ABSTRACT
Shelley has his own approach to the task, and his own artistic solution to the disjunction between past and present selves: the tactic of self-quotation. 'The casket of unknown mind’, a typical Shelleyan reversal of a negative into a positive, becomes a potent symbol for the dialectic of self-concealment and self-disclosure that is the essence of Shelley’s poetry. The technical and imaginative achievement of ‘The Retrospect’ are thus central to the 1813 volume, though Shelley had first conceived of the collection before the poem was written. Several factors made possible this artistic breakthrough, and the leap of poetic consciousness that the volume as a whole represents. One factor, as many poems confirm, was biographical: Shelley’s relationship with Harriet Westbrook, described in the dedication as ‘the inspiration to the song’, and in ‘The Retrospect’ as the ‘reviving ray’ who enabled him to confront both his troubled past and his uncertain future.
