Reading Shelley's Interventionist
Poetry, 1819-1820

Introduction

Michael Scrivener, Wayne State University

Notes

1.   All quotations from Shelley's writing are taken from Reiman and Powers, ed., Shelley's Poetry and Prose.
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2.   The play has been revived on Broadway to rave reviews and several Tony Award nominations.
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3.   Susan J. Wolfson's reading of the Mask—discussed by Mark Kipperman—finds that the poem's literariness subverts its political intentions sufficiently enough to render the poem an ineffective example of political poetry. Her close reading raises problems and issues that require the kind of serious attention Kipperman gives to it (195-206).
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4. A version of Anne Janowitz's essay also appears in her book, Lyric and Labour in the Romantic Tradition, in chapter 3, "The Sun and the Tree: Lyrics of Liberty."
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5.   Dominick LaCapra has used the Freudian paradigm of traumatic repetition, acting-out, and working-through to approach historical understanding.
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