Strange Truths in Undiscovered Lands: Shelley's Poetic Development and Romantic Geography

by Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey

Overview

The great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley had a complicated relationship with the British Empire and the culture of colonialism. Considered politically radical and scandalous in Britain, Shelley lived in self-imposed exile and set much of his writing in foreign places. In Strange Truths in Undiscovered Lands Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey examines the ways in which Shelley developed a 'Romantic geography' to provide visionary alternatives to an earth devastated by a new type of European colonialism and global expansion.

Intertextually rich, Alvey's work establishes the context in which poems by Shelley and other Romantics were written by presenting relevant histories, travel texts, scientific writings, and archival material, and are all complemented by postcolonial analysis. Unique in its emphasis on the optimistic and positive aspects of Shelley's poetical works, Strange Truths in Undiscovered Lands offers a different perspective on Romantic Orientalism, and a new look at how the poet imagined the relationship between the Self and the Other.

Thorough and original, this book will be of interest to Romanticists, postcolonialists, and anyone interested in alternative responses to acts of colonialism and empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487526061
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	03/10/2020
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey is an associate professor in British Section, Area Studies at the University of Tokyo, Komaba.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

List of Abbreviations xi

A Note on Shelley Texts xv

Introduction 3

1 Queen Mab: The Female Dreamers and a Pathless Wilderness 19

2 'Alastor': A Solitary Quester and a New Eastern Geography 51

3 'Mont Blanc': The Questioning Traveller and a Visionary Geography of Chamonix 83

4 Prometheus Unbound: The Eastern and Western Lovers on the Highest Mountain 109

5 'The Witch of Atlas': The Hybrid Explorer and Shelley's Joyous Challenge 145

Conclusion 181

Notes 195

Bibliography 219

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

‘Alvey’s book is a superb achievement… it has marshaled all the possible elements of the field so commandingly that there is no need for a sequel in the same paradigm.’—Nicholas Birns, Studies in Romanticism, Summer 2012

From the Publisher

‘Alvey’s book is a superb achievement… it has marshaled all the possible elements of the field so commandingly that there is no need for a sequel in the same paradigm.’

Studies in Romanticism, Summer 2012 - Nicholas Birns