Shelley: Poems

Shelly was a master at combining images and creating a world that was uniquley his own. The problem is, that world seemed to consist mainly of foggy sea shores at sunrise and forest cathedrals. While there is nothing wrong with visiting such a world, there is very little reason to stay there. Shelly's lyrics are uneven, sometimes resorting to rhymes that make me cringe. His strength is iambic prose. Even this suffers from what appears to be a limited vocabulary which para doxically inclused eccentric spellings like "aery". Having said all that, I must admit that I am in sypmpathy with Shelly. He dwells in a solitary world of fairy beauty that is the spiritual home of every soul in search of Truth. This goes a long way toward forgiving his somewhat middle ground talent. "Queen Mab" and "Alastor" are the best peoms in this collection. Most of the other seem to be either comments or footnotes to these. They encompass Shelly's strange universe beautifully. "Alastor" is the strongest in terms of imagery reflecting isolation and the hard choice to foresake worldy pleasure to find a higher truth. All sorts of moonlit coves lie just past the crashing waves of the main stream. One only wishes that Shelly could see the beauty he was leaving was a part of what he sought. I recomment this edition, and the critical essay at its beginning, as a starting point for study of Shelly and his work.

I very much enjoyed this collection. It introduced me to the poignant poetry of one of the greatest English Romantic writers. Shelly is a poet you will most likely be required to read at some point in your life. If not, you would be doing a serious diservice to yourself to not seek to indulge in his writings by your own accord. "Song to the Men of England" is perhaps my favourite Shelly poem, despite the fact that it illustrates the utter hypocrisy of English aristocrats. This collection is bound beautifully, and includes all of the poems Shelly was famous for. It is priced reasonably, so there should therefore be no reason for you not to pick it up!