ABSTRACT
The figure of metamorphosis seems an appropriate one to use in describing a writer's posthumous reputation, as he or she is successively re-created through time. It is doubly so in a case such as P. B. Shelley's, where his inevitable metamorphoses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century biography and criticism frequently contain this further dimension of gender shift. The diminution of Shelley's reputation through an emphasis on his lyrics and extracts from longer poems, may complicate this picture somewhat, by suggesting that the work of a male poet might also be feminized in the manner of its transmission to the reading public. The biographical feminization of Shelley, together with his reincarnation as a lyricist certainly produced the impression of an emasculated poet amongst some of his more hostile critics in later nineteenth century and beyond. After a long period dominated by the New Critical attack on Shelley, his reputation revived in post-war years. Significantly, his reinstatement was marked in some critics by another gender-shift.
