{"id":770,"date":"2015-07-28T12:21:15","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T12:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=770"},"modified":"2015-07-28T12:30:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T12:30:27","slug":"romanticism-exactly-200-years-ago-on-this-day-in-1815","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=770","title":{"rendered":"Romanticism Exactly 200 Years Ago: On This Day in 1815"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to a new series of posts on the BARS Blog. We have been inspired to create this series following the popularity on Twitter of the \u2018OnThisDay\u2019 hashtag, featured by the accounts @1815now<\/a> and @Wordsworthians<\/a>. As we reach the bicentenaries of many Romantic events, we want to present a catalogue of #OnThisDay blog posts that relate to events happening exactly 200 years ago. The premise of the blog is to give readers a snapshot of 1815 in 2015 (and on into 2016 and beyond!), relevant to that month or even that particular day. We will welcome contributions to this as 1815 and subsequent years mark many interesting milestones in the history of Romanticism. In the post below on the 28th July, we begin with the Shelleys…<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

28th<\/sup> July 1815 \u2013 The First\u00a0Anniversary of the Shelleys\u2019 Elopement <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

In July 1815, after a summer tour of Devon, Mary Godwin (the future Mary Shelley) remained in the Clifton area of Bristol while Percy Shelley went to London in search of a house. On the 27th<\/sup> July, Mary (who was pregnant at the time) writes to her lover. What appears to be a simple forlorn love letter actually tells us far more about the Shelleys\u2019 lifestyle and demeanour, in a way that would come to be reflected in their creative writings. Mary writes:<\/p>\n

We ought not to be absent any longer indeed we ought not \u2013 I am not happy at it \u2013 when I retire to my room no sweet Love \u2013 after dinner no Shelley \u2013 though I have heaps of things very<\/u> particular<\/u> to say \u2013 in fine either you must come back, or I must come to you directly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Emphasis here is placed on the things that Mary has \u2018to say\u2019: this implies conversations of a personal nature but also intellectual conversations. We know from Mary\u2019s journal and the Shelleys\u2019 other letters that reading aloud to one another and discussing their thoughts on literature and philosophy was important in their relationship. The Shelleys\u2019 shared reading list for 1815 (recorded by Mary in the journal) shows a wide range of works. Under the heading \u2018Mary\u2019 are texts such as \u2018Paradise Regained\u2019, \u2018Spenser\u2019s Fairy Queen\u2019, Godwin\u2019s \u2018St. Leon\u2019 and \u2018Coleridge\u2019s Poems\u2019. These works in the list, and many more, are carefully marked with an \u2018x\u2019 to show \u2018S. has read also\u2019 (Percy Shelley). The social nature of this reading project is also evident in notes like \u2018Shakespeare\u2019s Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>

William Powell Frith, ‘The Lover’s Seat: Shelley and Mary Godwin in Old St Pancras Churchyard’<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1815 letter Mary uses the pet names \u2018Pecksie\u2019 and \u2018Maie\u2019. Percy Shelley uses the word \u2018Pecksie\u2019 in the manuscript of Frankenstein<\/em> when he corrects Mary\u2019s mistakes (e.g. her misspelling of \u2018enigmatic\u2019). This has been misconstrued as patronising. The letter we are presented with here provides further evidence to counteract any reading of the nickname as mocking: Mary writes, \u2018I shall think it un-Pecksie of you\u2019. By referring to Percy as \u2018Pecksie\u2019, this letter indicates that the nickname can function for either member of the couple, and is therefore used in an endearing sense, in a reciprocal, equal way, rather than\u00a0showing Percy Shelley acting condescending.<\/p>\n

Mary continues:<\/p>\n

Tomorrow is the 28th<\/sup> of July<\/strong> \u2013 dearest ought we not to have been together on that day \u2013 indeed we ought my love & I shall shed some tears to think we are not \u2013 do not be angry dear love \u2013 Your Pecksie is a good girl & is quite well now again \u2013 except a headach (sic) when she waits so a(n)xiously for her loves letters \u2013 dearest best Shelley pray come to me \u2013 pray pray do not stay away from me \u2013 this is delightful weather and you better we might have a delightful excursion to Tintern Abbey \u2013 my dear dear Love \u2013 I most earnestly & with tearful eyes beg that I may come to you if you do not like to leave the searches after a house<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mary\u2019s emphasis on the 28th<\/sup> July refers to the fact that this will be the first anniversary of their elopement. That they would choose to recognise this day is demonstrative of their untraditional relationship: as yet unmarried, they choose to remember the anniversary of when they decided to abandon London to travel to the continent, leaving behind the 16-year-old Mary\u2019s disgruntled father William Godwin and the 21-year-old Percy Shelley\u2019s estranged wife, Harriet. But this is a well-known Romantic legend: and that was 1814, not 1815. Exactly 200 years ago from now, in 1815, the Shelleys were back in England, paradoxically settled and unsettled, as Mary’s 1815 letter shows.<\/p>\n

These emotional love-letters were typical of the Shelleys’ correspondence in the early years of their relationship. Percy Shelley wrote to Mary in October 1814:<\/p>\n

Mary love \u2013 we must be united. I will not part from you again after Saturday night. We must devise some scheme. I must return. Your thoughts alone can waken mine to energy. My mind without yours is dead & cold as the dark midnight river when the moon is down. It seems as if you alone could shield me from impurity & vice. If I were absent from you long I should shudder with horror at myself. My understanding becomes undisciplined without you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mary is a source of mental stimulation for Shelley:\u00a0her \u2018thoughts\u2019 are what can \u2018waken\u2019 his own to energy, he becomes \u2018undisciplined\u2019 without her; his \u2018mind\u2019 is \u2018dead\u2019\u00a0 in her absence.<\/p>\n

\"Amelia<\/a>

Amelia Robertson Hill, ‘Percy Bysshe Shelley (1882)’, Tate Britain<\/p><\/div>\n

The lesser-known letter by Mary from Clifton discussing the Shelleys\u2019 first anniversary of their elopement (exactly 200 years ago in 1815) shows a continuing commitment to each other that is shaped by intellectual inspiration on a reciprocal level. Percy Shelley did find a house in London that year, and on or just before the 4th<\/sup> August (his birthday), the couple took up residence at Bishopsgate, the eastern entrance of Windsor Park, where they remained for the next nine months. Mary would later transfer aspects of this experience to her novel Lodore\u00a0<\/em>(1835), where the young married couple Villiers and Ethel experience poverty and separation.<\/p>\n

– Anna Mercer (University of York)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to a new series of posts on the BARS Blog. We have been inspired to create this series following the popularity on Twitter of the \u2018OnThisDay\u2019 hashtag, featured by… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":778,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions\/778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}