The Shelleys' Enthusiasm

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Enthusiasm”was the unsteady pulse of Percy Shelley’s thought, marking both his fondest selfrepresentations and his worst nightmares. The “high”romanticisms of Shelley and his audience of the “chosen few”were intimately connected to the raucous prophecies of Joanna Southcott and Richard Brothers, as well as to the doctrines of spontaneous overflow and organic inspiration among the Methodist lay preachers. Jasper Cragwall shows how Shelley and a host of disparate members of the clerisy—from Leigh Hunt to Robert Southey—struggled to desynonymize the enthusiasm of the gentleman-poet from that of the wild-eyed rural servant. Mary Shelley, in the figure of Victor Frankenstein, collapses the distinction between enthusiasms. There is a Methodism to Frankenstein’s madness, and in his resurrection quest, the embarrassing contiguities between polite culture and vulgar religion emerge. the shelleys ’ enthusiasm 653 This content downloaded from 40.77.167.42 on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 05:06:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 40.77.167.42 on Wed, 30 Nov 2016 05:06:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms