Percy Bysshe Shelley, Defence of Poetry

Mark Sandy (University of Durham)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1821

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Commentary / Criticism (literary)

Resources

Responding to Thomas Love Peacock’s partly satirical essay, Four Ages of Poetry, published in Charles Ollier’s Literary Miscellany (1820), Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry argues for poetry’s utilitarian function. Shelley composed his rebuttal of Peacock’s arguments about the redundancy of poetry, in February and March 1821, intending A Defence of Poetry to appear in another volume of Ollier’s Literary Miscellany. When Shelley learned that there would no further issues of Ollier’s periodical, he started on plans, which remained incomplete at the time of his death, to publish A Defence of Poetry as a pamphlet in its own right. In 1822, Mary Shelley endeavoured to have Shelley’s …

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1061 words

Citation: Sandy, Mark. "Defence of Poetry". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5662, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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