ABSTRACT
Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite Louis MacNeice's public repudiation of his predecessor's work, offered compelling poetic resources for the younger poet. Embracing Shelley's terza rima in Autumn Sequel and "Auden and MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament", MacNeice often returned to his childhood hero for inspiration. Shelley's Romantic dialogue poem shares many preoccupations with "Postscript to Iceland" as MacNeice writes his own Romantically inflected though deeply independent poetry. Shelley's conversational method required two opposing forces as Shelley sought the dramatic effect of opposing voices. Julian and Maddalo showcases Shelley's ability to write with a quasi-Byronic urbanity, but his urbanity is at the service of his familiar interest in the multifaceted possibilities of interpretation. Julian and Maddalo forces a confrontation, engineered by Maddalo, which puts an end to the theoretical conversations of Julian and Maddalo, sending both in separate directions to continue with their lives.
