Shelley's Annus Mirabilis: Essay on the Epic Vision of 1819

FAIN: FB-10520-70

Stuart A. Curran
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA 19104-6205)

Study of the series of poems written by Shelley between the autumn of 1818 and the early spring 1820. Fellow feels that Shelley's "great year" was produced as a conscious attempt to create an epic vision in emulation of Dante and Milton, considering Prometheus Unbound as a vision of paradise set against the destructive inferno of The Cenci and Peter Bell the Third. Shelley saw the highest office of the poet to be the "unacknowledge legislator" from whom the people derived myth, inspiration, and humane values. He saw that the traditional structures of Christian myth were in dissolution and committed himself to finding a new mythic framework and hence a revitalized meaning for his culture.