Old Anew: Hellas

Abstract

ABSTRACT Written in autumn 1821 and in print by April 1822, Hellas is the last work that Shelley published in his lifetime. It was suggested by the Greek War of Independence, which Shelley considered to be one of the great political events of his time: his preface links it to the revolutions in Spain, France, and Italy and closes with an assertion that Liberty is about to return to Europe. But despite Shelley’s ambitions, Hellas is a failure. Rather than being regarded as the crowning achievement of Shelley’s mature poetry, it is eclipsed by his occasional and fragmentary poems of 1822. This essay suggests that the problem with Hellas is that Shelley has chosen the wrong cause to sympathize with. From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, the most urgent political developments in the Romantic period concern the transatlantic slave trade and European colonial expansion across the world—all of which form the building blocks of today’s global capitalism. Shelley’s Hellenistic focus distracts him from what the future would come to regard as the defining events of his era. Nonetheless, the lyrical drama can further our attempts to reckon with the legacy of the past in our present.