ABSTRACT
Shelley’s writing consistently reveals a fascination with the music of feminine expression. In all cases this fascination occurs within a phantasmic, or fantasy, structure1 involving heterosexual coupling and heteroerotic correspondence. This dominant fantasy corresponds in some ways with the longstanding Western metaphysical tradition of separating the word, which it has associated with masculinity, from voice and music, which it has associated with femininity,2 and it represents an attempt to fuse the two forms of expression in order to consolidate masculine poetic authority. Ultimately, Shelley’s fascination with feminine expression reveals his desire to become the ideal male poet who finds a way to remain eternally present in his own words and whose unbridled, immortal voice spellbinds multitudes as it challenges the establishment. A number of faultlines crisscross this phantasmic structure, however, the most devastating of which proves to be the possibility that vocal self-presence and vocal self-preservation become no more than fantasy constructs.
