THE INTERPRETING ANGEL IN ‘THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE’

Abstract

SINCE Northrop Frye's statement long ago that 'if all art is visionary, it must be apocalyptic and revelatory too', the term apocalyptic has gained increasing acceptance among literary critics, particularly those dealing with Romantic literature.1 In the case of Shelley, such expressions as 'apocalyptic humanism', 'apocalyptic vision', and 'apocalyptic skepticism' have been used with reference either to Shelley's poetry in general or to his final poem 'The Triumph of Life' in particular.2 Such designations may not always be helpful. Apocalypsis (an unveiling), for example, would appear to contradict the term 'skepticism' (a veiling). Whatever the relative usefulness of these terms, the tendency to see Romantic literature in terms of apocalypse became widespread enough to prompt the criticism of M. H. Abrams that the word was being used loosely to refer to virtually any form of visionary experience.3 The solution presented by Abrams is to restrict the meaning of the word to the sense in which he says it is used in the Bible, to describe the emergence of a new world order or a new heaven and earth (as in Rev. 21: 1). Appropriated for discussion of Romantic works, the term would signify any vision which features the advent of a new era or better world (p. 41). If this were the only ground for using the word, it would be highly appropriate for Shelley, at least for a work like Prometheus Unbound. However, the genre of apocalyptic in biblical and aprocryphal literature deals with far more than glimpses of a new age or a heavenly city. There are distinguishing features of certain sacred writings, such as the books of Daniel and Revelation, which mark them as apocalyptic