ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Shelley's portraits of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his later poetry are marked by a similar sense of loss and wasted potential. If one recall John Hollander's comments, cited in the introduction, where he makes a distinction between how a 'great writer' and a 'minor one' may manipulate allusions to the work of another, one could argue that in 'Falsehood and Vice', Shelley is 'cultivating the topos rather than replanting or rebuilding there'. Shelley was at this time planning a trip to Ireland, where he hoped to disseminate propaganda about social and political reform to the populace, and many of his letters to Elizabeth Hitchener are written in the context of their projected plan to undermine perceived forces of tyranny in the political and social sphere through the establishment of an model community which adhered to ideals of equality and justice. Throughout his life, Shelley maintained a respect for the poetry of both William Wordsworth and Coleridge.
