Monday, June 29, 2009
Percy Bysshe Shelley
My favorite poem of Shelley's was Hymm to Intellectual Beauty. Its flattering when people can explain everyday occurences by nature. In the first stanza Shelley talks of a "shadow of some unseen Power", which I think is a spirit representing our conscience. It "floats, though unseen, amoungst us,.."(397). I especially liked the last line in this stanza saying "Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery" (397). This mystery that he speaks of is what makes the future so unexpected. No one knows exactly what will happen even though we may have an intuitive idea. As the day quickly passes away, I believe Shelley wants us to worry less about what is to happen futuristically but focus on the time we have in front of us. "When noon is past-there is a harmony" which allows us to focus on what is next to come.
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Tisha,
ReplyDeleteOK start to this post on Shelley. You do not really provide enough context, evidence or analysis to be fully successful, though. Also, you seem to misread the poem at times, as when you identify the "shadow of some unseen Power" as our conscience, when it in fact refers to Intellectual Beauty (our idea of what is beautiful, which we see reflections of in all beautiful things. Be sure not to wait until so close to the deadline for your research paper, so you will be better able to build and communicate your interpretive argument.