ABSTRACT
During the eighteenth century and throughout the Romantic period, the tradition of romance was absorbed into the newest and eventually the dominant mode of literary writing, the novel. 'Alastor' utilizes one of the greatest strengths of Romantic verse narrative: its dialogic nature. The Romantic verse narratives people are going to look at can perhaps be associated with the more Gothic kind of romance novel, in that they employ exotic and, in the case of John Keats, historically distinct settings. The poem seems to be very much in the romance tradition. Percy Bysshe Shelley is clearly sympathetic towards the poet. The passage seems to rest on the fact that the poet is unable to find his imagined ideal in the world. In 'Alastor' Shelley is mixing different voices. That is to say, he is placing a Wordsworthian voice by the side of one which is nearer to his own, as it had developed up to this point.
