revolt of Islam

3.4. The Contemporary Shelley Canon

4. Chapter 4: Vulgar Anthropomorphisms: Blasphemy, Power and the Philosophy of Language

4.1. Anthropomorphising the Abstract: Scepticism of Language in Queen Mab and Laon and Cythna

4.2. The Vitality and Epistemology of Language: ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and ‘Mont Blanc’

5. Chapter 5: The Promethean Conqueror, the Galilean Serpent and the Jacobin Jesus: Shelley’s Interpretation(s) of Jesus Christ

5.1. Secularising and Demystifing Jesus

5.2. A Jesus in History: Reformer and Blasphemer

5.3. Prometheus Unbound: Suffering, Faith and Atonement in the Gospel According to Percy Bysshe Shelley

6. Conclusion

6.1. From Infidel to Canonisation: Shelley’s Posthumous Reputation

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Paul Whickman shows us how Percy Shelley exploited perceived political and religious ‘blasphemy’ to energise his poetry, deliberately exiling himself from the literary mainstream even as he reshaped and revitalized it. To ‘canonize’ Shelley, Whickman argues, is to diminish all that his desecrating genius achieved in poems such as ‘Mont Blanc’, Laon and Cythna and Prometheus Unbound. All scholars of Romanticism should read this brilliant new account of how Shelley’s sacrilege created our greatest unacknowledged legislator.” (Nicholas Roe, Wardlaw Professor of English, University of St Andrews, UK)

“Paul Whickman’s valuable study opens up insightful new ways of considering the slippery relationship between blasphemy and politics in the Romantic period. Focusing on Percy Bysshe Shelley, Whickman reveals the value of situating him within a broader context and how Shelley’s poetry responded to the intersection of political and religious power.” (Madeleine Callaghan, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Sheffield, UK)

“Paul Whickman’s book is a deft and timely reassessment of the centrality of blasphemy to Shelley’s politics and poetry. It also demonstrates how notions of Shelleyan irreverence had a powerful effect on his reception by both contemporaries and later readers. This fresh and lively account of Shelley’s complex relationship to wider cultural, intellectual and legislative contexts and imperatives breaks important new ground and will be invaluable for all scholars of the Romantic period.” (Lynda Pratt, Professor of Romanticism, University of Nottingham, UK)