SHELLEY'S LITERARY AND EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN SHAWCROSS Un LONDON HENRY FROWDE SHELLEY'S LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN SHAWCROSS LONDON HENRY FROWDE sitheran. 12-15 - 31 309412-5 INTRODUCTION THE present edition of Shelley's prose works comprises all his later critical and speculative writings 1 (with the exception of the prefaces to the longer poems) and a selection from his letters, illustrating more particularly his literary and artistic criticism. The youthful romances and the various political pamphlets, as well as the lengthy notes to Queen Mab, have been omitted from the volume, the primary aim of which is to exhibit Shelley's maturer genius on its critical and philosophical side. This principle of selection has necessarily confined the edition within somewhat narrow limits. Except under the pressure of some great public occasion (and then only in his earlier years), Shelley was not readily moved to sustained utterance in prose. At first sight this may appear strange, for he was by no means averse from those interests which find in prose their natural vehicle of expression. Apart from his 'passion for reforming the world', Shelley had also a passion for speculating upon it and unravelling its meaning. Of the first he has left abundant record in the reform pamphlets of his youth; yet after 1812, with the exception of the Marlow pamphlet, he wrote nothing with a directly practical aim. His love of 1 I refer to published writings only. |