Shelley among others : the play of the intertext and the idea of language / Stuart Peterfreund.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Peterfreund, Stuart.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822--Criticism and interpretation.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822--Knowledge and learning--Language and languages.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822--Political and social views.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822--Knowledge and learning--Literature.

Literature.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822--Contemporaries.

Intertextuality.

Contemporaries.

Political and social views.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xiii, 406 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Summary:

Ambitious in its scope, Shelley among Others: The Play of the Intertext and the Idea of Language is a comprehensive reading of Shelley's oeuvre through the lens of recent developments in literary and psychoanalytic theory. Stuart Peterfreund not only provides thought-provoking readings of well-known works but also explores less familiar pieces to illuminate their relationship to Shelley's continually evolving conceptions of language, power, and the role of poetry in society.

Peterfreund proposes that there is an intimate connection between Shelley's sophisticated understanding of metaphor and his radical politics, and that this connection animates his entire poetic career, making possible a comprehensive exegesis of his work and development. In masterful close readings, he contextualizes this understanding as a dialogue ("intertext") that Shelley carries on with precursors and contemporaries, both in his theoretical writings (with Vico and Rousseau, for instance) and his poetry (with Wordsworth, Milton, and Shakespeare, among others). Peterfreund grounds the political dimension of Shelley's thought by making often startling connections between his poems and the debates, events, and personalities of the time, and he takes care to connect the theory of language that Shelley's work articulates with present-day literary theory, particularly the writings of Lacan and Kristeva.

Contents:

Introduction: Literary History, Cultural Politics, and "The Nature Itself of Language" 1

1 Figures That Look Before and After 25

2 Nothing Beside Remains 49

3 "Mont Blanc," the Recuperation of Voice, the Way of "Power," and the Fate of Love 100

4 Toward a Vision of the Nineteenth Century 135

5 The Poet Situated

between the Failed Past and a Hopeful Future 168

6 A Perpetual Orphic Song; or, The Name of the Father? 218

7 Moving toward the Shade of Shelley 267.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 381-394) and index.

ISBN:

0801867517

OCLC:

45756035