Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography

by James Bieri

Overview

This major biography of Shelley, England’s most radical and controversial Romantic poet, is the first to appear in thirty years. Informed by the author’s extensive research, psychological insight, and recent scholarship on Shelley and his circle, the biography stresses the intimate relationship between the poet’s writing and his complex personality.

James Bieri draws upon his dual background as a Shelley scholar and a psychologist to create a compelling narrative of Shelley’s multifaceted life. Shelley’s personality transcends any entreaty either to see it “plain” or to be labeled with a clinical diagnosis. Remarkably resilient, he was continually creative despite intervals of depression and periodic, hallucinatory panic attacks. Fascinated by the human psyche, he incorporated into his poetry his own self-analysis, including a remarkably sophisticated theory of love that provided the title to his most powerful erotic poem, Epipsychidion.

Bieri also probes Shelley's numerous emotional, romantic, and familial entanglements. Based on the author’s twenty years of research, the book includes new information on the discovery of Shelley’s older illegitimate half-brother; important letters of his father and grandfather; his mother’s early life, her letters about young Shelley, and her major influence upon Shelley; the first published portrait of Sophia Stacey, who beguiled Shelley in Florence; and further evidence on Shelley’s secretly adopted Neapolitan infant.

This biography offers a sympathetic and nuanced view of Shelley’s tumultuous life, personality, and poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801888618
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	09/08/2008
Pages:	888
Sales rank:	772,450
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James Bieri is a retired professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: Youth's Unextinguished Fire, 1792–1816
1. The Politics of Paternity
2. "An Infancy Outlasting Manhood": Mother
3. The Young Prometheus
4. Exiled to Education
5. "Untaught Foresters": Eton Madness
6. Gothic "Wild Boy" and Harriet Grove
7. A Radical Poetic Identity
8. Icarus at Oxford
9. Doubling after the Fall: Harriet Westbrook and Elizabeth Hitchener
10. Elopement and Betrayal
11. Seeking New Fathers: Keswick
12. The Irish Expedition
13. Wandering Reformer
14. Phantasmagoria at Tanyrallt
15. Marital Disengagement
16. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
17. Births and Deaths
18. The Mirror of Self-Analysis
19. The Creative Swiss Summer
Part II: Exile of Unfulfilled Renown, 1816–1822
20. The Dark Autumn of Suicides
21. Albion House: The Last English Year
22. "Paradise of exiles, Italy"
23. Euganean Isles of Misery: Venice
24. Paradise of Devils: Naples
25. Roman Tragedy and Creativity
26. Leghorn's "sad reality"
27. "a voice from over the Sea"
28. Florentine Voices: Unacknowledged Legislator and Sophia Stacey
29. Poetic Mothers: Pisa and Leghorn
30. Baths of San Giuliano
31. "Emily . . . my heart's sister"
32. "A Love in desolation masked"
33. The Last Pisan Winter
34. Drawn to the Sea
35. A "watery eclipse"
36. Life Terminable and Interminable
Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Bieri's biography, which will surely be the definitive study of Shelley's life and work for many years to come, advances and enriches the state of contemporary Shelley studies in remarkable ways.
—Stephen C. Behrendt, Romantic Circles

Bieri's detailed presentations and thoughtful analyses make this an especially admirable volume . . . This could well become the standard Shelley biography. Essential.
—Choice

It is the life of the subject that really carries this book. Shelley's life was indeed sensational, tragic, and still contains mystery enough to stretch the mind . . . The achievement of this book is in its gathering together and careful presentation of evidence. It is the unfortunate life of Shelley that grips the reader throughout.
—Sharon Ruston, Times Literary Supplement

The young Shelley that emerges from this well-researched biography, the outcome of many years’ work, is in part the product of family personalities and tensions, but Bieri also respects the strength of Shelley’s own opinions.
—Elizabeth Helsinger, SEL Studies in English Literature

A quietly magisterial feat of scholarship . . . All those who admire Shelley's work or wish to find out more about his life will gain much from these superbly researched and executed volumes.
—Michael O'Neill, Keats-Shelley Journal

An impressively comprehensive and frequently exciting work.
—Rebecca Oppenheimer, Howard County Times

This is a work sure to become an indispensable resource for the next generation of Shelley scholars.
—Rowland Weston, Cercles

Bieri's biography is an unmatched resource for scholars and readers of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
—Matthew C. Borushko, Studies in Romanticism

From the Publisher

Bieri's biography is an unmatched resource for scholars and readers of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Studies in Romanticism - Matthew C. Borushko

Bieri's biography, which will surely be the definitive study of Shelley's life and work for many years to come, advances and enriches the state of contemporary Shelley studies in remarkable ways.

Romantic Circles - Stephen C. Behrendt

The young Shelley that emerges from this well-researched biography, the outcome of many years’ work, is in part the product of family personalities and tensions, but Bieri also respects the strength of Shelley’s own opinions.

SEL Studies in English Literature - Elizabeth Helsinger

This is a work sure to become an indispensable resource for the next generation of Shelley scholars.

Cercles - Rowland Weston

A retired professor of psychology, Bieri has an unconventional background for a biographer, which allows him to provide fresh insight into the life of romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The book opens with a confusing history of the Shelley family, which revolves around multiple generations of family members with the same names, who continue to be mentioned throughout. Illustrations of many of them are provided, but a family tree would have been more illuminating. Interestingly, though, Bieri had access to primary sources unavailable to previous biographers and is able to contradict details discussed by his predecessors, such as whether Shelley's first love got engaged before or after Shelley's marriage. Bieri has liberally laced his comprehensive history with quotations from letters and biographies written by Shelley and his contemporaries and includes copious notes and an exhaustive index; a glossary to keep the many names straight would have been a great bonus. Recommended for all academic libraries.
—Megan Hodge

Library Journal

Bieri's detailed presentations and thoughtful analyses make this an especially admirable volume . . . This could well become the standard Shelley biography. Essential.

Choice

It is the life of the subject that really carries this book. Shelley's life was indeed sensational, tragic, and still contains mystery enough to stretch the mind . . . The achievement of this book is in its gathering together and careful presentation of evidence. It is the unfortunate life of Shelley that grips the reader throughout.

Times Literary Supplement - Sharon Ruston

A quietly magisterial feat of scholarship . . . All those who admire Shelley's work or wish to find out more about his life will gain much from these superbly researched and executed volumes.

Keats-Shelley Journal - Michael O'Neill

An impressively comprehensive and frequently exciting work.

Howard County Times - Rebecca Oppenheimer

Bieri's biography is an unmatched resource for scholars and readers of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

— Matthew C. Borushko

Studies in Romanticism