Shelley and Plato:

Metaphysical Formulations

Jacqueline M. Starner
English Honors Thesis
6 May 2008

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Introduction
In a letter to J. B. Pereira (September 16, 1815) Percy Bysshe Shelley highlights
his commitment to philosophical study: I have taken a house, & continue to employ
myself in the cultivation of philosophic truth (Jones Letters 431). Though Shelley
studied many philosophers, Platos philosophy influenced him greatly, which is evident
in his choice to translate Platos Ion and The Symposium (Cameron 302). Shelley was
introduced to Plato by Dr. Lind, his professor at Eton. During this time, Plato was still
regarded in schools and universities as a subversive and corrupting author (Holmes 26),
which probably heightened Shelleys interest in the philosopher. Although Shelley did
not translate The Symposium until twelve years after his introduction to Plato (Stahmer), I
believe that Shelley consciously incorporated Platos philosophy into his important works
before that time, including Alastor and Mont Blanc. Shelley not only incorporated
aspects of Platos philosophy, but he reworked Platos metaphysical ideas through his
poetry to create his own unique metaphysical view.
I have tracked Shelleys use of Platonic ideas through five of his poetic works;
these works in chronological order are Alastor, Mont Blanc, To a Sky-Lark, Adonais,
and the unfinished The Triumph of Life. Shelley also wrote many prose works, and On
Life, On Love, and A Defence of Poetry have helped to shed light upon his
metaphysical views. In both his prose and poetry, Shelley unlike his fellow Romantic
writers was drawn toward abstract language. This tendency of his is decidedly unRomantic and is rooted in Shelleys pre-occupation with philosophy. Shelley could in
fact be labeled a philosopher (though he would not approve of such a title) because
through his poetry he seeks to formulate his metaphysical beliefs.

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Shelleys choice to partake in the tradition of writing a defense of poetry, shows
his commitment to upholding poetry as a superior discipline to philosophy; however, this
conviction did not stop him from steeping himself in philosophical works. In his study of
Plato, he found a way around this contradiction by considering Plato as essentially a
poet and rejecting Platos rational formulations (Woodman 550). However, despite
his overt disapproval of philosophy, much of Shelleys work addresses the metaphysical
questions that concerned Plato, such as In what space does Truth or divinity exist? He
would have bulked at identifying himself as a philosopher, and yet his work clearly
illustrates the philosophical work he was undertaking.
A very important component of Shelleys philosophy was his conception of the
divine. By divine I do not mean a Christian patriarchal God figure or any sort of
religious belief. The divine as Shelley writes in A Defence of Poetry is the eternal, the
infinite, and the one (Norton 840). Divine is actually synonymous with a Platonic type
of Truth because both are unchanging and beyond the experiential material world. I
capitalize the word Truth throughout my analysis to signify its divinity; Truth is
inherently divine because it shares the same qualities as divinity of being eternally
present and beyond material existence. Shelleys philosophy differs importantly from
Platos in the way that Shelley constructs his idea of this Truth. Platonic Truth exists
beyond the realm of experiential existence, and while Shelley believes in an ideal
objective Truth, he situates his Truth within the phenomenological world.
In perhaps his most famous poem Mont Blanc, Shelley embodies the Truth in
the form of the mountain. This Truth he refers to as the power throughout the poem:
Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there/ The still and solemn power (127-

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8). The image of power residing within a formidable mountain which rises above the rest
of the world is Platonic because the power or Truth exists separately. Shelley describes
the truth as still and solemn because it resides above sensory experience and therefore
does not become entangled in the mechanisms which drive everyday existence.
However, though the mountain pierc[es] the infinite sky (60), Shelleys Truth is not
entirely Platonic because it resides in a form of the natural world. Mont Blanc is
reminiscent of the Platonic realm of the forms, but Mont Blancs position within the
natural world immediately makes its Truth more accessible. Shelley also emphasizes the
earthliness of the mountain by referring to it as a masculine entity; he describes the
glacier surrounding the summit: Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down/
From the ice gulphs that gird his secret throne (16-17).
In his first major work Alastor Shelley also assigns gender to the entity which
embodies the Truth. The main character, the Poet, in Alastor travels [t]o seek strange
truths in undiscovered lands and receives a vision of a veiled maiden (77). Knowledge
and truth and virtue were her theme (158), and after the departure of the vision the poet
becomes obsessed with uniting once again with this being of Truth. The poets encounter
with the maiden is very un-Platonic because he receives her wisdom through a sexual
encounter. 1In The Symposium Plato uses Socrates rejection of Alcibiades, a younger
and more beautiful man, who wishes to be Socrates lover, to illustrate the need to reject
the physical world in order to reach the Truth. Socrates rejects sexual contact because he
knows that in order to reach the Truth he must move beyond the imperfect shadows of
mortal existence.
1

Alcibiades relates the story of his rejection: I threw my arms around this really god-like and amazing
man, and lay there with him all night long[] when I got up next morning I had no more slept with
Socrates than if Id been sleeping with my father or elder brother (219c-d).

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In his 1819 essay On Life, Shelley shifts to an extremely materialist view,
seeming to reject any type of Platonic idealism. He writes, I confess that I am one of
those who am unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those philosophers, who
assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived (Reiman 476). This assertion is a direct
contradiction of Platos belief that the objects perceived in the world are only shadows of
the true forms; Shelley takes a skeptical position by stating that we cannot know anything
except that which we experience through the senses. Shelleys adopted materialism was
short-lived because of the natural draw he felt toward an idealist philosophy like Platos.
Shelley dabbled in both materialism and idealism, negotiating between the two extremes,
because each caused him uneasiness. 2He did not want to trust in a world totally
constructed by the senses, but his abhorrence of tyranny did not lend itself to idealism
either.
In A Defence of Poetry Shelley begins to really solidify his metaphysical beliefs
by creating a compromise between strict materialism and strict idealism. Shelley
describes poetrys function: it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare
the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms (Norton 847). This
statement situates divinity within the material world; however, those objects we perceive
daily are not themselves divine. Divinity is disguised beneath the mortal coverings of
earthly objects, and the poets job is to reveal this hidden divinity to humanity. Shelleys
compromise occurs in the placement of his divinity; he moves Truth from the Platonic
intelligible region into the world itself. Like the Truth of the higher Platonic realm,

Shelleys first major work was Queen Mab, which was a political poem, and in my work I am consciously
overlooking the political strand in Shelleys poetry because I feel that his works, which are not overtly
political, address his metaphysical beliefs to a greater extent. The works within this strand include but are
not limited to The Revolt of Islam, The Mask of Anarchy, and Hellas.

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Shelleys divinity exists eternally, and the poet simply recognizes the existence of such
Truth.
Introduction of Criticism
The critics whom I have incorporated into my analysis, situated Shelleys
Platonism as a central factor in their essays. These critics belong to a school of thought
that is not without powerful opposition. In the opening paragraph of his essay Shelleys
Platonism in A Defence of Poetry, Tracy Ware acknowledges the opposition: Two
prominent Shelley critics, Earl R. Wasserman and Harold Bloom, in emphasizing
Shelleys artistic and intellectual consistency, have explicitly denied the relevance of
Plato for a proper study of his poetry and prose (549). Ware affirms his belief in the
relevance of Plato by stating that
[w]hile these two critics agree in their opposition to the consideration of
Platonism, that agreement obscures a long tradition in Shelley criticism, a
tradition that has amassed a great deal of evidence to substantiate the claim that
Shelley was profoundly influenced by Plato (549).
The latter school of thought, which regards Shelleys Platonism as critical to an
understanding his work, is the one to which I also belong. Shelleys Platonism is
essential to a study of his work because Plato provides the foundation from which Shelley
developed his metaphysical beliefs. Of all the philosophers whom Shelley read, Plato is
the only whom he chose to translate, and the intense work of translation very probably
caused Platos metaphysical beliefs to become embedded in Shelleys own psyche. Even
if Shelley did not consciously incorporate Platos ideas, although at times he definitely
did, Platos ideas were part of Shelleys consciousness. Though the ways in which
Shelley agreed with Plato are interesting to note, Shelleys divergences from Plato are far
more interesting because these instances mark the points at which Shelley embarked on

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his own metaphysical formulations. Shelley like Christ in Paradise Regaind figures out
what he is by recognizing what he is not. He absolutely cannot support Platos refutation
of poetry, and this causes Shelley to formulate the reasons why he believes poetry
benefits humanity. As a self-proclaimed atheist, Shelley was unwilling and unable to
conform to philosophical doctrines; instead, his thinking was centered around the
formulation of a metaphysical view to which he could subscribe.
Ross G. Woodman in his essay Shelleys Changing Attitude to Plato addresses
the most obvious problem of Shelleys affiliation with Plato, which was as mentioned
previously that Plato excluded poets from his ideal Republic. Woodman describes
Platos attitude toward poetry as ambiguous because the poet on the one hand, is
divinely inspired; poetry, on the other, is twice-removed from Reality. Woodman goes
on to explain that Plato believed poets had no place within an ideal society because
[w]hile the poet may have attained the object of knowledge in a state of supernatural
possession, he can offer no more than a fictitious account of it which, when accepted as
truth, breeds dogmatism and credulity (497). Tracy Ware in his essay Shelleys
Platonism in A Defence of Poetry, written twenty-three years after Woodmans essay,
also acknowledges the irony of Shelleys use of Platonic ideas in his poetry, but he states
that Plato stresses the connection between the divine intuitions of the imagination and
poetry, the medium in which these intuitions find their finest expression. Platos deepest
influence on Shelley was as support for these divine intuitions (550). Ware explains that
Platos belief in the divine inspiration of poets influenced Shelleys view of poetry as an
expression of the divine.

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Both Woodman and Ware discuss the ways in which Shelley addressed Platos
conviction of the failure of poetry. Woodman believes that Shelleys objective through
poetry is to continuously recreate the archetypal vision (508); the particulars of this
vision as defined by Woodman will be discussed later. The second way in which
Woodman describes Shelley escaping Platonic doubt of poetry is by moving beyond
imagery altogether (510). In The Triumph of Life, Woodman argues, Shelley presents
Rousseau as a poet who has fallen victim [to] his own vision (508). Woodman writes,
Rousseau offers the poet a choice between being caught in the snare of his own image
world or rejecting it (508). Through Rousseau Woodman believes that Shelley rejects
the image world of poetry: [the poets] who drew/ New figures on its false and fragile
glass (243-248 qtd in Woodman 509). In Adonais Woodman explains that Shelley
moves beyond the false world of images because [t]he meaning of the poem resides
ultimately outside of the poem, and is arrived at [] through dialectic pressing both the
poet and audience beyond imagery altogether (510).
Wares explanation of how Shelley rectifies Platos view of poetry with his own
is more convincing than Woodmans. Ware writes, Shelley adapts Platos mirror image,
discriminating between two types of mimesis (558). Plato views poetry as an art which
merely reflects phenomena, but Shelley redefines poetry as a corrective mirror,
adjusting the phenomena according to the poets imagination of their highest potential
(558). This explanation is less vague than Woodmans arguments of archetypal image
or dialectic which are not as clearly supported with textual evidence. Ware explains
that Shelley believes that the poet uses the imaginative faculty to transform
phenomenological objects: universe is modified by the inward sight, or the

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imagination, of the artist (557). This phenomenon then logically causes divinity to be
located within the psyche for Shelley (554), instead of in a Platonic ideal region.
Joseph E. Baker in Shelleys Platonic Answer to a Platonic Attack on Poetry
(1965) also attributes significance to Shelleys conception of the imagination:
Imagination does not merely create. What it perceives is real. Shelley carries this line
of thought farther than most Platonists would. According to him, there is a truth of
imagery (27). While Woodman argues that Shelley moves beyond imagery, Baker
claims that Shelley attaches a very non-Platonic importance to imagery. Imagery in fact
can be observed and recreated as an expression of truth.
The most modern evaluation of Shelleys Platonism comes from Tim Milnes
article Centre and Circumference: Shelleys Defence of Philosophy (2004). Milnes
assumes a dualistic view of Shelleys relationship to Platonism: like many modern
ordinary language philosophers [Shelley] maintained a patient indifference or doublemindedness concerning the relation between the fixed centre of knowledge and an
impermanent circumference of experience (5). The terms centre and circumference
Milnes draws from Shelleys essay On Life in which Shelley writes, Each is at once
the centre and circumference; the point to which all things are referred, and the line in
which all things are contained (The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley vol. 6 194195 qtd in Milnes 3). Centre Milnes associates with a Platonic centered view of
knowledge and circumference with transitory, phenomenological experience. Milnes
argues that Shelley mediated between these opposing views: Shelleys interrogation of
knowledge never led him to reject outright the key assumptions underpinning

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empiricism (5). Shelley continued to seek a Platonic type of ultimate truth, while never
devaluing the impressions and images of experience.
The critics mentioned all discuss the ways in which Shelley negotiated Platos
philosophy, accepting some doctrines and rejecting others as served his needs. One
instance I noted of Shelleys agreement with Plato occurs in A Defence of Poetry (A
Defence), when Shelley describes poetic inspiration as transitory: the mind in creation is
as a fading coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to
transitory brightness (Norton 846). This passage echoes Woodmans description of
Platos view of poetry which is that while the poet may have experienced the divine, once
he begins to compose he is already out of contact with it. Plato and Shelley also situate
the divine differently in relationship to the mortal world: Plato believes that in order for a
poet to create he must come in contact with the objects of truth in the intelligible region,
while Shelleys description of poetic inspiration does not include this stipulation. Shelley
writes in A Defence that this power [the invisible influence] arises from within, like the
colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions
of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure (846). 3Poetic
inspiration to both Plato and Shelley is a result of the divine acting upon the mortal, but
Plato situates the divine as existing firmly outside of the poet, while Shelley describes the
divine as something already existing within the poet.
The idea about which Plato and Shelley hold radically different views concerns
their opinions about the products of poetic inspiration, poetry itself. As Woodman
mentions, Plato believes that poets were twice removed from reality; the reasoning to
3

Shelley adopts an egalitarian view of divinity, which agrees with his political beliefs. Divinity is not only
located in all earthly objects but within human beings as well. The poet possesses the unique power of
recognizing the existence of this divinity of which most people are unaware.

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support this conclusion stems from Platos view of poetry as mimetic of the physical
world. If poets recreate the physical world, which is already a shadow of true reality,
then it follows that the products of their creation will naturally be shadows of shadows or
two levels removed from the Truth. Even those poets who have experienced the truth can
only produce a probable account of the experience (Woodman 497). Plato views this
probable account as potentially dangerous because one could mistake it for the actual
Truth. Woodman uses an excerpt from Shelleys Notes to Queen Mab to illustrate
Shelleys agreement with Platos doctrine:
It is probable that the word God was originally only an expression denoting the
unknown cause of the known events which men perceive [] By the vulgar
mistake of a metaphor for a real being, of a word for a thing, it became a man,
endowed with human qualities (qtd in 508).
Woodman explains that what Shelley describes as the vulgar mistake of mistaking a
metaphor for a real thing is the basis of Platos rejection of mythopoeic poets from his
Republic (508). However, Shelley offers a solution to the inherent problems Plato
identifies in poetry. According to Woodman, this solution lay in the perpetual
recreation of the archetypal vision (508).
After stating what he believes to be Shelleys answer to Plato, Woodman does not
explain how Shelley recreates this archetypal vision through his poetry. Woodman does,
however, provide a description of the archetypal vision which offers some insight into the
work Shelley was trying to accomplish through poetry:
This vision has its source in the poets response to the world about him. With
time, the vision becomes separated from its source in the invisible nature of man
and takes on an independent existence of its own. Poetic vision thereby
degenerates into dogma [] To recreate the archetypal vision is, then, to restore it
to its source in man where it is renewed by the poet (508).

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This description of the vision produced by poetic inspiration reflects Shelleys affiliation
with the Romantic school of thought; Shelley derived his answers to larger metaphysical
questions by examining the world around him. As he states in the opening lines of Mont
Blanc, The everlasting universe of things/ Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid
waves,/ Now darknow glitteringnow reflecting gloom (1-3). Shelley in looking to
the physical world for guidance differs from Plato who believed the shadows of this
world could only mislead. Woodmans description of the vision becoming disconnected
from its source in the human mind and taking on an existence of its own, reflects both
Platos and Shelleys fears about the possible misunderstanding of poetry.
One poem which no critics have analyzed through a Platonic lens is Shelleys
early poem Alastor. I noticed that in Alastor Shelley presents Woodmans description of
the archetypal vision through the Poets creation of the veiled maid(151). This maid
visits the Poet in a vision and represents his own poetic vision as she possesses a voice
[] like the voice of his own soul (153). After this visitation, the Poets only aim
becomes his reunification with the vision, and his quest causes his descen[t] to an
untimely grave (Preface). The Poet is driven to his demise by his unfortunate belief that
the maid, whose origin is within his imagination, exists outside of his mind. In order to
prevent readers and poets alike from falling victim to imaginative creations, Shelley must
strive to present a true description of the Truth of his experience in his verse. If Shelley
can present to the reader an accurate description of the truth, then the danger of probable
accounts becoming dogma is erased.
Shelley in even attempting to recreate the archetypal vision through his poetry
differs from Plato who believed the intelligible region was beyond description.

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Woodman quotes a passage from Platos Seventh Epistle : I certainly have composed no
work in regard to it, nor shall I ever do so in the future, for there is no way of putting it
into words like other studies (341C-341D qtd in 507). According to Woodman,
Shelleys objective in his poetry is to accomplish the very task Plato deems impossible.
Another way in which Shelley avoids the risks of poetry, which Woodman does
not consider, is through his redefinition of the role of poets within society. In his essay
Shelleys Platonism in A Defence of Poetry, Ware outlines Platos stance on poetry as
expressed by Socrates in the Republic; Socrates mocks the artist by comparing his
creations to the reflections in a mirror (557). As discussed earlier, Ware explains how
Shelley conceives of poetrys function differently than Plato. Ware cites a passage from
A Defence to show how Shelley changes Socrates mirror image to work in favor of the
poet: A story of particular facts is a mirror which obscures and distorts that which
should be beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted
(p.281 qtd in 558). Shelleys redefinition of poetry causes his poet to function as the
philosopher kings do in Platos Republic. The philosopher kings are those who are meant
to rule because they have experienced the intelligible region. Instead of remaining within
that realm of truth, they must return to earth because of their responsibility to instruct
humanity about how to reach that Truth. Shelleys definition of the poet has evolved
from Platos simplification of the poet as a facilitator of mimesis to a definition which
classifies the poet as something encompassing both the roles of artist and philosopher.

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Chapter 1: The Predominance of Fire in Alastor
Shelleys second major poem Alastor has not assumed a prominent place within
Shelley criticism because of what have been interpreted by critics as its inconsistencies.
By re-interpreting this poem through the lens of Shelleys Platonism, which has not
previously been done, I was able to make sense of the confusing status of the vision
maiden. This maiden whom the Poet gives birth to through his mind seems to have an
ambiguous relationship with the Poet because she imparts knowledge to him and then
immediately disappears. I believe the visions ephemeral nature is caused by Shelleys
own anxieties over both materialist and idealist doctrines. Shelley provides the Poet with
a form of Truth outside of the material world, which then causes the Poets demise,
because the Poets devotion to the idealist vision causes him to lose touch with the
material world. The entire poem is in fact an allegory for Shelleys confusion over his
metaphysical views.
I have compared Alastor with Platos Allegory of the Cave because both works
are the expressions of their authors metaphysical views. But Shelleys formulations of
his own views were in reaction to Platos idealism. For example, the attention Shelley
pays to different forms of light in Alastor is reminiscent of the way Plato differentiates
between the fire and the sun in the Allegory. I have also included a comparison of
Alastor to sections of The Symposium because without this comparison the objective of
the Poets journey remains mysterious. Aristophanes speech sheds light upon the Poets
wanderings after his encounter with the vision. If Shelleys poem is not interpreted
through its connections with Platos dialogues, then it loses the important meanings
which are only understood through such a comparison

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In order to facilitate such a comparison, I will first begin with an overview of
Platos Allegory of the Cave. In Platos Allegory, the character Adeimantus explains to
his brother Glaucon the nature of reality using the example of the cave. The men in the
cave, who have been prisoners there since they were children, cannot see the figures of
people passing on the road above the cave but can only see shadows because their legs
and necks [are] so fastened that they cannot turn their heads (Plato 514b). The shadows
of the figures are created by a fire burning behind the road that runs in front of the
opening of the cave. Later in the dialogue Adeimantus explains what the fire and cave
are meant to represent: The realm revealed by sight corresponds to the prison, and the
light of the fire in the prison to the power of the sun. And you wont go wrong if you
connect the ascent into the upper world and the sight of the objects there with the upward
progress of the mind into the intelligible region (517b). The fire in the allegory provides
light as the sun does, which allows us to view our surroundings; however, the things we
can view by the light of the sun are like the shadows in the cave because we cannot see
the true nature of things in the visible region. In Alastor, as I will demonstrate in my
paper, fire functions differently as a symbol than in the Allegory of the Cave. In Platos
Allegory fire represents a shadow of the Truth, while in Alastor the maid of the Poets
vision, who embodies Truth, possesses fire, making fire symbolize not a shadow but the
truth itself. However, the Truth embodied by the vision is a different Truth than the
ultimate Truth in Platos dialogues because the visions Truth concerns love. Ultimately,
the Poet, who already possesses that which Plato deems the highest type of knowledge,
learns that there is a greater knowledge which can only be attained through spiritual
communion with a partner.

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The Poet in Alastor is immediately cast as different from the prisoners of the
cave. While the prisoners believe that the shadows of the objects [are] the whole
truth (515c), the Poet is described as having knowledge:
[] Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
The fountains of divine philosophy
Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great
Or good, or lovely, which sacred past
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
And knew. When early youth had past, he left
His cold fireside and alienated home
To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
(Norton 68-77)
Shelleys vocabulary in this passage echoes the Platonic vocabulary. He writes that the
Poet knew good things. In the Allegory, Plato explains that the final thing to be
perceived in the intelligible region, and perceived only with difficulty, is the form of the
good (517b-c). The one who glimpses the form of the good has seen the ultimate truth
because in the intelligible region itself [the form of the good] is the controlling source of
truth and intelligence (517c). The intelligible region which Adeimantus mentions is the
realm above the earthly, and this intelligible region contains the forms of which the
things on earth are merely shadows. By writing all of great/Or good/or lovely [] he
felt/And knew, Shelley implies that the Poet has glimpsed the form of the good.
Shelleys use of the word knew especially casts the Poet as someone with access to the
Truth because Plato differentiates between having right opinions and having
knowledge.
In The Symposium, Socrates recalls a dialogue with the priestess Diotima in which
she explains the nature of knowledge: Diotima asks, Havent you realized that theres

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something between wisdom and ignorance? Socrates replies, What is it? to which
Diotima answers, Its having right opinions without being able to give reasons for
having them. Dont you realize that this isnt knowing, because you dont have
knowledge unless you can give reasons (Gill 202a). Not all people who have not gained
access to the forms are ignorant; these people have limited access to the Truth which
allows them to have right opinions without having knowledge of the ultimate Truth.
In his poem Alastor, Shelley is working through his views about the relationship
of the Truth to the material world. He differs importantly from Plato because he does not
consider the senses or material existence to be completely devoid of Truth. In the
Allegory, Plato uses the prison of the cave to represent the realm revealed by sight
(517b). By realm revealed by sight Plato means earthly existence, so that all the things
perceived through sight are only shadows like those in the cave. Shelley rejects this idea
of Platos that material, earthly existence can only contain shadows of the divine because
he writes that the Poet receives impulses from [e]very sight/And sound from the vast
earth and ambient air (68-9). The external earthly environment grants the Poet access to
the fountains of divine philosophy or in other words knowledge of the good. Shelleys
rejection of the Platonic idea that earthly things are only shadows of the truth reflects
Shelleys belief in the power of nature. Through his preoccupation with objects within
nature not only in Alastor but also Mont Blanc, Shelley is exploring the ways in which
the external environment can embody metaphysical truths.
The invocation with which Shelley begins the poem before telling the story of the
Poet proves his ultimately unshakable, though sometimes questioned, belief in the power
of nature, which aligns him with the larger school of Romantic poetry. The first stanza of

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the invocation is addressed to the Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood! (1). Shelley
recounts the offerings of nature: sunset and its gorgeous ministers (6), autumns
hollow sighs in the sere wood (8), springs voluptuous pantings when she breathes/ Her
first sweet kisses (11-12), bright bird, insect, or gentle beast (13). After listing those
things in nature that have inspired him, he asks forgiveness from the elements: forgive/
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw/ No portion of your wonted favour now!
(15-17). The boast is the poem to follow about a Poet who initially rejects nature in
search of truth.
Though Shelley attributes the Poets untimely death to his self-centered
seclusion in the Preface (746), the Poets lack of appreciation for the natural world
might also have contributed to his demise. As the Poet wanders in search of his vision,
he is carried within a small boat to a beautiful and secluded cove. The boughs of the
trees weave together: The oak,/ Expanding its immense and knotty arms,/ Embraces the
light beech (431-433); so that the woven leaves/ Make net-work of the dark blue light
of day (445-446). However, this naturally sublime scene brings the Poet no solace
because he remains self-centered. The first image Shelley describes the Poet as noticing
is his own reflection: His eyes beheld/ Their own wan light [] distinct in the dark
depth/ Of that still fountain (469-472). Nature fails to revive him because in his singleminded quest to reunite with the maiden he fails to notice natures beauty. In the
invocation, Shelley reveals his fear of nature, which both giveth and taketh away, when
he asks the elements to continue reaping their bounty upon him, though he will tell the
story of one who did not appreciate their gifts.

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In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato does not value the natural world because of
course the aim of the Allegory is to exhibit the fallacy of nature. Platos character
Adeimantus, who relates the story, differentiates between the natural world and the
heavenly realm through the example of two different types of light, which are the light of
the fire, rooted in the natural world, and the divine light of the sun. The first light that
Adeimantus presents is that of the fire, which draws the prisoners from the cave: the
prisoner is suddenly compelled to stand up and turn his head and look and walk towards
the fire (515c). The light of the fire is less intense than that of the sun, and Adeimantus
relates that the thing [the prisoner] would be able to do last would be to look directly at
the sun itself (516b). Becoming accustomed to the light of the fire is the prisoners first
step in preparing himself to experience the intensity of the sun.
Shelley also creates a hierarchy of fire within his poem, according to the levels of
their intensity. Shelleys first mention of light is of the Poets cold fireside (76), and
this fireside which the Poet leaves to seek strange truths is comparable to the fire
burning at the entrance of the cave in the Allegory (77). The fire presented as more
intense than that of the Poets cold fireside is that of the Poets vision maiden: Soon
the solemn mood/ Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame/ A permeating fire
(161-163). Shelleys description of the maids fire as permeating, consuming all her
frame and threatening to overthrow its bounds, casts it as more intense than the Poets
contained cold fireside. Shelleys also describes of the maids light as warm (175),
which also emphasizes its intensity as compared to the Poets cold fireside. When this
hierarchy of fire is compared to the hierarchy of light within the Allegory, the Poets
cold fireside corresponds to the fire outside of the cave which is only a shadow of the

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sun, while the visions fire corresponds to the light of the sun. Within the Allegory the
light of the sun represents the ultimate Truth, and Shelley also describes the maids fire as
deriving from Truth because its source is the solemn mood/ Of her pure mind.
Shelley illustrates the vision as embodying Truth through his description of her
speech to the Poet: [k]nowledge and truth and virtue were her theme/ And lofty hopes of
divine liberty (158-9). Like the Poet, Shelley describes the maid as having
knowledge, which in Platonism entails having seen the forms. In Platos dialogues, the
words truth and divine are also associated with the intelligible region; however, in
creating a symbol of Truth whose source of light is a flame and not the sun Shelley
radically departs from the symbolic meanings of light in the Allegory of the Cave. Plato
associates Truth with the light of the sun and shadows with the light of the fire; therefore,
if Shelleys maid were to correspond with the symbolic structure of the Allegory then her
source of light would necessarily be the sun. Shelley perhaps associates the flame with
the Truth of the vision because she does not bring Truth to a being who is devoid of it
like the prisoners of the cave. The Poet already possesses access to the divine; therefore,
the visions flame imparts something different to him than the Truth which the light of
the sun reveals on the prisoners of the cave. Shelleys choice of fire as a symbol of truth
also reflects his belief in the power of nature. While Plato chose the sun, which exists
above the earth, Shelley chose an element which exists upon the earth.
The very embodiment of truth within a feminine figure is an even more radical
departure of Shelleys from Plato. Plato believed the divine itself was beyond
description, as Woodman illustrates using Platos Seventh Epistle: I certainly have
composed no work in regard to it, nor shall I ever do so in the future, for there is no way

21
of putting it into words like other studies (341C-341D qtd in 507). Shelley not only
attempts to describe the divine but also embodies it not only within a figure but a
feminine figure! As Shelley notes in his A Discourse on the Manners of the Antient
Greeks Relative to the Subject of Love, which served as the introduction to his
translation of The Symposium, entitled The Banquet, the women of ancient Greece
possessed, except with extraordinary exceptions, the habits and qualities of slaves
(Notopoulos 408). 4Plato would never choose as Shelley does to inscribe the divine onto
a mortal body because the objects of material existence are only shadows like those on
the wall of the cave. Plato would especially not choose a female body because of the
standard interpretation during his time of women as naturally closer to the earth and
therefore farther than men from the divine.
The Poets sexual interactions with the female vision would also not have been
sanctioned by Plato. In his speech in The Symposium, Pausanias makes the famous
differentiation between the two types of love: Uranian or Heavenly love and Pandemic or
Common love (Gill 180d-e). Common love, he says, is the kind of love that inferior
people feel. People like this are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather
than minds (181b). Pausanias clearly pairs women with the body and men with the
mind; therefore, loving a woman is no more than loving a body, while in order to love a
mind one must love a man. Pausanias description of Heavenly love further degrades the
status of women: The other love derives from the Heavenly goddess, who has nothing of
the female in her but only maleness; so this love is directed at boys (181c). Though
Pausanias identifies a goddess as the origin of Heavenly love, he qualifies the term by

The vision is of course not mortal, but Shelley presents her as resembling a mortal feminine figure. The
form which she assumes to visit the Poet is similar to mortal body, though her nature is divine.

22
defining this goddess as completely male. Having a goddess as the origin of a higher
form of love which can only be directed at males would have presented a problem had
Pausanias not redefined the term goddess.
Shelley completely rejects Platos belief in the natural inferiority of women by
positioning a female figure importantly within the poem and having her impart
knowledge to the Poet through a sexual act. The Poets experience with the vision
culminates in this sexual embrace: He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled/ His
gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet/ Her panting bosom (Norton 182-184). The
Poets love is not Common, though it is directed toward a female figure, and the physical
way in which the Poet and vision express their mutual love is not in accordance with
Platonic beliefs regarding love. Pausanias says of the goddess of Heavenly love that she
is also older, and so avoids abusive violence (181c). 5By abusive violence he means
penetration as would be done with a woman; the sexual act between men and boys does
not include this violence. Shelley rejects Platos belief that the physical act of love
between a man and woman cannot be divine by making this very act the means through
which the Poet receives knowledge from the vision.
While the maiden could be interpreted as a figure existing outside of the Poet,
there is also evidence within the poem to suggest that she is an aspect of the Poet himself.
Shelleys description of the maids voice as like the voice of [the Poets] own soul
provides the strongest evidence for this interpretation (153). Frederick L. Jones in his
essay The Inconsistency of Shelleys Alastor agrees that the veiled maid is [] an
ideal combination of all the loveliest and truest elements in the Poets vast knowledge

In her lectures concerning ancient Greek customs, Dr. Sistare explains that men would only use the
external surfaces of boys bodies for sexual acts.

23
(296). In the Preface to the poem, Shelley also describes the vision as an outward
manifestation of the Poet: He imagines to himself the Being whom he loves.
Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in
which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful, or wise, or beautiful,
which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover could depicture (Norton 746). Shelleys
description of the vision in his Preface also supports the interpretation of the vision as the
embodiment of Truth because if the Poet is [c]onversant with speculations of the
sublimest and most perfect natures or in other words has access to the divine, then it
follows that the outward manifestation of his mind would itself be divine. If the Poet
already possesses knowledge, then he creates the vision not to gain knowledge but
because [h]is mind awakened and thirst[ed] for intercourse with an intelligence similar
to itself (Preface pg. 746). As stated previously, the vision grants the Poet something
different than the knowledge which the sun imparts to the prisoners in the Allegory of the
Cave, and an understanding of the purpose of the vision may lie in Platos dialogue The
Symposium.
Though Shelley states that the Poet seek[s] strange truths (77), the quest of the
Poet seems to be the pursuit of wholeness described by Aristophanes in The
Symposium (Gill 193a). Though Plato ultimately rejects the importance Aristophanes
places on unity, Shelley rejects Platos rational formulations (Woodman 550). By
regarding Platos dialogues as poetry, Shelley interpreted them in his own way, which
was not necessarily the way Plato designed them to be understood. In The Symposium,
Aristophanes explains using a fantastical tale why human beings desire to share love with
another person. He claims that human beings in earlier times had four hands and the

24
same number of legs, and two identical faces on a circular neck (Gill 189e-190a).
These, what would now be considered double humans, were cut in half by Zeus to
prevent them from becoming too powerful and overthrowing the gods (190d).
Aristophanes main point is that each halved human longed for its own other half
(191a), and the vision in Alastor seems to function as the Poets other half.
While Shelley describes the vision as a manifestation of the Poet, an
inconsistency with this conception can be seen through the Poets reaction to the visions
departure. Through intercourse with the Poet the vision passes her flame to him, and this
flame serves as the force which drives the Poet to his early demise. Shelley describes the
wandering of the Poet which follows his experience of the vision: Day after day, a
weary waste of hours,/Bearing within his life the brooding care/That ever fed on its
decaying flame (245-7). As the Poet wanders searching to reunite with his vision, the
flame which she instilled in him consumes him; however, it does not follow logically
from an interpretation of the vision as a manifestation of the Poet that the power of the
vision, symbolized by the flame, could consume him. If the visions power derives from
the Poets mind, then her power could not be too much for him to bear because her power
and his would be equivalent.
Even after describing the vision as imagined by the Poet in the Preface, Shelley
complicates the role of the vision: The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the
functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding
powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions, and
attaching them to a single image (Preface 746). This passage occurs soon after
Shelleys previous statement that the Poets mind thirsts for intercourse with an

25
intelligence similar to itself; however, the being whom the Poet imagines is not only
similar to himself but surpasses him because the Poet instills in her all that is beautiful
and perfect within the world (this beauty and perfection surpasses that possessed by the
Poet). Shelleys description of the flame of the vision within the poem illustrates the
point at which the vision takes on a life of its own separate from the Poet: Soon the
solemn mood/ Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame/ A permeating fire: wild
numbers then/ She raised (161-164). The mind which produces the flame is her pure
mind and not the Poets. The vision, like the flame, which will soon surpass the
boundaries of her shape, is surpassing the boundaries of the Poets mind. Once she
begins to compose her own verse, wild numbers, she has become her own entity. The
sexual intercourse between Poet and vision which follows only becomes possible after
the two are completely separated.
Though the Poets experience with the vision culminates in a sexual embrace,
their intercourse begins with a deep mental embrace that like the vision takes on a life of
its own. Before describing the physical interaction between the vision and Poet, Shelley
describes the mental one:
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
His inmost sense suspended in its web
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues (153-157).
The Poet is hypnotized by the voice of the vision, which echoes and then surpasses all
that is greatest within his mind. Shelley translates the purely mental interaction into a
visceral experience through his imagery. The interaction beginning within the Poets
mind takes on a psychedelic quality [o]f many coloured woof and shifting hues, and as

26
the imagery becomes more intense the vision begins to take on actual physical qualities.
The power of her voice progresses from spoken words to musical imitations of nature,
music long,/ Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, until it can be seen and felt by
the Poet. The imagery Shelley uses to illustrate the development of the vision is of
weaving. The strands of her words weave together to form the complex sounds of
streams and breezes, and the strands of this music which are twice as powerful as her
words alone form a web which holds the Poets inmost sense suspended, though she
is not yet powerful enough to physically hold the Poet. The moment at which the mental
embrace becomes a physical one is when the power of her pure mind kindled through all
her frame/ A permeating fire (161-162). She literally bursts into physical existence
through the combustion of her woven power which has become too powerful to remain a
metaphysical entity.
After the vision becomes a physical entity separate from the Poet, the force of the
visions fire, which she implants within the Poet, drives him forward in the same way that
the prisoners of the cave are drawn from the darkness by the fire outside of the cave.
Plato hypothesizes in his dialogue what would happen if one of [the prisoners] were let
loose, and suddenly compelled to stand up and turn his head and look and walk towards
the fire (515c). If the prisoners could turn their heads, they would be drawn out of the
cave by the light of the fire. The Poets vision causes him to move into an unfamiliar
realm just as the prisoners who venture outside of the cave toward the fire. Before the
vision the Poet could only look straight ahead like the prisoners because he had
knowledge but not the higher form of knowledge granted to him by the vision. Unlike
the prisoners who are dealing only with shadows of the Truth, the Poet has access to the

27
divine, and yet the vision accords him a higher Truth than that embodied by the sun in the
Allegory.
Once he glimpses the vision, the Poet is compelled to unite eternally with the
Truth of the vision; however, his quest is doomed from the start. Shelley writes in the
Preface, He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by disappointment,
he descends to an untimely grave (Norton 746), explaining the inevitability of the Poets
death by the end of the poem. The vision, who is born from his mind but takes on a life
of her own much like the figure of Sin in Paradise Lost, cannot be found anywhere else
within nature, though the Poet searches far and wide. She is inimitable and like Platos
intelligible region exists outside of the material world. Her only contact with the material
world is through the Poet, who like Platos philosopher kings, accesses the divine while
still existing within the mortal realm.
The Truth of the vision, which in Alastor ranks above the realm of the forms, is
Shelleys addition to Platos theory of the forms. Based on the relationship between the
Poet and his vision, the Truth of the vision seems to relate to the need for shared love in
grasping the true nature of reality. The second paragraph of Shelleys Preface to the
poem mentions the need for love: Among those who attempt to exist without human
sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish through the intensity and passion of their
search after its communities, when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes itself felt.
This statement echoes Aristophanes definition of love, which states that love is the
name for the desire and pursuit of wholeness (The Symposium 193a). The impetus for
the Poets journey is not to find Truth because he has already attained knowledge, but to
fill the vacancy of his spirit with the half from which he has been separated.

28
As he wanders the Poet encounters a swan and as the bird flies away he addresses
it:
Thou hast a home,
Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,
Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck
With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes
Bright in lustre of their own fond joy (280-284)
He wishes to reunite with his mate as he imagines the bird will do upon return to its nest.
Interestingly, he only describes the physical embrace between the two birds, but this
physical embrace is only the superficial evidence of the link between the mates. As the
swan in the nest welcomes the wandering bird home, she does so with her eyes, which
radiate with the light of her joy at seeing her mate. This light echoes the light shining
from the Poets eyes, except the light from the Poets eyes is quickly consuming him
because it finds no reflection in the eyes of another. The light shining from the swans
eyes as she looks into the eyes of her mate is not a consuming fire like the one raging
within the Poet, but a calm, controlled light which seems like the light which would shine
in Platos intelligible region. The light of the intelligible region does not fluctuate as the
ever-growing fire shining from the Poets eyes, but remains constantly bright like the
light from the eyes of the swan who is united with her other half. Only the reflection of
the Poets fire in the flame of the vision can tame the Poets flame and translate it into the
calm bright light of Truth; a Truth reached only by uniting with his other half.
After the Poet experiences the vision, the flame the vision implants within the
Poet consumes him because like the prisoner who first glimpses the fire the Poet is so
dazzled by the glare of [the light] that he cannot see (Plato 516a). When the prisoners of
the cave first come out of the darkness, the light of the fire causes them to not be able to

29
see a single one of the things of which only shadows are reflected in the cave (516a).
By moving in too direct a path toward Truth, the prisoners are completely blinded; they
can see even less than the shadows viewed within the cave. In The Symposium Plato
presents Diotimas ladder as a gradual and therefore safer way of apprehending the Truth.
If a person prepares himself gradually for experiencing the full light of Truth, then he will
not be blinded by its brightness as the prisoners of the cave are when they look
immediately at the fire. The Poet too is temporarily blinded by the brightness of the
vision; Shelley describes the Poet after the visions departure: Now blackness veiled his
dizzy eyes, and night/ Involved and swallowed up the vision (188-9). By not preparing
properly for his encounter with the dazzling light of truth, the Poet suffers from the
encounter.
Though the Poet regains his sight, he does not completely recover because the
visions fire remains within him sho[wing]/ As in a furnace burning secretly/ From his
dark eyes alone (252-4). The fire of the visions truth continues to affect the Poets
sight, and the result is that he becomes blinded to all of nature. The Poet finds himself
surrounded by sublime imagery, and yet he sees nothing because he can only apprehend
those things which reflect the vision he carries within his mind. As he addresses the
parting swan, the Poet acknowledges that he can find no match for his thoughts within his
external environment. He asks the swan,
And what am I that I should linger here,
With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,
Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned
To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers
In deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
That echoes not my thoughts? (285-290).

30
The Poet believes his power to apprehend beauty is wasted on the earth; he even belittles
the animal which he is addressing. He asserts his superiority over the bird, while
recognizing that the bird lives happily united with its other half. He cannot comprehend
why an inferior being has attained the communion with another that eludes him; what he
fails to recognize is that the birds entrenchment within nature has allowed it to achieve
fulfillment.
Finding no reflections of his interior life, which revolves around the vision, within
nature causes the Poet to feel alienated from nature. This alienation stems from his
intense experience with the divine through the vision for which he was not sufficiently
prepared. Plato writes in the Allegory that the prisoner made to look directly at the light
of the fire, [] would hurt his eyes and he would turn back and retreat to the things he
could see properly (515d); however, the Poet, unlike the prisoners does not retreat. He
stumbles blindly on after the fire of the vision, and his blindness to everything but his
quest causes the fire to consume him.
Another interesting complication which Shelley applies to Platos metaphor of the
sun as Truth is that he describes the sun in Alastor as a less intense light. The sun,
described as cold white light of morning (Norton 193), grants the Poet sight after the
radiance of the vision blinds him. The other light described earlier as cold within the
poem is the Poets cold fireside (76). In both cases cold is used to signify a lack of
intensity when juxtaposed against the warm light of the vision (175). If the fireside is
interpreted as cold because it is a shadow of the vision, then the sun with its cold
white light is also merely a shadow. In Platos Allegory, the sun represents the ultimate
truth. This is Shelleys manipulation of the symbolic status of the sun which indicates his

31
shifting views within the poem about the status of nature. He places Truth not within an
object of the universe, whose presence is always felt upon the earth, but places Truth
instead in a being located outside of material existence. By reversing the hierarchy of
types of light in the Allegory and making the sun a shadow of the fire of the vision,
Shelley makes fire becomes the dominant symbol in Alastor. Shelley uses fire as his
symbol of ultimate Truth because his ultimate Truth is different than that which Plato
symbolizes using the sun. Shelleys main character in Alastor discovers that Truth can
only be reached by uniting with a kindred spirit, a soul like that of his vision which both
reflects and enriches the soul which it augments.

32
Chapter 2: Shelleys Negotiations between Skepticism and Idealism
The vision in Alastor is the first of many instances in Shelleys poetry and prose
in which Shelleys negotiations between the competing ideologies of skepticism and
idealism become apparent. The vision is an anthropomorphic representation of Shelleys
internal turmoil, but in Shelleys essays On Life, On Love, and A Defence of Poetry
he directly addresses his philosophical beliefs. In these essays Shelley is deeply
concerned with formulating a metaphysical view that straddles the abyss between
skepticism and idealism. He is also concerned, as have been many poets including his
fellow Romantics, with defending poetry as equal to philosophical pursuits. Shelley,
especially, must resurrect poetry from Platos disparagement of it as twice-Removed
from Reality (Woodman 497).
In his 1819 essay On Life Shelley quotes the Italian epic poet Tasso: No
merita nome di creatore, sennon Iddio ed il Poeta (None deserves the name of creator
except God and the Poet) (Reiman 475). The idea of the Poet as a creator pervades
Shelleys poetry and prose and is even evident in his translation of Platos The
Symposium, entitled The Banquet. In his 1821 essay A Defence of Poetry (A Defence),
Shelley enumerates his beliefs about the function of the poet and poetry within society.
In this essay, Shelley states that to be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in
a word the good which exists in the relation, subsisting first between existence and
perception, and secondly between perception and expression (Norton 840). This
statement is not in agreement with the passage from Tasso, which depicts the poet as a
God-like figure. The poet which Shelley portrays in A Defence is a being who perceives
Truth in the world through his unique perception and then expresses that truth. This poet

33
is not the creator of that Truth, but simply participates in the eternal (840). In The
Banquet, translated by Shelley in June 1818, Shelley writes that God is a wise poet
(Notopolous 436), once again likening the poet to a divine creator; however, in A Defence
Shelleys idea of the poet has matured from that represented in The Banquet to the idea
represented by H.D.s lines in her poem Tribute to the Angels: but he that sat upon the
throne said,/ I make all things new (H.D. 65). The figure H.D. describes as sitting on
the throne in her poem, acts as Shelleys version of the poet in A Defence because both
make all things new.
The poet Shelley presents in A Defence recognizes the eternal element existing
within earthly objects and uses poetry to reveal this element to others. In A Defence
Shelley defines Truth not in a Platonic sense, existing in a realm above the earthly, but as
part of the material world: The beauty of the internal nature cannot be so far concealed
by its accidental vesture, but that the spirit of its form shall communicate itself to the very
disguise, and indicate the shape it hides from the manner in which it is worn (Norton
843). All objects of experiential existence wear a disguise which veils their spirit or
eternal essence. The poet perceives the Truth which is muddled by earthly vesture[s]
because the spirit of the objects informs their masks. Shelley uses the metaphor of the
veil throughout his essay, and the idea of the truth being unveiled occurs in his poetry as
well. According to Shelley, [poetry] strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and
lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms (847). The poet
does not create the beauty which he perceives but reveals it, and he does this through an
act of creation, that of writing verse. While he does not possess creative power

34
equivalent to Gods, the poet still participates in an act of creation because he make[s]
all things new by changing the common perception of familiar objects.
In Platos dialogues The Republic (specifically the Allegory of the Cave) and The
Symposium, the divine and human are strictly separated. Plato posits the divine as
existing above and not within the world. Through the Allegory of the Cave, Plato
illustrates his theory that earthly objects are imperfect shadows of the forms in the
intelligible region (Plato 517b). The Symposium, his translation of which Shelley
entitled The Banquet, provides a means for these strictly separated worlds to
communicate. Diotima explains to Socrates in The Banquet that [t]he divine nature
cannot immediately communicate with what is human, but all that intercourse and
converse which is conceded by the Gods to men, both whilst they sleep and when they
wake, subsists through the intervention of Love (Notopolous 442). Love is a great
Daemon, meaning Love links the eternal of the intelligible region to the imperfect
beings of the world (441).
Shelleys definition of poetry gives poetry a daemonical nature like Love because
poetry communicates the divine to the mortal; however, Shelleys daemon functions
differently from Love. Due to Shelleys conception of the divine as not above but within
everything, poetry must penetrate the mortal coverings of objects to reach their eternal
essences. Diotima describes Love as fill[ing] up that intermediate space between these
two classes of beings [the divine and mortal], so as to bind together by his own power,
the whole universe of things (442). Plato envisions the intermediate space as existing
between a lower and higher world, but in Shelleys philosophy the intermediate space
exists within a single object. The mortal coverings or guises are what separate the divine

35
essences of objects from humanity. The movement of Shelleys daemonical poetry is
therefore horizontal since the divine and mortal exist on the same plane. Platos daemon
of Love conversely moves in a vertical fashion because the divine and mortal are
arranged into a hierarchy, much like the Christian heaven, earth, and hell. The purpose of
poetry as explained by Shelley in A Defence is to penetrate the mortal barriers
surrounding divine essences and communicate this divinity to humanity.
In his essay On Love, written at the same time that he translated The
Symposium, Shelley attributes a daemonical nature to Love just as Plato did in The
Symposium. However, in this essay Shelley is beginning to form the metaphysical view,
which he elucidates in A Defence. Shelley writes,
Thou demandest what is Love. It is the powerful attraction towards all that we
conceive or fear or hope beyond ourselves when we find within our thoughts the
chasm of an insufficient void and seek to awaken in all things that are, a
community with what we experience within ourselves (Reiman 473).
In this passage, Shelley identifies a chasm between the external environment and his
internal nature, which is characteristic of Romantic poetry. This chasm is similar to the
one Plato identifies in The Symposium as existing between the divine and the mortal, and
in both Shelleys essay and Platos dialogue Love acts as the intermediary between the
two realms separated the chasm. The difference between this chasm and Platos though
is that one of Shelleys realms is located within the mind. Ware explains that the realm
which Shelley locates within the mind is equivalent to Platos divine realm because the
paradigm for studying Shelleys adaptation of Platonism [is] locating the Ideal Form
within the human psyche (552). Shelley internalizes the work of Love by having Love
fill up the space which separates his mind from the external environment. When this
essay is interpreted in conjunction with Shelleys later essay A Defence then the work of

36
Love can be more fully understood as connecting the divine essences within external
objects to the divinity existing within the mind.
This divinity within the mind is essential to the production of poetry, but Shelley
believes that poetry can only be produced through the minds recognition of the divinity
within the external environment. Shelleys describes poetry in A Defence as
reproduce[ing] all that it represents (847), and the use of the word reproduce echoes
Diotimas explanation of the creative power of Love in The Banquet. Diotima informs
Socrates that Love is the desire of generation in the beautiful, both with relation to the
body and the soul (Notopolous 445). The beautiful to which Diotima refers is the
beauty of the good, not external beauty, but beauty originating from Truth. The beauty of
Truth produces a fertile environment in which people can produce, but human nature
cannot generate in what is deformed says Diotima (445).
Shelley likewise describes the production of poetry as only being possible when
the poet is exposed to the beauty of Truth: the mind in creation is as a fading coal which
some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness
(Norton 846). The invisible influence grants the poet access to the divine thriving
pandemically within mortal objects, and only through this clear perception of the Truth
can the poet generate his verse. The mortal forms deform the divine essence of the
objects which they veil, and just as Diotima states that people cannot produce in what is
deformed so the poet cannot receive inspiration from objects marred by mortality.
Though both Shelley and Plato believe that poetry can only be produced through
direct contact with the divine, they each conceive of a different relationship between the
divine and mortal and between poetry and Truth. Platos conception of the beautiful is

37
best symbolized by the sun, which serves as his symbol of the good in the Allegory of the
Cave; the sun sheds light upon the planet which allows all species to flourish, and though
the effects of the sun can be felt the sun itself is always beyond mortal reach. Shelley
agrees with Diotimas doctrine in The Banquet that generation can only occur within the
beautiful, but to him the beautiful is within everything existing upon the earth. The
beauty of the mortal world is not caused by an outside force but by a force existing within
it, within reach.
The existence of this force within all objects is the reason why Shelley describes
poetry in A Defence as the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth (842).
Poetry expresses lifes eternal Truth by stripping earthly objects of their mortal coverings
to reveal their divine essences. Poetrys action of revealing immortality within the mortal
world is reminiscent of Diotimas explanation in The Banquet of how humans can
achieve immortality through reproduction: The intercourse of male and female in
generation, a divine work, through pregnancy and production, is, as it were, something
immortal in mortality (Notopolous 445). Though the creators will eventually die, they
will live on in some way through their progeny. In this way, through continued
reproduction humans can become immortal. In her speech, Diotima reveals the hidden
immortality of humans just as Shelley believes poetry reveals the worlds hidden
immortality.
In A Defence Shelley also states that poetry itself, not just the objects of its
inspiration, is immortal: Time, which destroys the beauty and the use of the story of
particular facts, stript of the poetry which should invest them, augments that of Poetry,
and for ever develops new and wonderful applications of the eternal truth which it

38
contains (842). Time affects both men and poetry in the same manner. In men offspring
replace their creators, and this same cycle of reproduction occurs in poetry as a new form
of the poem replaces the outdated one. This new form is similar to what Woodman calls
the archetypal vision (508). According to Woodman, Shelleys solution to the
problem of poetry being mistaken for Truth is through the perpetual recreation of the
archetypal vision (508). Plato held a skeptical opinion of poetry because he did not
believe that poets could accurately express their experience of the divine. Shelley
conversely defends the poets ability to express the divine and believes that poetry
remains true to its initial inspirations by constantly regenerating itself.
Poetrys universal as opposed to particular nature may be responsible for its
immunity to time. The story of particular facts is ravaged by time precisely because it
is particular and not universal. 6Diotimas speech in The Symposium in which she
explains that one must move from particular to universal beauty in order to reach the
divine can be applied to Shelleys comparison of the story of particular facts to poetry.
Shelley differs greatly from Plato in his opinion of poetry because Shelley believes that
poetry contains universal beauty (Notopolus 449), while Plato believes that poetry is
mimetic of particular beauty, what Diotima calls beautiful forms (448). Platos opinion
of poetry is caused by his metaphysical belief that any divinity or Truth exists outside of
the material world. If poets write of their material surroundings, then their poetry will
necessarily be as fallacious as those earthly forms. Shelley upholds poetry as expressing
6

Diotima informs Socrates how to move from particular to universal beauty: He who aspires to love
rightly, ought from his youth to seek an intercourse with beautiful forms, and first to make a single form the
object of his love, and therein to generate intellectual excellencies. He ought, then, to consider that beauty
in whatever form it resides in is the brother of that beauty which subsists in another form; and if he ought to
pursue that which is beautiful in form, it would be absurd to imagine that beauty is not one and the same
thing in all forms, and would therefore remit much of his ardent preference towards one (Notopoulos 448).
This passage is commonly referred to as Diotimas ladder.

39
the science of this universal beauty because he places divinity within the material
world (449). Shelley believes that the poets ability to perceive the underlying universal
beauty of the material world causes poetrys immunity to time. The story of particular
facts falls prey to time because particular unlike universal beauty is ephemeral.
Shelleys disdain for the particular and implied favor of the universal could very
well have resulted from his study of Plato; however, a common theory in Shelley
criticism is that Shelley was strongly influenced by empiricism rather than idealism. The
critic Milnes writes that Shelleys relation to [the] broader tradition of empiricism has
largely been overlooked by scholars (4), but he also qualifies his this statement by
pointing out that [a]t the same time, a picture has emerged of Shelley as a divided
thinker; one of the leading ideas of Shelley scholarship over the past thirty years (4).
The division Milnes explains is between Shelleys attraction to both skepticism and
Platonic idealism. As a student of Plato, Shelley was drawn to Platos conception of the
intelligible region, but he could not remove himself completely from the natural world,
descriptions of which permeate his poetry. Shelleys inability to disregard the material
world led him to place the divine within the earthly rather than creating a Platonic
hierarchical structure.
In his essay On Life, Shelley expresses a purely skeptical, empirical philosophy
when he writes, Nothing exists but as it is perceived (Reiman 477); however, within the
same essay he also expresses idealist beliefs. While skeptical philosophy is actually a
renunciation of philosophy because skepticism holds that only that perceived through the
senses can be known, Shelley defends philosophy in On Life:
The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life which, though
startling to the apprehension, is in fact that which the habitual sense of its

40
repeated combinations has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were, the painted
curtain from the scene of things (476).
Shelleys statement about philosophy is identical to his statement about poetry in A
Defence that Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes
familiar objects be as if they were not familiar (Norton 844). Even the metaphor of
Truth being revealed, in one case by lifting a veil in another by stripping a curtain, is
similar. Though Milnes feels that Shelleys empiricism is an important aspect of the
poets philosophy, in this single essay Shelley demonstrates his dualistic philosophical
approach.
In another section of On Life Shelley addresses his discontent with empiricism
and his need for a more idealist philosophy:
The shocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of mind and matter, and its
fatal consequences in morals, their violent dogmatism concerning the source of all
things, had early conducted me to materialism. [] But I was discontented with
such a view of things as it afforded; man is a being of high aspirations looking
both before and after, whose thoughts that wander through eternity, disclaim
alliance with transcience and decay (Reiman 476).
Religious dogma caused by idealism initially drew Shelley to empiricism, but he soon
realized that empiricism limits the circumference of ones existence to the present
moment. By aligning oneself with material objects, one is constantly confronted with the
reality of mortality, and without a system of knowledge in which the eternal location of
Truth is known, a centered system, there is no divinity to abate the effects of mortality.
Milnes concludes that Shelley like many modern ordinary language philosophers []
maintained a patient indifference or double-mindedness concerning the relation between
the fixed centre of knowledge and an impermanent circumference of experience (5).

41
Milnes draws the terms centre and circumference from Shelleys own line in
On Life: Each is at once the centre and circumference; the point to which all things
are referred, and the line to which all things are contained (476). Though Milnes claims
that Shelley balances an empirical and idealist perspective, the passage from which
Milnes receives his terms reflects a centered view of knowledge. All objects are
compared to the Ideal forms, which Shelley situates within the mind, and around this
center of knowledge a circumference is drawn, which contains all experience. Though
experience exists outside of the center, the center is still used to organize the material
commodities. Shelley never claims that truth exists in the intermediate region between
the center and circumference; instead, the center draws all things towards itself, and the
circumference functions as a means of containing experience.
Through his poetry Shelley explores evidences for both the empirical and idealist
systems. His prolonged descriptions of natural objects function as exploration into the
divinity within the material world. In this way Shelley performs the function of both poet
and philosopher simultaneously. In On Life Shelley describes a person who
apprehends that not perceived by others similarly to how he describes poets in A Defence.
The passage from On Life states, But now these things are looked on with little
wonder and to be conscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be the
distinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person (Reiman 475). The things
to which Shelley refers are phenomenal objects which human beings perceive less clearly
as the objects become familiar. In A Defence, written the year after On Life in 1820,
Shelley again describes people with this special perception but this time he defines these
people as poets:

42
Those in whom it exists in excess are poets, in the most universal sense of the
word; and the pleasure resulting from the manner in which they express the
influence of society or nature upon their minds, communicates itself to others, and
gathers a sort of reduplication from that community (Norton 839).
The sharpening of Shelleys ideas is demonstrated by his identification of those people he
describes in On Life as poets in the later essay. By clearly defining the role of the poet
and the function of poetry, Shelley rejected Platos skepticism of poetry by affirming his
faith in it.
Despite Shelleys affirmation of the genius of the poet in A Defence, Ware argues
that Shelleys ambivalent attitude toward the poet reflects the Platonic distrust of
inspiration (550). Shelleys statement in A Defence that a Poet participates in the
eternal, the infinite, and the one or that the poet discovers those laws according to
which present things ought to be ordered (Norton 840), hardly reflect ambivalence about
the status of poetic inspiration. Shelley states clearly in A Defence that the poet has
access to the eternal. Ware argues that Shelleys skepticism is a Platonic skepticism
toward the products of poetic inspiration: For Shelley, insofar as poetry redeems from
decay the visitations of the divinity in man (p. 295), it is to be highly respected; insofar
as poetry is but a feeble shadow of the poets inspired conceptions (p. 294), it must be
regarded with skepticism (551). Ware takes the phrase feeble shadow out of the
context of a longer passage in A Defence about poetic inspiration, and when the passage
is analyzed as a whole it does not entirely reflect the skepticism Ware attributes to it. In
this passage Shelley describes the nature of poetic inspiration:
Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination
of will. A man cannot say, I will compose poetry. The greatest poet even
cannot say it: for the mind in creation is as a fading coal which some invisible
influence like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness [] Could this
influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the

43
greatness of the results; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on
the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the
world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conception of the poet (Norton
846).
Though Ware is not incorrect in interpreting this passage as reflective of Platos claim
that poets are only capable of probable accounts, Shelleys main point seems to be to
illustrate the fleeting nature of inspiration. Shelley conceives of poetic genius as entirely
different from reason, which can be called forth at will, and through the metaphor of the
fading coal he explains how divinity visits man. Though the poet cannot entirely express
his experience of the divine, Shelley only writes that the product is less divine than it
would have been otherwise.
If the aforementioned passage occurred in isolation from the entirety of A
Defence, then Wares argument about Shelleys ambivalence toward poetry would be
feasible. However, Shelley affirms the divinity of poetry over and over again in his
essay. The first sentence of the paragraph from which the passage was excerpted is
Poetry is indeed something divine (846). Though Shelley does regard poetry as an
imperfect reflection of the divine, he unlike Plato believes that poets are the most fit to be
legislators. Woodman summarizes Platos opinion of poets: Poets, therefore, delude
listeners by presenting the probable account as if it were the true account. For this
reason Plato rejects the myth-makers from his Republic (507). Plato rejects poetry
because he fears people will be misled by probable account[s] of divinity. Shelley is
not wary of poetry, and in fact writes that poets are the institutors of laws, and the
founders of civil society (Norton 840); Shelleys poets become the philosopher kings of
Platos republic. If Shelley regarded poetry with a Platonic skepticism, then he would not

44
situate poets within a position of power. By characterizing poets as those fit to rule
Shelley refigures Platos societal structure laid out in The Republic.
Shelleys unique perception of Plato as essentially a poet (A Defence qtd. in
Woodman 503), precipitated the specific ways in which he reworked Platos philosophy.
Ware writes, Regarding Plato as essentially a poet (p. 280), Shelley accepts the truth of
the experiences recorded in the dialogues, but he rejects as a probable account the
details of Platos rational formulations (550). Wares argument that Shelley could be
influenced by Platos philosophy while not being indoctrinated into Platos specific
system is sound. By saying that Shelley accepts the dialogues as Truth because of their
poetic nature, Ware implies that Shelley accepts all poetry as Truth. Wares accidental
contradiction of his earlier statement about Shelleys skepticism of poetry is a more
accurate reading of Shelleys opinions regarding poetry. Also if what Shelley labels
probable accounts are rational formulations, then Shelleys definition of poetry as
divinely inspired causes poetry to fall outside the realm of rational formulation.
In the opening paragraph of A Defence, Shelley defines the two classes of mental
action, which are called reason and imagination (Norton 838). Reason or rational
formulation is the quality which Ware claims that Shelley rejects in Plato as the cause of
probable accounts; however, Shelley defines both qualities as necessary for the
production of poetry: Reason is to Imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the
body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance (838). Though both are necessary,
Imagination is for Shelley the way to the ultimate Truth. Shelleys use of the Platonic
terms shadow and substance supports Wares argument that Shelley views Platos
rational formulations as only probable accounts; Imagination provides access to the

45
divine substance while the additional mental process of reason removes one from direct
access. If Shelley only provided the final simile of the passage, then he would be
rejecting reason altogether. But the first two similes seem to be affirmations by Shelley
of the necessity of reason in the process of understanding the divine. Due to the
transitory nature of poetic inspiration, humans must employ more than Imagination.
Reason as the instrument to the agent provides a means for the poet to translate that
perceived through his imagination. Of course, the addition of reason causes the
experience of the imagination to lose truth through translation, but Shelley asserts in A
Defence that poetry is indeed divine because the truth is merely diminished not removed.
Woodman in his essay quotes the longer passage from A Defence from which
Ware only references briefly:
Plato was essentially a poetthe truth and splendour of his imagery, the melody
of his language, are the most intense it is possible to conceive. He rejected the
measure of the epic, the dramatic, and lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a
harmony in thoughts divested of shape and action, and he forbore to invent any
regular plan of rhythm which would include, under determinate forms, the varied
pauses in his styleHis language has a sweet majestic rhythm, which satisfies the
intellect: it is a strain which distends, and then bursts the circumference of the
readers mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the universal element
with which it has perpetual sympathy (503-504).
Again Shelley returns to the term circumference which he employed so famously in
On Life; however, in the later essay A Defence Shelleys conception of the function of
the minds circumference has changed. In On Life the circumference was the line
in which all things are contained (Reiman 476); however, in A Defence Platos poetry
causes the mind to become so full that it bursts the circumference and flows out into a
reality beyond the mind. While Ware contends that Shelleys Truth exists within the
mind, this passage proves that Shelley moved beyond the closed realm of the mind to a

46
conception of reality that included the outside world. In fact, in this passage the
circumference of the mind from On Life, which housed the Ideal forms, is replaced
by a universal element outside of the mind. In the year which passed between the
production of these two essays, Shelleys metaphysical views seem to have drastically
changed. His use of a centered model of knowledge in On Life is very Platonic, while
his movement to a decentered model in A Defence reflects a more Romantic
sensibility concerning the positioning of the divine (Milnes 5). While Shelley does not
totally decenter knowledge by claiming that Truth does not exist, he restructures Platos
notion of Truth by placing Truth in the material world.

47
Chapter 3: The Daemons of To a Sky-Lark and Mont Blanc
The poems To a Sky-Lark and Mont Blanc were written four years apart: To
a Sky-Lark in 1820 and Mont Blanc in 1816; however, both poems deal with similar
issues. Both are concerned, like much of Shelleys work, with the nature of divinity, and
both lean toward a Platonic hierarchical structure of the divine. The poems seem at first
to assume an idealist philosophy, but Shelleys inability to subscribe to strict idealism
causes him to depart from Plato in interesting ways. The earth for instance in To a SkyLark hums in sympathy to the birds song because the earth recognizes itself as the
object of inspiration. In Mont Blanc, while the precipice is quite separate from the
mortal world, divinity extends downward from this highest place in the form of the
glacier. Shelleys objective in these poems is the same as the objective of his work
previously discussed; through the creation of poetry he is formulating his unique
metaphysical views.
Shelleys poem To a Sky-Lark is Platonic in the sense that it posits the divine as
existing above the mortal world. Shelley identifies the sky-lark as divine in the opening
lines of the poem: Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!/ Bird thou never wert (Norton 1-2). This
divine bird flies so high that it cannot be seen from the ground, but Shelley knows it
exists because he can hear its song: Thou art unseen,--but yet I hear thy shrill delight
(20). Shelleys praise of the bird as a Scorner of the ground (100), seems to indicate
Shelleys Platonic anti-materialist philosophy within the poem; however, Shelley is still
negotiating his position between Platonic idealism and materialism. While on one level
Shelley describes the bird as above the earth: Higher still and higher (6); he modifies
this description to connect the bird to the ground: From the earth thou springest (7). By

48
linking this divine symbol with the earth, Shelley modifies Platos conception of divinity.
For Shelley divinity has earthly origins from which it develops to eventually exist in a
higher realm.
While being a symbol of divinity, the skylark is also a symbol of the poet.
Shelley compares the bird directly to a poet--Like a Poet hidden/ In the light of thought
(36-37)--and frequently references the song or poetry of the skylark. While the bird itself
does not touch the ground, it draws its poetic inspiration from earthly objects. Shelley
writes,
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields or waves or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain? (71-74).
Earthly objects are used by the skylark to create divine poetry. The skylark performs an
act of transfiguration on these objects, and their journey is similar to the skylarks own
since the origin of the skylark is also the earth.
The poetry created by the skylark is a separate entity, perhaps even more divine
than the skylark itself. Shelley compares the skylark to a series of natural objects: a
glow-worm golden (46), a rose embowered/ In its own green leaves (51-52), Sound
of vernal showers/ On the twinkling grass (56-57), Rain-awakened flowers (58). But
after making all these comparisons, Shelley declares, All that ever was/ Joyous, and
clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass (59-60). The skylarks music and not the bird
itself surpasses the earthly and becomes divine. In fact, Shelleys descriptions of the
objects to which the skylark compares all have something removed from them just as the
song leaves the skylark. Scattering unbeholden/ Its aerial hue (48-49), the glow-worms
light passes from the animals possession. The rose is [b]y warm winds deflowered--/

49
Till the scent it gives/ Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves (5355); the winds steal the roses scent and disperse it. The song of the skylark takes on a
life of its own beyond the bird, and Shelley likewise views poetry as taking on a higher
form of existence beyond the poet.
The transformation of poetry into something divine relates to Shelleys ideas in A
Defence about poetrys function within society. Shelley writes in A Defence, the
pleasure resulting from the manner in which [poets] express the influence of society or
nature upon their own minds, communicates itself to others, and gathers a sort of
reduplication from that community (p. 839). In To a Sky-Lark, Shelley describes the
results of the birds song in a similar manner: All the earth and air/ With thy voice is
loud (26-27). The bird like the poet in A Defence expresses its impressions of the
external world, and when this poetry meets the objects which inspired it, these objects
become enhanced. The reduplication, which Shelley describes in A Defence, is the
reverberation of the natural world in response to the birds song in To a Sky-Lark. The
birds poetry causes this effect because the divinity in the natural world is enhanced by
the divinity in the poem. As discussed in chapter two, Shelley believes that mortal
objects contain divine essences, and the poem duplicates the divinity in the natural world
and then reflects it back upon nature. All the earth and the air [] is loud because the
material worlds divinity becomes amplified through this process. The power of the
divinity existing in the natural world is multiplied two-fold because the poem duplicates
the divinity within nature and then a re-duplication occurs when the natural world is
exposed to its divinity within the poem.

50
The poetry or song of the skylark is disembodied because the skylark is a small
bird that sings only in flight, often when it is too high to be visible (note 817). Shelley
describes this phenomenon in the poem similarly to how he describes the work of the
poet in A Defence. In To a Sky-Lark Shelley compares the bird to
a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not (36-40).
The similarities of this stanza to his description of the poet in A Defence are evident: A
Poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet
sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel
that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why (p. 843). The skylarks
songs are unbidden, and so the bird sings for its own purposes and not for an audience.
The poet in A Defence also does not create with the objective of gaining an audience. Yet
despite the imperviousness of the bird and poet to an audience, both the bird and poet
gain an audience which is transformed through their poetry.
The skylark and poet, working unseen, act in the same way as Love in Platos The
Symposium. Diotima describes Loves daemonical nature to Socrates: The divine nature
cannot immediately communicate with what is human, but all that intercourse which is
conceded by the Gods to men, both whilst they sleep and when they wake, subsists
through the intervention of Love (Notopolus 442). Like the skylark and poet, Love
communicates divinity to mortals without their knowledge. The daemon Loves
function, like that of the poet of which the skylark is one, is to undetectably raise mortal
awareness of the divine in order to improve the human condition. The comparison of

51
Shelleys conception of the poet to the daemon Love causes the true function of the poet
to become clear. Through this comparison, the positioning of the bird between the earth
and heaven in To a Sky-Lark takes on new meaning because the birds flight is within
an intermediate space (442). This intermediate space between mortals and the divine
is the one which Diotima describes love as fill[ing] up (442), and the skylark, who is a
poet, performs a daemonical function like Love.
Diotima explains in The Symposium that he who is wise in the science of this
intercourse is supremely happy, and participates in the daemonical nature; whilst he who
is wise in any other science or art, remains a mere ordinary slave (442). The intercourse
to which Diotima refers is that between mortals, Love, and the divine. Through
Diotimas speech, Plato asserts that the only path of mortals to happiness is through
consciousness of the intervention of Love; once mortals become conscious of Loves
actions, they function as daemons as well. The other sciences and arts which Plato
identifies as lesser because they do not lead to enlightenment include poetry; Plato
believes that the only path to the divine is through philosophy. Diotima explains that
Love is of necessity a philosopher, philosophy being the intermediate state between
ignorance and wisdom (443). If mortals take on Loves daemonical nature, then they
are by transitive logic also philosophers like Love. Shelley diverges from Plato by
asserting that poetry can enlighten mortals as well. He transfers the properties that Plato
associates solely with philosophy to poetry.
The skylark as a philosopher uncovers the true nature of reality, but because he is
a poet the bird communicates the Truth of reality through verse. Shelley describes the
skylarks poetic perception of the hidden divinity in all things:

52
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a chrystal steam? (Norton 81-85).
The skylark as a poet in deem[ing]/ Things more true and deep sees through the mortal
exterior into the objects divine essences. Only by perceiving this divinity can the skylark
compose the chrystal stream of its song/poem.
Though Shelley separates the skylark from mortals in this stanza, he does not
argue like Plato that mortals can only reach the divine by abandoning the earthly. Near
the end of the poem, Shelley identifies mortal emotions as necessary for comprehension
of the skylarks song:
Yet if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near (91-95).
Just as Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost can only have knowledge of good by gaining
knowledge of evil, so Shelley argues mortals can only ascend to the joy of the skylark by
having knowledge of other less pleasant emotions. Since the song of the skylark is poetry
and therefore a representation of the divine, then mortals can only recognize the divine by
recognizing the earthly as its opposite. Plato claims that the mortal world serves no
purpose but to confuse humans into believing that the shadows of the forms are reality.
Shelley, on the other hand, advocates for the use of the earthly as a means to reach the
divine.
Shelleys use of the earthly as a means of ascension occurs not only in this work
but in others previously discussed. In Alastor, the subject of the first chapter, Shelley

53
creates an anthropomorphic representation of the Truth. The vision not only has a
somewhat human body but a female body as well. Shelley was, of course, aware of the
long tradition of associating the feminine with the earth, and so through his representation
connects the Truth to the earth. The origin of the visions light is also fire, which is an
element of the earth; however, fire is a fitting symbol for the vision because it is an
intermediate element. Fire is neither a solid, liquid, or gas and like the vision exists in a
liminal realm which is between two states of being. In other poems, including Mont
Blanc, Shelley studies the external landscape in order to determine the true nature of
reality. In this way, Shelley is part of long tradition in lyric poetry, which began with the
metaphysical poets who studied nature in order to determine Gods will. The other
Romantic poets were also part of this tradition, but by this period the aim of reading
nature became to understand ones own internal nature. Shelley differs from his fellow
Romantics because he is not so much interested in his individual psyche but in the
universal Truths of reality, though unlike the metaphysical poets he does not associate
these Truths with a God.
In Mont Blanc Shelley upholds the natural world not only through his imagery
but through his belief in the ability of the senses to perceive Truth. Shelley describes the
manner in which he perceives the world, which is through the senses:
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around (37-40).
His description of the constant interchange he has with his external environment is not in
agreement with a Platonic distrust of the senses. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato
highlights the way in which the senses limit perception by describing the prisoners as

54
only being able to look straight ahead because they cannot turn their heads (Plato 514ab). Shelley paints a very different picture of the senses, describing his mind as a sieve
which receives influences freely. His use of the adjective clear to describe the universe
also indicates the extent of his understanding; the workings of the universe are not
opaque but transparent or obvious to him.
After describing his experience of the external, Shelley continues to describe his
process of perception:
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy (41-44).
The perception of the beginning lines of the passage leads to creation by the end, which is
in Shelleys case the creation of poetry. Shelleys desire to create after an intense sensory
experience recalls Diotimas definition of Love in The Symposium as the desire for
generation in the beautiful (Notopolus 445). After experiencing the sublime landscape
of Mont Blanc and the Ravine of Arve, Shelleys mind produces something of its own
volition. The beauty of nature causes this procreation. Shelleys description of the
product of his mind as a separate entity with wandering wings seems to be a reference
to the Poets vision in Alastor. The Poet of that work produced an entity which took on
human form, while Shelleys description of his minds creation is more figurative in
Mont Blanc. The legion of wild thoughts is not anthropomorphic but remains an
abstract entity. Both the vision in Alastor and the bird-like thoughts, raise the poet out of
the figurative darkness of mortality. By describing the thought entity as floating above
darkness, Shelley is referencing Platos binary in the Allegory of the Cave of mortality as
darkness and Truth as light. Poetic creation raises the poet out of darkness into the light

55
of Truth; however, Shelley also manipulates Platos Allegory by having his thoughts rest
in the still cave of the witch Poesy. The cave in Shelleys poem becomes a place of
access to the divine rather than a place devoid of truth. Shelleys manipulation of the
cave metaphor indicates his divergence from Plato. Shelley locates Truth within the
cave, which Plato used to represent the mortal world, because Shelley here views sensory
experience as a means of reaching the Truth.
Another important aspect of the cave is that it belongs to a feminine being, the
witch Poesy. The witch Poesy strongly resembles the vision in Alastor, whom
Shelley identifies as [h]erself a poet (161). In Alastor the Poets thoughts gave birth to
the feminine being, but in Mont Blanc the still cave of the witch Poesy provides a
resting place for Shelleys thoughts. The Poets vision ultimately leads to his demise, but
in Mont Blanc Shelley revises the role of poetry so that it performs a restorative
function. Poetry becomes the means by which Shelley can still his thoughts in order to
make sense of his perceptions.
Shelleys finishes his description of perception by describing a phenomenon that
is similar to Platos doctrine of Reminiscence:
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that pass by
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there! (45-49).
Shelley is still addressing the Ravine of Arve, and he describes the Ravine as searching
within his mind for its own image (note 764). The cave of the witch Poesy represents
Shelleys mind, and this fits with Platos use of the cave to represent mortal existence
because Platos cave is a metaphor for the way in which the restrictive senses separate

56
humans from the Truth. As mentioned previously, Shelley re-imagines the cave of the
mind as site of access to the truth. The phenomenon Shelley describes is one of
recollection: the object reunites itself with its own image in the poets mind and when
this happens the poet recalls the object. Platos doctrine of Reminiscence describes a
similar process:
The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and
having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, had
knowledge of them all, and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to
remembrance all that she ever knew (Baker 32).
Plato explains that the soul possesses all the knowledge gleaned from its past lives, but
when the soul is reborn each time it is not conscious of this knowledge. The process
which humans perceive as learning is actually only recollection of subconscious
knowledge. In his own version of Reminiscence, Shelley replaces Platonic knowledge
with images of the natural world, thus raising the status of nature from shadow to Truth.
Images replace the knowledge Plato situates within the mind because Shelley values
these images as a source of knowledge in a way which Plato does not.
While Shelley diverges from Plato, he simultaneously creates a Platonic model of
the universe through his imagery of Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is separated from the rest
of the natural world much like Platos intelligible region. Mont Blancs Power dwells
apart in its tranquility/ Remote, serene, and inaccessible (Norton 96-97). However,
unlike Platos intelligible region which is immutable and does not communicate directly
to mortals, Mont Blanc affects the mortal world. Shelley describes the glacier which
extends downward from the precipice:
Frost and Sun in scorn of mortal power
Have piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
A city of death, distinct with many a tower

57
And wall impregnable with beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky
Rolls its perpetual stream (103-109).
Mont Blancs communication with the poet is much different from the imagery which
[f]lows through the mind (2). Mont Blanc causes destruction as its immortal power
extends through the glacier into the mortal world. The origin of the glacier is Mont
Blancs precipice, and so as the glacier moves down the mountain it represents the
movement of the Power from the precipice.
The glacier is in some ways like the daemonical bird in To a Sky-Lark: both the
bird and glacier transmit communication from the divine to the mortal region. However,
the skylark is as benign as the glacier is dangerous. The skylark functions as the daemon
Love does in The Symposium because Love carries messages from the divine in order to
enlighten humans. The glacier functions differently; it serves not as an intermediary, but
as a direct extension of the Power of the precipice. While Love and the bird are not
divine themselves, the glacier is like the finger of God extending into the world. This
extension of the Power causes ruin in the same way that Icarus brought about his own
ruin by flying too close to the sun. Icarus as mortal could not handle the suns sublime
power, and likewise the mortal world is destroyed by the power of the precipice.
By making Mont Blancs power an active force within the mortal world, Shelley
reworks Platos model. The divine forms of the intelligible region cannot reach down
into the mortal world because they are static, and mortals can only attain knowledge by
traveling upwards. Shelleys conception of the divine power as active is similar to his
model of natures interaction with the mind. Objects of the external environment reach
into the poets mind to find their corresponding images within, and so the divine takes on

58
a similarly active role by reaching into the mortal world. Platos conception of
perception and divinity is much less tumultuous than Shelleys because Plato views the
universe as fixed. If Shelleys model were to exactly imitate Platos, then the power,
still, snowy, and serene (61), would remain at the precipice, unchanging, unaffected.
The power necessarily overflows from the precipice because this divine region is
active and not static. Shelley describes the activity at the precipice:
the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them:--Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! (131-136).
This activity is divine because the precipice, which pierce[s] the infinite sky (60), is a
place existing like the intelligible region above the earth. However, the activity of this
region is similar to the activity in the mortal world, but it is also set apart because none
beholds them there. The precipice is divine because its activities are mysterious and
also strangely silent. The creation and destruction of the mortal world occurs, but these
natural processes have a peacefulness reflected in their silence. Once the glacier extends
the divine power into the mortal world the process of destruction becomes violent
because the process loses the divinity it had at the precipice. Shelleys conception of the
divine region is more like Miltons conception of Heaven and Hell in which activities
such as wars occur which will later be recreated upon the earth. The creation and
destruction upon the precipice are the prototypical processes which are then repeated
within nature. Shelley replaces Platos divine static forms with divine processes.

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Chapter 4: The Last Word
In Shelleys final two works, Adonais and The Triumph of Life, Shelley continues
to search for those metaphysical Truths around which his earlier works revolve. These
two poems also return to imagery first introduced in Alastor. In Adonais, Shelley
describes Adonais as being visited by female figures, who resemble the Poets vision in
Alastor. In The Triumph of Life, Shelleys speaker receives a vision in a similar locale to
where the Poet in Alastor finally succumbs to death. These works do not depart from
Shelleys earlier work, but revisit and revise his earlier conclusions. They are not
fragments of an unfinished life but the culmination of a brief yet fruitful poetic career.
Shelleys Adonais, an elegy for his fellow English poet John Keats, is an
affirmation of the supreme power of poetry, outlined in A Defence of Poetry (A Defence).
Written only two months before Adonias, A Defence presents Shelleys beliefs about the
function of poetry, which Shelley draws upon in order to honor a fellow poet. In stanza
twenty-nine, Urania praises the departed Adonais: So it is in the world of living men:/
A godlike mind sours forth, in its delight/ Making earth bare and veiling heaven (Norton
257-259). Shelley describes the function of poetry in A Defence, using the same
adjective bare: it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked
and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms (Norton 847). Shelley describes
Keats function in Adonais as similar to the function of poetry itself in A Defence because
both reveal the hidden divinity within mortal objects. However, Shelley amends the
function of Keats as a poet by adding that Keats veil[s] heaven. At first, this addition
appears problematic because by veiling heaven Keats is hiding the divine. One could
conclude that Keats must hide true divinity in order to give mortal objects the appearance

60
of divinity, but the note is helpful in deciphering the meaning of this passage. The note
informs the reader that Keats acts as the sun reveal[ing] the earth but veil[ing] the other
stars (829).
The brightness of Keats as the sun necessarily blots out the other less bright
heavenly bodies. Keats makes the earth bare, revealing its divinity, not through an act
of deception (hiding true divinity), but due to his status as possessor of the Truth. Keats
is represented in the poem as possessing Truth because of his association with the sun. In
Platos Allegory of the Cave, the sun functions as the symbol of Truth, and Shelley uses
this association to assert Keats superiority. 7Also like the sun in Platos Allegory, Keats
as the sun has shadows which possess only a fraction of his power. These shadows are
the stars, whose light is much less bright than the suns; and the relationship of the stars
to the sun is the same as the relationship of fire to the sun in the Allegory.
Urania, who is speaking in stanza twenty-nine, continues by describing the effect
of the setting sun: and when/ It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light/ Leave
to its kindred lamps the spirits awful night (259-261). The sun of course sets with
Adonais death. The swarms are the earthly objects whose divinity was revealed
through the suns brilliance, and the light of the sun represents Adonais poetic mind.
Once Adonais mind is extinguished through his death, the less brilliant stars, which
represent other minds, cannot perform the function of the sun. The setting sun causes
the spirits awful night because divinity is once again hidden by the mortal coverings of
objects whose essences are divine.

By shadows I mean the shapes which the prisoners see on the cave wall. These shadows are lesser
representations of the Ideal forms.

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Adonais mind functions in a similar way to Love as described by Diotima in The
Symposium. Socrates summarizes one of Diotimas definitions of Love: Love, then, is
collectively the desire in men that good should be forever present to them (Notopoulos
445). Just as Diotima describes men as being impelled to surround themselves with what
is good, so living men in Adonais want to be exposed to the divine (Norton 257). Love
in The Symposium is the means by which men come into contact with the good, and
Adonais through his poetic powers performs the same function as Love because he
reveals divinity to those who would otherwise not apprehend it.
Earlier in the poem, Shelley describes the specific manner in which Adonais
poetry functions. Shelley writes, All he had loved, and moulded into thought,/ From
shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,/ Lamented Adonais (118-120). Adonais
raw materials were his sensory perceptions, and he used these materials to create a new
object through the power of the mind. In his essay Adonais: Progressive Revelation as a
Poetic Mode, Wasserman uses an excerpt from A Defence to explain the relationships
between objects and the poetry inspired by them:
The difference between reason and imagination, he held, is that the former may
be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to
another however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so
as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them as from elements,
other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity
(Defense of Poetry). That is, the materials of poetry are already more than twice
removed from the physical world: they are not merely what Hume called
impressions, but have been fully naturalized in the country of the mind as
ideas and exist in a conceptual context, having already been prepared for their
artistic duty by being stamped with the qualities of the mind possessing them
(276).
Keats obviously performs an act of imagination through the creation of poetry because he
translates or mould[s] objects into thoughts. In the excerpt Wasserman cites from A

62
Defence, Shelley describes these thoughts as containing within [themselves] the
principle of [their] own integrity, meaning that the thoughts borne from sensory objects
become separate entities. This process is similar to the birth of the vision from the Poets
mind in Alastor. The thought like the vision has a legitimacy of its own separate from its
object of inspiration.
Wasserman describes the product of the creative process, poetry, using language
that recalls a Platonic view of poetry. Plato excludes poets from his ideal Republic
because they imitate only the phenomena of the mutable world (Ware 556). Since
[p]henoma, for Plato, are themselves imitations of the Ideal Forms (556), poetry is
twice removed from reality because it is the imitation of imitations. Wasserman explains
the process by which poets appropriate objects through poetic composition, therefore
removing them from the external world. The first step of removal is through sensory
perception, and after this has occurred the object metamorphosizes in the mind into an
idea. These newly minted ideas are the materials of poetry, not the initial perception of
objects. Wasserman writes that the materials of poetry are already more than twice
removed from the physical world because in order for the objects to become ideas they
are influenced by the qualities of their perceivers mind; Wasserman considers this a half
or intermediary step of removal.
Unlike Plato, Shelley does not view this process of removal as problematic. In
fact, this process is necessary in order for poetry to express the eternal. Plato was
skeptical of any means of expression because expression necessitates the process of
removal: objects of the external environment are translated through the power of the
perceivers mind into new products. Shelley embraces this process because he

63
conceives of the artist as an imitator of reality, not of appearance (556). If Plato
considered mortal objects to be imitations, then any expression of them could not produce
an idea which was itself divine, having not been inspired by divine objects. Shelley must
place divinity within the mortal world because he considers poetic expressions of this
realm to be expressions of the eternal. The process of removal described by Wasserman
is necessary for a Poet to participat[e] in the eternal (Norton 840) because an artist
sees through the confusion of appearances to the essence of things (Ware 557). The
poetic or creative process is essential to humanity because only through this process can
the hidden divinity within mortality be revealed. Shelley mourns Keats in Adonais
because of Keats exceptional ability to strip divine essences of their mortal coverings.
In the ninth stanza of the poem, Shelley anthropomorphizes the products of
Adonais poetic inspiration; the ideas become The quick Dreams/ The passion-winged
Ministers of thought,/ Who were his flocks (Norton 73-75). After these ideas are
brought to life, one breaks away from the crowd to embrace the dead poet:
And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries;
Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!
She knew not twas her own; as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain (82-90).
The Dream or idea laments the death of the poet, not realizing that his demise equals her
own. The narrator exclaims of the Dreams fate,Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!
because he recognizes that without a mind in which to reside the idea will cease to exist.
Shelleys reference to Adonais mind as a ruined Paradise supports Wares argument

64
that Shelleys noumenal realm is located within the imagination (557). Ware writes
that Shelley does not postulate the existence of a transcendent realm because of his
placement of the noumenal or beyond phenomenal realm within the imagination. Shelley
conceives of the true, the beautiful existing within the mind rather than in a distant
region, which is Platos conception. The mind does not automatically contain the Truth
but must give birth to it through the creative process through which the divinity of
mortality is revealed.
Platos conception of truth is static within the intelligible region; the forms exist
within a vacuum unaffected by human activity. While Shelleys metaphysical views
share some commonalities with Platos, Shelley ultimately differs in his representation of
divinity. The spirit or internal nature of mortal objects, which Ware refers to as
essence in his essay, is not manipulated physically by the actions of the poets mind.
The essences remain unchanged like the forms of Platos intelligible region; however, the
poetic mind performs important manipulations which occur through a process of
duplication. The object is perceived by the poet, and this initial impression is a
duplication. The job of the poet is not to express this duplication but to colour [the
impression] with [his] own light (Wasserman 276). Divinity, therefore, becomes active
through the mental processes of the poet. Plato too recognized the mental faculty but did
not consider its products legitimate. To Shelley the product of the poet is the ideal form
of the object. While the divinity exists physically within nature, divinity also resides
within the poets mind because only through the workings of imagination can it be
revealed.

65
Interestingly, the Dream of Shelleys later work resembles the vision in his
second major work Alastor. Once again Shelley represents the divine within a feminine
figure, except the circumstances of Alastor are reversed in Adonais. In Alastor the Poet
mourns the loss of the vision, which departs first shortly followed by the Poet through his
death. In Adonais the Dream mourns the loss of the poet, who has died first, and his
death causes hers just as the visions departure causes the Poets death in Alastor. The
movement from a product of mind, the vision, which vanishes, to a product of mind, the
Dream, which outlives her creator, demonstrates a development in Shelleys conception
of divinity.
Ware describes Shelley as [f]undamentally a skeptic because Shelley refuses
to accept any dogmatic formulation of the truths of the imagination (550). Wares
classification of Shelley as a skeptic, explains Shelleys representation of the divine in
Alastor as a fickle character who quickly departs. The Poet in Alastor briefly unites with
the divine, but she slips through his grasp. Shelleys belief in the transient nature of
divinity is present in A Defence, written two months before Adonais, in Shelleys
description of poetic inspiration as like a fading coal: the mind in creation is as a fading
coal which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory
brightness (Norton 846). The vision like the invisible influence enlightens the human
mind briefly but does not remain there. In Adonais, the Dream is a constant divinity
existing within the mind of the poet. The Dream is the solidified version of the vision in
Alastor because the Dream is a product of the mind that dies only with the death of the
mind in which it resides.

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The Dream represents an idea because it depends upon its creator to exist, but
later in the poem Shelley introduces another character Urania, who exists independently
of the dead poet. Urania grieves over the lifeless body of Adonais:
Stay yet awhile! Speak to me once again;
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning brain
That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive
With food of saddest memory kept alive,
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art!
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! (226-234).
She like the vision in Alastor with parted lips/ Outstretched [] and quivering eagerly
longs for a kiss (179-180). However, the longing of Urania for the poet is a reversal of
the situation in Alastor. In that earlier poem, the divine feminine figure abandons the
Poet, and he mourns her loss. The figure in Alastor departs because she is the
representation of Shelleys earlier transient conception of divinity. The figure of Urania
endures because she is a permanent truth, much like that existing in Platos intelligible
region.
While in Alastor the Poet is deprived of the vision due to his mortality, Urania is
deprived of Adonais due to her immortality. She says to him, I would give/ All that I
am to be as thou now art!/ But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! (232234). Usually being tied to Time means an entanglement with the mortal dilemma
described by Wasserman: all Nature moves in time to its own annihilation (281).
Uranias speech presents the reader with a shift in the perception of time. Both mortal
and immortal characters in the poem are governed by Time, but instead of experiencing
the inevitability of death the immortal characters are chained to Time because they

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must exist as long as Time exists. Urania cannot pursue Adonais, and her grief over his
departure indicates an imperfection in immortality itself.
Her immortal, divine nature is not like the divinity of Platos intelligible region
because Platos ideal forms are static and unaffected by mortal activity. Urania, like the
vision in Alastor, entangles herself with the mortal poet. However, unlike the vision,
Urania is affected by Adonais verse. In the six years between the two poems, Shelleys
conception of poetrys function and power has evolved. While in Alastor the Poets
powers cannot save him from his inevitable demise, in Adonais the poets power is
revered by an immortal figure.
Urania reveres Adonais almost out of necessity because she is tormented like the
Poet in Alastor by his departure: And in my heartless breast and burning brain/ That
word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive (228-229). Uranias situation and the Poet
of Alastors are identical because both Urania and the Poet mourn the physical embrace
and the word. Adonais and the vision in Alastor both light a fire within their lovers
brains through their poetry; Shelley describes the vision as [h]erself a poet (160). After
the visions visitation, Shelley describes the Poet in Alastor: Life, and the lustre that
consumed it, shone/ As in a furnace burning secretly/ From his dark eyes alone (252254). This description is echoed in Uranias complaint over her burning brain. The
fact that Urania can be affected by Adonais poetry means that there is an imperfection in
her immortality, which his poetry fulfills. She is imperfect because she is not a poet, and
poetry reveals the divine in a way that even enlightens a seemingly divine figure like
Urania.

68
While Urania does outlive natures annihilation, she is not divine in the same way
as the vision in Alastor because the vision is a creation of the poetic mind. The Poet
actually gives birth to the vision, and she takes on a life of her own outside of him in the
same way that poetry does. While Urania too is a separate entity, she is not the product
of Adonais mind, which is why his poetry instills a fire within her mind. The hierarchy
that Shelley establishes through the creation of these two divine yet feminine figures is
one of poetry above a divinity not produced by the poet. Wasserman writes that to
Shelley mans interpretations of the phenomenal world have a validity the world itself
does not (277). This statement applies to the relationship between the Poet and vision
because the vision instills knowledge within the Poet even though she is a creation of his
earthly mind. She has a higher status than him within the poem because she is the poetry
and he the creator. Ironically, the poetic creation has a higher status than her creator
because poetry is a revelation of the divine that becomes more powerful than its creator.
Poetry takes on a life of its own just like the vision in Alastor.
While Wassermans statement clarifies the relationship between the Poet and his
vision, it is problematic because it undercuts Shelleys materialism. By implying that the
world is not valid, Wasserman posits Shelley as an idealist. Ware expresses a more
accurate view of Shelley when he writes that in Shelleys philosophy the artist does not
so much create an imaginative order as discover a potential order that is not apparent to
those who lack his perceptivity (557). Wares statement reflects Shelleys description of
poetry in A Defence:
It transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its
presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it
breathes; its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which

69
flow from death to life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays
bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms (Norton 847).
Poetry does not create divinity, but accurately expresses a divinity already present within
the material world. Urania is captivated by Adonais ability to make immortal that which
seems mortal, but his poetry is not more valid than its inspirations within the material
world. Poetry is valid because it is an expression of that which is already divine. The
poets special power comes not from his ability to make divine that which is not but to
recognize divinity within the mortal realm.
Shelleys metaphor for the transformative power of poetry in the passage cited
above is of the alchemical process aimed to produce a drinkable (potable) form of gold
that would be an elixir of life, curing all diseases (note 847). This process by which the
poisonous waters of life which cause death are changed into an elixir which protects
the human being from the strains of mortality is the same process which Keats undergoes
in Adonais. While Adonais physical body passes away, his spirit becomes immortal.
Plato also believed in the immortality of the soul. Socrates explains to Glaucon in Part
XI of The Republic that the soul remains quite unaffected by fever or disease or injury
(Lee 610b). While the immortality of the soul is also a Christian doctrine, Shelley ties his
discussion to Platos conception of the afterlife through his reference to the doctrine of
Reminiscience: Awake him not! Surely he takes his fill/ Of deep and liquid rest,
forgetful of all ill (Norton 62-63).
According to Baker, [o]ne of the first things that interested Shelley in Plato was
evidently the doctrine of Reminiscience (32). Baker summarizes this doctrine by
writing that knowledge is simply recollection (32). Souls enter another realm after
their existence on earth and are only born again after drinking from the river Lethe or

70
the Forgetful River (Lee X 621). After drinking from the river the beings forget
heaven and their past lives and are ready to be born again. Shelley clearly alludes to the
river Lethe when he writes of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. The fact that
Shelley references Platos conception of the afterlife causes Shelleys belief in the
immortality of the soul to be a result of his Platonism and not only dependent upon the
influence of the Christian culture in which he lived.
Shelleys elegy about Keats death and imagined Platonic afterlife highlights
Keats superiority above other poets, even Shelley himself. While listing the mourners
who pay homage to Adonais, Shelley includes a portrait of the Poet in Alastor, who is a
version of himself (Norton note 830):
Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,
A phantom among men; companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Natures naked loveliness,
Actaen-like, and now he fled astray
With feeble steps oer the worlds wilderness,
As his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey (271-279).
Shelley presents the inherent danger in poetic creation, which Woodman attributes to the
fallacious nature of poetry: There is, then, for the poet the danger of becoming the
victim of his own vision, of mistaking the probable account for Reality itself (508).
However, Shelley advocates poetry in A Defence as the very image of life expressed in
its eternal truth (Norton 842). The danger for the poet is not the danger which
Woodman identifies; instead, the Poet in Alastor is pursued by the creation of his own
mind because he has not overcome the mortal world.

71
Like Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, the Poet cannot withstand the power of
the divine. His poetic creation, the vision, instills divine knowledge within him, and this
knowledge consumes him because of his earthliness. Adonais poetic creations did not
cause his demise because Adonais ascended sufficiently above the mortal realm. As
Shelley describes Adonais, he compares Adonais to those poets like the Poet of Alastor
who met their ruin:
Not all to that bright station dared to climb
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And yet some live, treading the thorny road,
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fames serene abode (38-45).
This stanza presents the danger of poetic creation, which Wasserman recognizes, but
other more sublime are not extinguished by the fallacious nature of their poetry. Some
do not continue to burn immortally as Adonais because their projects have been foiled by
the envious wrath of man or God. Adonais succeeds and becomes immortal because he
survives the thorny road,/ Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fames serene abode.
Shelley illustrates the danger of the poetic path, and represents Adonais as a heroic figure
who conquers many obstacles to reach a place of safety beyond the mortal world.
The place Shelley refers to as Fames serene abode in Adonais is much like the
pinnacle of Mont Blanc in Shelleys poem of the same name. Shelley describes Mont
Blanc: Far, far above piercing the infinite sky,/ Mont Blanc appearsstill, snowy, and
serene (60-61). Mont Blancs pinnacle resembles Platos intelligible region because of
the separateness of its divinity. Within this place, unaffected by the mortal world, what
Shelley deems the power exists. This still and solemn power of many sights,/ And

72
many sounds and much of life and death is also described within nature in Adonais
(128-129). The Power in Adonais assimilates Keats spirit into itself:
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself whereer that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own (373-376).
The place Keats reaches that removes him from the danger which caused demise to the
Poet in Alastor is ultimately a place within nature; however, like the essences
mentioned by Ware, the power is at once within and above nature. Adonais is made one
with Nature (370), but he becomes part of the power of nature which is the divinity
revealed through poetry.
Interestingly, the Poet in Alastor also reaches the precipice of a mountain, but this
is the place where he finally dies after his unsuccessful search for the vision. The Poet
like Adonais is described in relationship to nature: the Poets blood/ That ever beat in
mystic sympathy/ With natures ebb and flow, grew feebler still (651-653). Unlike
Adonais, the Poet is not described as one with nature; the Poets mere sympathy toward
nature cannot grant him the immortality than can Adonais assimilation into nature itself.
Adonais is a poet of greater merit than Shelleys semi-autobiographical Poet, because
Adonais merges with the divinity of nature, while the Poet only recognizes this divinity.
In Plato, the philosopher can recognize Truth but cannot merge with the intelligible
region. According to an editorial note on Adonais, Shelley adopts for this poem the
Neoplatonic view that all life and all forms emanate from the Absolute, the eternal One
(831). Six years before writing Adonais, at the time that he wrote Alastor, Shelley held a
more materialistic metaphysical view. The Poet in Alastor only glancingly encounters
divinity, and then meets his demise due to the absence of this divinity within his earthly

73
sphere. Adonais is saved from the Poets fate because Shelley comes to believe
definitely in some eternal force. This eternal force absorbs Adonais after his death,
saving him from the utter dissolution experienced by the Poet. Shelley describes the Poet
upon his death as that wondrous frame--/ No sense, no motion, no divinity (665-666).
In Shelleys final poem The Triumph of Life, which he was still writing when he
died, Shelley returns a scene from his early work Alastor. The site of the Poets death in
Alastor is much more like the site where the speaker rests in The Triumph of Life than
Mont Blanc. In Alastor, Shelley describes the pinnacle of the mountain where the Poet
finally dies:
Yet the grey precipice and solemn pine
And torrent were not all;--one silent nook
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
Upheld by knotty roots (571-574).
The speaker in The Triumph of Life also rests within the roots of a large tree: Stretched
my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem/ Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep/ Of
a green Apennine (24-26). Though these locations are very similar, they occur at
opposite points in time within each respective poem. In Alastor, the Poet dies on the
secluded cliff at the end of the poem, while in The Triumph of Life, the speaker settles
into that place a the beginning.
The Triumph of Life seems to begin where Alastor left off because the speaker of
the later poem receives his vision in a place very similar to where the Poet in Alastor
died. When the Poet in Alastor reaches the cliff, he has already received his vision, and
conversely, the speaker in The Triumph of Life settles into a similar spot in order to
receive a vision. The speaker in The Triumph of Life describes the coming of his vision:
[] a strange trance over my fancy grew

74
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
Was so transparent that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
Oer the evening hills they glimmer (29-33).
The nature of the two visions is also different: the Poet in Alastor receives his vision on
his sleep (149), while the speaker in The Triumph of Life clarifies that his vision does
not occur in sleep. This important difference suggests that the vision in the later poem is
a more accurate representation of the Truth because it is not a dream produced by the
speakers mind.
The content of the speakers vision includes Rousseau as the speakers guide, who
shows him the reality of life. This reality is represented by a chariot passing through that
instantly ages all who remain in its wake. Interestingly, the speaker describes the coming
of this vision as a veil of light descending. Usually in Shelleys work, the metaphor of
Truth being revealed is of a veil being removed. However, the veil that descends is of the
light of Truth. Through this metaphor, Shelley returns to the Platonic symbology of light
from the Allegory of the Cave by using the light of the sun to represent the light of Truth.
The light that descends upon the speaker is of the sun because he describes it as acting
upon evening hills. By returning to the sun as a representation of Truth, Shelley moves
towards the Platonic idealism that he was moving away from in Alastor.
Though Shelley death was due to a sudden storm that came upon his boat, the
final stanza of Adonais suggests that he had some premonition of his death:
[] my spirits bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am born darkly, fearfully, afar (488-492).

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Shelley also partially orchestrated his death by sea because when the storm came upon
the ship a larger boat nearby offered to save Shelley and his crew, but Shelley rebuffed
this offer. If when writing The Triumph of Life Shelley knew that his death was
imminent, then it makes sense that he would revert towards Platonic idealism because
materialism does not provide any comfort in death.
Even at the very end of his life, Shelley remained concerned with the search for
Truth addressed in Alastor. He wavered throughout his poetic career between
materialism and idealism, never subjecting himself strictly to either philosophy. It was
not in Shelleys nature to accept another persons views as absolute Truth; instead, he
worked to find his own Truth. He was very much like the Greek philosophers in this way
because the Greek philosophers were obsessed with the nature of reality. He was also
very much a Romantic poet because he employed nature to a great extent in his search for
Truth. In the end, it seems that the only thing Shelley knew for sure was that all Nature
moves in time to its own annihilation (Wasserman 281). However, in his lifetime he
formulated important ways of viewing the world, which could satisfy both the materialist
and idealist philosophies. He also remained true to his belief in the power of poetry to
transform humanity. Though he engaged in much philosophical thought, he never
degraded poetry as the lesser discipline; instead, he firmly believed that only through the
poetic process could Truth be revealed.

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Holmes, Richard. Shelley: The Pursuit. New York: E.P. Dutton and Co, 1975.
Jones, Frederick L. Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Shelley in England. Vol I.
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Jones, Frederick L. The Inconsistency in Shelleys Alastor. ELH 1946 Dec; 13 (4):
291-98. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Muhlenberg College Trexler
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Notopoulos, James A. The Platonism of Shelley. Durham: Duke University Press, 1949.
Plato. The Republic. Trans. Sir Desmond Lee. New York: Penguin Classics, 1987.
Plato. The Symposium. Trans. Christopher Gill. New York: Penguin Classics, 1999.

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Reiman, Donald H. and Sharon B. Powers, eds. Shelleys Poetry and Prose. New York:
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Wasserman, Earl R. Adonais: Progressive Revelation as a Poetic Mode. ELH 1954
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