Studies in Romanticism – serie

The New Shelley: Later Twentieth-Century Views is a collection of original essays by some of the leading Romanticists which situates Shelley for our own age, but not only by contextualizing him within our own scene of critical practice, but also by replacing him within his own scene of poetic production.

This is the first full-length psychoanalytic study of Shelley's poetry, approaching it from the viewpoint of contemporary Jungian analytical psychology that incorporates the theories of Melanie Klein and D.W.Winnicott. The author uses materials that relate to the earliest stages of the ego's development, going back beyond the Oedipal to pre-Oedipal situation. The book is designed to be of interest to lovers of Shelley as well as feminist readers who want to know how pre-Oedipal images of the mother can profoundly affect literature. Christine Gallant is editor of "Coleridge's Theory of Imagination Today" (AMS Press 1988) and "Blake and the Assimilation of Chaos" (Princeton UP, 1978).

Focusing on Shelley's 'Italian experience', the present study both addresses itself to the living context which nurtured Shelley's creativity, and explores a neglected but essential component of his work.

This book was written over a period of six years and looks at the Romantic Movement, 1770-1848, as it featured in English literature. Chapters one and three were given as lectures to the Charles Lamb Society in 1984 and 1987, chapters five and six were first represented, repectively, at the Romanticism and Revolution Conference at Lancaster University and at the French Revolution and British Culture Conference at Leicester University. Such writers as John Augustus Bonney, Wordsworth, George Dyer and Southey are examined.