Studies in Romanticism – serie

The last two decades have seen the business of researching and writing about Percy Bysshe Shelley change in positive and significant ways. Shelleyan characteristics which were once deemed negative are now reviewed as critically engaging qualities. 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.

A 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. Material that relates to the earliest stages of the ego's development - to the pre-Oedipal situation - are used.

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. The poet's four years of self-exile in Italy (1818-1822) were, in fact, the most decisive of his career. As he responded to Italy, his poetry acquired a new subtlety and complexity of vision. Endowed with remarkably keen powers of absorption, the poet imaginatively reshaped the rich cultural heritage of Italy and the vital qualities of its landscape and climate.

Taking into account recent developments in historical and ecological criticism, and incorporating fresh research into poetry and politics in the 1790s, the second edition of The Politics of Nature enlarges and updates Nicholas Roe's acclaimed study of Romanticism. Hitherto marginal figures are restored to prominence, and there is new material on William Wordsworth's radical years. The book includes the full text of John Thelwall's Essay on Animal Vitality with commentary, exploring how ideas of nature, revolution and radical science entwined.