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Shelley's Doctrine of Love
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
If philosophy is the love of wisdom unconditioned, Shelley was as truly a philosopher as Plato; but if, as the Greeks taught, it is the love also of order, his right to the title may be questioned. There is some justice in the allegation that he was not a systematic thinker. Being an enthusiast rather than a critic, he made little effort to reduce his multiform ideas and impressions to strict order; if a new opinion seemed good in itself he was inclined to acknowledge it without first ascertaining whether or not it was consistent with others previously avowed. With the diffusive imagination of the dreamer he erected vast and indistinct outlines of theory wherein the logical mind seeks in vain for substance and particulars, though they harmonize well enough with the idealist's habit of generalization. Avoiding the word philosophy on account of this lack of system, I prefer to use the word doctrine in refering to the body of Shelley's opinion concerning Love.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930
References
1 Queen Mab, ii, 257.
2 Ibid., iii, 128-32.
3 Ibid., v, 22 ff.
4 Ibid., viii, 211 ff. See also the notes on this passage.
5 See Canto viii in general.
6 Queen Mab, iii, 170-80. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, ii, iv, 47-8 :
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless is to reign.
7 Queen Mab, iii, 233-4.
8 This idea of the struggle of good and evil is analogous to the theory of the war of Good and Evil described in The Revolt of Islam.
9 Queen Mab, vi, 148.
10 Ibid., ix, 5.
11 Note to Queen Mab, on Necessity.
12 Queen Mab, iii, 126-7.
13 Ibid., v, 223-30.
14 Ibid., viii, 231.
15 See Queen Mab, viii; cf. also Prometheus Unbound, iii, iii.
16 Quoted from the brief essay “On Life.”
17 Queen Mab, i, 167 ff.
18 Ibid., iv, 139-53.
19 Dmmon of the World, ii, 15-28.
20 Revolt of Islam, i, xxvi.
21 Ibid., i, xxvii.
22 Ibid., i, xx. Cf. also the description of the image of Love as a woman suckling a babe and a basilisk. Ct. v, St. 2.
23 Prometheus Unbound, i, 57-9.
24 Ibid., i, 807 ff.
25 In his Preface Shelley says Prometheus is “the type of the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and truest motives to the best and noblest ends.”
26 Canto i, Stanza xxv.
27 Prometheus Unbound, iii, i, 36.
28 Ibid., ii, iv, 119-20.
29 Revolt of Islam, xii, xxxi.
30 Prometheus Unbound, i, 765-7.
31 St. xxix.
32 Triumph of Life, 412-15.
33 “Ode to Naples,” Epode ii 5.
34 In the essay “On the Punishment of Death.”
35 Prometheus Unbound, ii, iv, 9-10.
36 Ibid., ii, iv, 59 ff.
37 Paradise Lost, Book vii.
38 Triumph of Life, 128-37.
39 Ibid., 254-5.
40 Prometheus Unbound, i, 12, 58.
41 These ideas are to be found in the choruses of Hellas and in the notes to that poem.
42 Queen Mab, v, 147.
43 Speculations on Morals; section on Benevolence.
44 See the letters to Hogg written during the Christmas holidays of the school year 1810-1811.
45 A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote Throughout the Kingdom, and An Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte.
46 A Philosophical View of Reform, a fragment not published in his lifetime.
47 Revolt of Islam, Dedication “To Mary,” St. iv.
48 “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” St. vi.
49 Julian and Maddalo, 380-81.
50 Prince Athanase, i, 25-28.
51 Rosalind and Helen, 629-31.
52 Revolt of Islam, xii, xxx.
53 Rosalind and Helen, 907 ff.
54 Adonais, xxxiv.
55 Hellas, 212.
56 Notes to Hellas, No. 8.
57 “Studies for Epipsychidion, and Cancelled Passages,” 33-5.
58 Summarized from The Banquet of Plato, Shelley's translation of the Symposium. In his youth Shelley hoped to have a large family so that he might educate them after his own method. See the letter to Miss Hitchener, Jan. 26, 1812.
59 Letter to Miss Hitchener, Oct. 15 (?), 1811.
60 Letter to Mary, Oct. 28, 1814.
61 Cf. the description of the Vision in Alastor, 151-82.
62 “The Zucca,” St. iii.
63 “Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici,” 22-6.
64 See the poems “Music,” “To Jane: the Invitation,” “To Jane: the Recollection,” and others of this period.
65 Letter to John Gisborne, June 18, 1822.
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