Shelley and Scripture: The Interpreting Angel

Abstract

This is a detailed and innovative study of the use by the poet Shelley, conventionally regarded as atheist, of ideas and imagery from the Scriptures in expressing his world view. Assessing Shelley's poetic theory and practice in relation to the Gnostic heresies of the early church period and the Enlightenment critiques of Scripture, the book shows the poet's method of biblical interpretation to be heterodox and revisionist. Shelley's early appropriation of Scriptural elements is seen to be based on the Bible's ethical content and its ideals of the kingdom of heaven, while in the period 1818-1820 he is a prophet in exile, an English expatriate preoccupied with the nature of the mind (or self). The final part of the study, which looks at Shelley's last two years, focuses on the notion of an increasingly spiritualized self who realizes that his kingdom is 'not of this world'. A detailed appendix sets out a large number of definite or possible Biblical allusions in Shelley's poetry. Shelley and Scripture draws on a deep knowledge of the Bible, and of the various currents in the history of Biblical exegesis and Christian typology, to present a timely re-evaluation of the influence on Shelley of the language and traditions of Christianity.