ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part explores the more general Romantic conception of the lyrical as a defining principle of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetic form, especially those works composed post-1818. It examines the term “lyrical drama” itself possesses a rich set of connections, most significantly with the history of opera, which permit the lyrical to be paradoxically introspective and performative, at once private and public. The part deals with Susan Wolfson that Shelley “is nothing if not ambivalent about poetic form as a medium of transmission,” his poetry reveals a significant degree of self-conscious craftsmanship that belies his undecided and often contradictory statements on poetic form. It argues that Shelley, like Augustus Schlegel, conceives of form as essential to the poetic process, and in turn to his definition of poetry.
