Romantic blasphemy : sacrilege and creativity in the literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley

• Main Author: Whickman, Paul William
• Published: University of Nottingham 2013
• Subjects: 821
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.659195

This thesis considers the nature and significance of perceived blasphemy in the literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley and in the 'Romantic' period more widely. The central concern of this study is the consideration of Shelley's perception of the collusion of political and religious tyranny in relation to the increasing conflation of political with religious discourse throughout the Long Eighteenth Century. Alongside this, this inquiry has several further interrelated and overlapping strands. I consider the significance of perceived blasphemy in influencing the print history and 'bibliographical codes' of both Shelley's works and other Romantic period texts. I argue that not only were blasphemous or 'injurious' texts, due to the lack of copyright protection, those most widely read and disseminated - thus substantially shaping the Romantic reading public - they also served to enfranchise a readership. As a result, not only did the 'blasphemous' content or themes of a particular work influence the public perception of the author, the fact that such works were pirated by less 'respectable' publishers alongside pornographic or more ostensibly politically radical texts further inflected an author's reception. This was certainly the case with Shelley, who became most commonly associated with his most ostensibly antireligious poem Queen Mab. This was despite its exclusion from Mary Shelley's Posthumous Poems of Percy 8ysshe Shelley {1824}. Shelley's works are therefore considered in relation to the publishing realities and literary historical context of his age.