The Death of a Poet (and Why You Should Care)

8 July 2010 is the 188th anniversary of the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

While most people hopefully may encounter at least one of his poems (perhaps "Ozymandias") over the course of their lives, it remains a question for many adults as to why they should continue to pay attention to the work of a writer like Shelley and literature in general once they get out of school.

To this end, why should anyone in 2010 care about the death of a poet who died almost 200 years ago?

Many stories surround Shelley's death, largely due to the dramatic and exaggerated account of the poet's body being found with his brains oozing out his ears with a copy of Keats' works in his pocket in Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron by Edward James Trelawney (a figure who is nearly as interesting as the poets themselves).

To add dimension to Shelley's story, as any undergraduate level course or book on Romanticism may tell you, he authored at least two poems ["Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude" (1815) and "The Triumph of Life" (1822)] centered around a poet who ultimately meets his death in a boat.

While reading biography into literature is the downfall--and indeed great fear--of many critics, Shelley's works and his life nevertheless have an odd (and often deliberate) parallelism. Some of this biographicalness, if you will, is self-styled authorial fame-seeking (of the famous Byron portrait in Turkish garb I'm-an-exotic-artist-adventurer-way). But, some of this biography-in-literature, of course, reflects the strange irony by which life frequently imitates art.

For my own interest as a researcher, Shelley's works represent a relatively rare example of self-taught interdisciplinarity in writing. That is, he is a writer who finds unique ways to adapt ideas from other disciplines, in this case, music, into literature with no practical training but sustained exposure as a listener and reader.

To address the question I posed at the beginning, people should care and occasionally try to read a work or two by a dead writer (yes, even a dead British poet like Shelley) due to the odd, enlightening, and frankly fascinating things you can learn, even about writers (like Shakespeare) about whom you've read a million times. So, in short, read out of simple curiosity.

For instance, in March 2010, The Guardian reported that a researcher had unearthened a lost memoir by Claire Clairmont (Shelley's half sister and mother of Byron's illegitimate daughter, Allegra) that directly contradicted everything else that she had ever written about Shelley and Byron. This newly discovered memoir, written when Claire was an older lady, called Shelley a "monster," partially for his treatment of women. This "revelation" sent many scholars into a tizzy, defending Shelley and all of Claire's previous support of the poet.

For my part, I was fascinated by the continued interest in the Shelley circle and by the fact that it remains possible to read something new about them. That said, I was far from shocked by Claire's accusations, both because she was old when she wrote the document and because it is hardly surprising to learn of an act of misogyny in the 19th century.

In an age where knowledge and language have descended with purpose into ephemerality, multiplicity, and truncation, there suddenly seems room, almost inexhaustibly, for people to rediscover literature, history, philosophy, and good writing. Even while it seems as if the very fabric of language and books themselves is being unravelled. After all, aren't writers the main source of #quotes on Twitter?

The advent of electronic media obviously has created a revolution of substance in terms of archiving and preserving history and literature as well as educating people through the plethora of information now at one's fingertips.

Yet, as I'm sure others have observed, I think that we see a quieter revolution slipping in with the concept of knowledge as direct marketing. In a sense, when we Tweet, post a link, or write in a blog, we're directing people to ideas or something in a targeted fashion because we find it relevant, important, or interesting. This adds purpose to the acts of navigation and reading, among a chaos of information now available in an instant.

In this way, I find blogs, Twitter, and other information resources comforting as I observe old ideas becoming new ideas to someone as he or she reads them again or for the first time. Thus, Shelley's death has the potential to become a significant event for anyone who may not have ever had the chance to read "To a Skylark" or "Ode to the West Wind."

What do you think? Even if you've been exposed to the poetry of this era, how do you think literature remains relevant in an age of social media? Can social media actually improve learning and student learning outcomes in this way?

This is the third in a column appearing regularly about literature and my forthcoming book, Shelley and the Musico-Poetics of Romanticism.

The Problems with Soggy Manuscripts

Many debates in literary scholarship concern issues surrounding the interpretation and history of manuscripts, particularly as they inform understanding of what authors write and why they write.

This a particular problem in establishing version control and thus textual authority for literary works, particularly when different copies of the same works exist in one or multiple hands.

Happily, academics have come to consensus about some of these issues, which are frequently published in the form of established "critical editions" of literary works.

Unfortunately, as a scholar who studies the relations between Romantic-era poetry and music, manuscripts and their interpretation continues to cause problems. Indeed, rumors abound in relation to a poem by Shelley called variously "An Indian Girl's Song" or "An Indian Serenade."

Percy Bysshe Shelley died on 8 July 1822 when his boat capsized off the coast of Livorno in Italy. When his body and boat were found, several of his notebooks were also recovered, including one containing a version of the poem that begins "I arise from dreams of thee." On the back of damaged leaf containing a draft of this poem, Shelley appears to have jotted some words from the Italian aria "Ah perdona" from Mozart's opera La Clemenza di Tito. From this evidence, many biographers and scholars have concluded that Shelley intended his poem to be set to the music of this aria.

Knowing the poet's interest in music and passion for Mozart since early 1817, I find it entirely probable that Shelley did, in fact, intend for this poem to be set to this duetto from Mozart's Tito. The poem fits the music relatively well. I also argue elsewhere that he had similar intentions (though did not yet have the musical setting) for his lyrical drama "Prometheus Unbound."

Nevertheless, as a reader, critic, and music lover, I am highly interested in the assumption that leads one to the conclusion that this poem must go with Mozart's aria because the poet wrote the Italian lyrics on a page close to this draft of this poem in the manuscript. How do we know this?

The poem "I arise from dreams of thee" has a complicated manuscript history. Shelley, who famously left his first wife Harriet to run away with the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, had many semi-erotic relationships with women over the course of his life. It appears that Shelley "spontaneously" wrote several versions of this poem (with different titles) for several different women, including one written in 1819 for a young Englishwoman named Sophia Stacey, which did not include any reference to an aria by Mozart, and one written two years later for Jane Williams, who was perhaps the intended recipient of the soggy version that washed up on the shore with Shelley after his death. Since there are variances between these different versions over the course of more than a year, it has proved troublesome for scholars trying to pinpoint the "original" version of this poem and then, in turn, determine whether or not it was to be set to music.

As renowned scholars Donald Reiman, Michael O'Neill, and others have noted, it seems certain that Shelley originally wrote the poem in 1819 for Sophia Stacey after hearing her sing at a gathering of friends. In addition to the popularity of Tito on the European and British stage from 1810-1825, "Ah perdona" was a popular piece of drawing room music at time, which meant that Shelley likely knew the song well. In this way, it seems possible that he originally wrote the poem for Sophia Stacey with the intention of her singing it to this popular aria by Mozart.

Yet, again, coming to the conclusion that "I arise from dreams of thee" is meant to be set to this particular song is partially conjecture. Educated conjecture based on interpretation of primary sources, both from Shelley's own hand as well as others who knew him. But, conjecture nonetheless.

However, what interests me most about the soggy manuscript is what it may reveal about a writer's impulse to have one of his poems set to music. What did music mean to Shelley in 1819 and then in 1821? Shelley was no musician, though fell in love with music due to various experiences from late 1816 to 1817. Yet, it does not appear that he ever wrote a poem for his wife, Mary, with the intention of having it set to music, even though he wrote several for other, arguably more musically-inclined, women.

These are some of the questions I investigate in the book I'm finishing. I am a literary critic interested in maintaining a historical perspective while closely reading the works themselves. This approach, of course, necessitates interpretation, conjecture, and informed decision making based on a variety of sources, including soggy manuscripts.

And so the job of a researcher goes on....

This is the second post in a regular column appearing about art and my forthcoming book, Shelley and the Musico-Poetics of Romanticism.

For more on Shelley and opera, see--Jessica Quillin, "'An assiduous frequenter of the Italian opera': Shelley's Prometheus Unbound and the opera buffa," Romantic Circles: Praxis Series.

* Image above is from Fair Copy Manuscripts of Shelley's Poems in European and American Libraries, ed. Donald Reiman and Michael O'Neill, London: Taylor & Francis, 1997.

Essay: Confidence

I find myself musing this morning on confidence. I have just started my own consultancy and am trying to use social media (i.e. this blog, Twitter) to market my business.

This all puts me in the public sphere, inasmuch as my business is me (metonymically, for we literary nerds), which is exciting but unnerving. This makes me wonder about confidence and what it means.

A contact, to whom I am grateful for my improving fluency on social media, suggested to me that the rules of online social etiquette are more flexible, yet brutal. As many of you know, people on Twitter will eagerly follow or unfollow you at will.

Confidence, it seems, is key to navigating through the mire of the world of communications and, in turn, the world at large.

It has always perplexed me that the word “confidence” means both “self-assurance” and “trust or assurance in someone else.” (There’s that trusty dictionary again.) But, for me, the whole concept of confidence as believing in oneself has connotations of independence and self-reliance that seem antithetical to any definition that includes putting trust in other people.

All of my favorite characters from literature, history, film, and opera exude confidence, though in vastly different ways.

Take Tosca from Puccini’s opera of the same name, for instance. A textbook diva (literally, as a singer), she is fiery, complex, and determined. She acts with confidence and self-assurance. When given the chance, she stabs the evil Scarpia without thinking. Out of superstition, she then sets up a Catholic funeral around his dead body, complete with crucifix and candles. Tosca is indubitably impulsive and passionate, is she truly confident? Yes, I would argue, but she is too vulnerable to be fully self-reliant so is confident only out of trust in her love for Cavaradossi.

In literature, there are heroines of all sorts who display a common independent will, alluring and confusing men, starting wars, or, shockingly, having their own opinions about the world. However, outside of a few exceptions (the works of Ayn Rand come to mind), literature is the same as opera in resolving confidence, particularly for women, as a combination of self-awareness and trusting in other people. If your life has no external reference, literature punishes you (e.g., Narcissus, the poet in Shelley’s “Alastor”).

But, then there’s Mozart’s Don Giovanni (on whom I’m giving a lecture on 3 July at 6:30 for Ashlawn Opera, if you happen to be in Charlottesville, VA). Self-reliant, self-made, he is fearless. Even being haunted by the ghost of the Commendatore he killed doesn’t seem to bother him. Don Giovanni is confident in a defiantly self-assured way and is, of course, sent to hell for his arrogance. Yet, he does so laughing all the way, sometimes with a bikini-clad hell-babe with him (as in a Royal Opera House version I saw in 2002).

Yet, if art is for the living, what of consequences? Don Giovanni realized his own mortality and decided to live his life as his own. He was confident. He had money and no responsibilities (Leporello doesn’t count), but he also fully accepted his ultimate fate.

Didacticism aside, all I can say is that we should all be a bit more fearless and a little less superstitious in our confidence. Being part of a human network is fabulous, of course. Yet, there is some logic to striving to be a happy human first and then networking.

Confidence, then, only without apology for the self-assurance that makes you curious and moves you forward.