{"id":4260,"date":"2022-07-08T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=4260"},"modified":"2022-07-05T18:12:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T18:12:33","slug":"on-this-day-in-1822-percy-shelleys-gothic-authorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=4260","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1822 – Percy Shelley\u2019s Gothic Authorship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The BARS \u2018On This Day\u2019 Blog series<\/a>\u00a0celebrates the 200th anniversary of literary and historical events of the Romantic period. Want to contribute a future post?\u00a0Get in touch<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BARS ‘On This Day’ series marks July 8 2022, 200 years to the day from the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with a fascinating look at some of his lesser explored literary works. Fitting for the anniversary of his death, we bring you Molly Watson’s discussion of Shelley’s Gothic fictions Zastrozzi <\/em>and St Irvyne<\/em>, and the echoes these texts left in his final work, The Triumph of Life<\/em>, which was unfinished when he passed away.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library. “Wolfstein; or, The mysterious bandit…”\u00a0<\/a>The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1822.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On 8 July 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned at the Bay of Spezia, leaving his final poem, The Triumph of Life <\/em>(1822), unfinished. As such, questions about Shelley\u2019s authorship remain unanswered; the poet is, in effect, a posthumous fragment. But the complexities of Shelley\u2019s literary identity can be felt in his Gothic fiction a decade earlier.[i]<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter dated 1812 to his future father-in-law, William Godwin, Shelley declares that he is \u2018no longer the votary of Romance\u2019.[ii]<\/a> In 1810 Shelley had published Zastrozzi: A Romance<\/em>, a lurid Gothic tale which chronicles the self-destructive passions of its primary characters. The atheist Zastrozzi exercises his hatred upon the \u2018hapless\u2019 Verezzi, whose father had sexually dishonoured Zastrozzi\u2019s mother. The following year, Shelley published St. Irvyne; or, the Rosicrucian: A Romance <\/em>(1811), which details the self-centered obtainment of immortality; also embedded within the narrative is a plot concerning the sexual ruination of Eloise de St. Irvyne.[iii]<\/a> Shelley was rather quick to dismiss the novellas as the product of a diseased sensibility, and as such laid the groundworks for the less-than-favourable critical response to Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne<\/em>.[iv]<\/a> Historically, Shelley\u2019s Gothic fiction has not been well received; only recently have scholars like Stephen Behrendt pushed for Shelley\u2019s \u2018considerable\u2019 literary output to be taken \u2018seriously\u2019.[v]<\/a> And yet Shelley\u2019s Gothic fiction is not entirely serious in the first place. Certainly, in his early correspondence with Godwin, Shelley conceives of it as a juvenile mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the letter dated 10 January 1812 Shelley attempts to distance himself from his Gothic fiction. He justifies the production of Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne <\/em>by proclaiming: \u2018From a reader I became I [a] writer of Romances; before the age of seventeen I had published two \u2018St. Irvyne\u2019 and \u2018Zastrozzi\u2019 each of which tho quite uncharacteristic of me as now I am, yet serve to mark the state of my mind at the period of their composition\u2019. According to Shelley, only by reading Godwin\u2019s \u2018inestimable book\u2019 (Enquiry Concerning Political Justice <\/em>(1793)) was he exposed to \u2018fresh and more extensive views\u2019. Shelley then continues to document his expulsion from Oxford\u2014caused by Shelley and Thomas Jefferson Hogg\u2019s notorious pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism <\/em>(1811)\u2014and the \u2018incoincident\u2019 habits of his father.[vi]<\/a> By positing himself as a Godwinian disciple eager to absorb the philosophical foundations of Political Justice<\/em>, Shelley constructs not only his relationship with Godwin, but also the trajectory of his literary career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that Shelley fabricates his biography, nor is it a complete rejection of his poetical self-fashioning. Rather, as Shelley\u2019s editor Frederick L. Jones states, the poet \u2018is rather given to exaggerating his youthfulness\u2019.[vii]<\/a> While Shelley\u2019s self-mythologizing needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, it is a core part of his authorship. Though Shelley told Godwin that Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne <\/em>were published \u2018before the age of seventeen\u2019, he was in fact slightly older, and most certainly familiar with Godwin\u2019s works before he read Political Justice<\/em>. It is obvious that Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne <\/em>are partially indebted to Godwin\u2019s Gothic novels, Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams <\/em>(1794) and St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century <\/em>(1799), the latter of which, like St. Irvyne<\/em>, recounts the pursuit of the philosopher\u2019s stone; even the titles sound familiar. Shelley\u2019s characterization of Zastrozzi as a man who believes that \u2018revenge is sweeter than life\u2019 is like that of the misanthropic Bethlem Gabor in St. Leon<\/em>, who is \u2018engendered [by] some new thought or passion: and it appeared probable that he would not yet quit the stage of existence till he had left behind him the remembrances of a terrible and desolating revenge\u2019.[viii]<\/a> The sheer rage evinced in Gabor and Zastrozzi anticipates both the Creature in Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein <\/em>(1818) and Mandeville in Godwin\u2019s 1817 historical novel of the same name.[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Shelley was already familiar with Godwin\u2019s literary output, he was nonetheless keen to emphasise that he had intellectually and philosophically matured since the publication of Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne<\/em>. Shelley admits to Godwin that he was \u2018haunted with a passion for the wildest and most extravagant romances\u2026 ancient books of Chemistry and Magic were perused with an enthusiasm almost amounting to belief\u2026external impediments were numerous, and strongly applied\u2014their effects were merely temporary\u2019.[x]<\/a> Shelley here almost sounds like a Gothic character himself, a proto-Frankensteinian student desperate to acquire esoteric knowledge; it is certainly well documented that Shelley retained a life-long interest in scientific phenomenon.[xi]<\/a> Throughout his early correspondence with Godwin, Shelley posits himself as a student vulnerable to the throes and passions of Gothic romance, but who is eventually rescued by the philosophically enlightened Godwin. Of course, the relationship between not only Shelley and Godwin but also Shelley and the Gothic is far more complex. Though Shelley tries to distance himself from Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne<\/em> as much as possible, his literary career\u2014including some of his later poetry\u2014is haunted by the Gothic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Triumph of Life <\/em>(1822) is Gothic in that it is testament to the contradictory nature of Shelley\u2019s literary identity. As an incomplete manuscript, the Triumph <\/em>invites readers to engage with not only its form and content but also Shelley\u2019s authorial intentions.[xii]<\/a> Shelley\u2019s death in July 1822 means that the Triumph <\/em>exists only as a fragment, and as such questions about Shelley\u2019s authorship remain unanswered. Did Shelley intend to leave the Triumph <\/em>as an incomplete manuscript, or was its construction cut short by his untimely death? The uncertainty of Shelley\u2019s authorial intent can likewise be felt in Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne<\/em>. After all, while Shelley maintained to Godwin that Zastrozzi <\/em>and St. Irvyne <\/em>were the products of intellectual disease, he still sent them for Godwin\u2019s perusal. Moreover, just as the Triumph<\/em>\u2019s final couplet (\u2018Happy those for whom the fold\/Of\u2026\u2019) complicates the sense of an ending, so does the conclusion of St. Irvyne <\/em>confound Shelley\u2019s authorial intent. The novella ends with the revelation that Eloise de St. Irvyne \u2018is the sister of Wolfstein\u2019, the primary character of the Gothic plot. The rather hasty finale of St. Irvyne<\/em> is additional evidence of what Timothy Webb and Alan M. Weinberg have called Shelley\u2019s \u2018questioning\u2019 and \u2018somewhat puzzling\u2019 methods of composition in his later works, that is, the rejection of poetic linearity.[xiii]<\/a> Even a decade before the composition of the Triumph<\/em>, then, there is a similar poetic contradiction at work in Shelley\u2019s Gothic fiction. Shelley\u2019s paradoxical poetics means that his work\u2014and by extension his literary identity\u2014evades straightforwardness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The complexities of Shelley\u2019s later poetry has its antecedent in his early Gothic fiction. Shelley\u2019s careful construction of his relationship with Godwin would lead one to believe that he dabbled in the Gothic and then abandoned it for the loftiness of philosophy and \u2018true\u2019 literature. Yet the trajectory of Shelley\u2019s rather short literary career is far more nuanced. The Gothic consistently haunts his later poetry, and, by the time of his death, Shelley was a posthumous fragment of different ideas and identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molly Watson<\/a><\/em> (@diddykeats) is a PhD student at the University of Nottingham researching Motherhood, Children and Loss in the Works of Mary Shelley and Sara Coleridge, 1820-44. She is interested in second-generation and ‘late’ Romanticism (1820s-50s), children’s literature, women writers, and Gothic fiction. Her PhD is funded by the Midlands4Cities DTP (AHRC).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[i]<\/a> The content of this post is inspired by my MRes thesis, \u2018Arising from the state of intellectual sickliness and lethargy\u2019: A Re-evaluation of Percy Shelley\u2019s Gothic Fiction\u2019 [University of Huddersfield, 2021].<\/a> For a discussion on Shelley\u2019s indebtedness to Charlotte Dacre and William Godwin, see pp. 48-53 and pp. 83-6 respectively; see pp. 5-9 for Shelley\u2019s \u2018diseased\u2019 intellect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ii]<\/a> Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. I: Shelley in England<\/em>, ed. by Frederick L. Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), I:27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[iii]<\/a> Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne<\/em>, ed. by Stephen Behrendt (Peterborough, ONT: Broadview Press, 2002). Online editions of the novellas can be found here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[iv]<\/a> Madness and the Romantic Poet: A Critical History<\/em> by James Whitehead (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017), 118.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[v]<\/a> Behrendt, \u2018Introduction\u2019 to Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne<\/em>, 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[vi]<\/a> Letters<\/em>, I:227-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[vii]<\/a> Letters<\/em>, I:227n1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[viii]<\/a> Zastrozzi<\/em>, 73; St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century<\/em>, ed. by William Brewer (Peterborough, ONT: Broadview Press, 2006), 383. An online edition of St. Leon<\/em> can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ix]<\/a> Brewer, \u2018Introduction\u2019 to St. Leon<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[x]<\/a> Letters<\/em>, I:227.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xi]<\/a> See \u2018Shelley\u2019s Knowledge of the \u2018Science of Life\u2019 in Shelley and Vitality <\/em>by Sharon Ruston (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 74-101.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xii]<\/a> For a discussion on the Triumph<\/em>\u2019s relationship to the Gothic, see Jerrold E. Hogle, \u2018The \u201cGothic Complex\u201d in Shelley: From Zastrozzi <\/em>to The Triumph of Life<\/em>\u2019 Romantic Circles <\/em>(2015).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xiii]<\/a> The Unfamiliar Shelley<\/em>, ed. by Timothy Webb and Alan M. Weinberg (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 5.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BARS \u2018On This Day\u2019 Blog series\u00a0celebrates the 200th anniversary of literary and historical events of the Romantic period. Want to contribute a future post?\u00a0Get in touch. The BARS ‘On… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[53,52,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4262,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions\/4262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}