Science, footnotes and the margins of poetry in Percy B. Shelley’s Queen Mab and Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay is concerned with the functions of the scientific and philosophical prose notes in Percy B. Shelley’s Queen Mab and Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head. It argues that, in both cases, the use of notes is a way of connecting the verse text to what seems to be outside of, but might well be woven into, it. Thus, by means of these annotations, the work of poetry involves itself in a field under construction, the boundaries of which, rather than being predefined, are subject to continual extension and reconsideration. The annotated poem, on this reading, gives form to a world in which poetic and scientific practices are not confined to mutually exclusive spheres, such as text and context, but take place alongside each other and evolve together, from within the same web of works. Explicating some of the ontological premises that inform, and are formed by, Shelley’s and Smith’s texts, this essay seeks to elucidate the composition of that web. The writings of Queen Mab and Beachy Head, it shows, participate in a gathering of generative activities − poetic, scientific and otherwise − that tend to prolong themselves towards, and inscribe themselves into, each other.