«Love, hope, and thee, I never can forget!» Mary Shelley Lyrical and Satyrical Poet
Abstract
Celebrated by both critics and audiences for Frankenstein, Mary Shelley has often been ignored as an author of lyrical poems. She wrote two mythological blank-verse dramas for children, but, in addition to these, over time, eighteen lyrical compositions have been attributed to her, mostly short and all composed after her husband’s death. Although at first glance these seem to be the result of a retreat into an immense and unbearable grief, which finds expression in themes, images, and words that tend to recur, even after years, in Mary Shelley’s poems, threads connecting them to her entire literary production are discernible. We find, first, her beloved Italy, the author’s homeland of choice. Additionally, political commitment could arguably re-emerge in the 1834 poem Ode to Ignorance, the dubious attribution of which this article intends to investigate.
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References
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