Self-Resolution in Shelley's Julian and Maddalo

Self-Resolution in Shelley9s Julian and Maddalo RICHARD E. BROWN Julian and Maddalo presents a problem common to much of Shelley 's poetry: it depicts a series of characters obviously created dirough audiorial self-projection. Modern critics have generally accepted bodi Julian and die maniac overheard in die middle of die poem as Shelleyan self-portraits; even Maddalo, ostensibly modeled on Byron, shares important features with Julian and; die maniac, and may also be viewed as relevant to Shelley's conception of himself. As Earl Wasserman writes: "the disillusioned and misandiropic Byron who is the model for Maddalo corresponds in many ways to a recurrent figure in Shelley's poetry because Shelley recognized in him die enviably heroic but negating side of himself diat he yearned to convert to his own ends. ... Julian and Maddalo are Shelley's divided and conflicting selves skeptically confronting each other. . . ." J Wasserman's recent analysis of the Richard E. Brown (Ph.D., Cornell) teaches at the University of Nevada (Reno Campus) where he is currendy working on a number of projects concerning Shelley. 'Shelley. A Critical Reading (Baltimore, 1971), pp. 63-64. The opening conversation between Julian and Maddalo is based on Shelley's ride with Byron along the Lido in the late afternoon of 23 August 1818. Shelley describes the historical event in a letter to Mary Shelley of 23-24 August: "So he took me in his gondola—much against my will for I wanted to return to Clare at Mrs. Hoppners who was anxiously waiting for me—across the laguna to a long sandy island which defends Venise [sic] from the Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sea talking. Our conversations consisted in histories of his wounded feelings, and questions as to my affairs, and great professions of friendship and regard for me. . . . We talked of literary matters, his fourth Canto [of Childe Harold] which he says is very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas of great energy to me . . ." (The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Frederick L. Jones, II, 36-37). Shelley is apparently recalling this incident when he remarks, in a letter to Leigh Hunt (15 August 1819), that Julian and Maddalo "was composed last year at Este; two of the characters you will recognize; ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW39 poem is the most elaborate attempt yet made to explain Shelley's selfinvolvement He suggests diat diere are important relationships among the Shelleyan figures: Julian and Maddalo, optimist and pessimist respectively about the power of the human will to realize good, interact in their opening debate as "die Yeatsian self and die antidietical self which we assume to impose discipline upon ourselves." 2 Julian is fascinated by his opponent from the outset, suggesting to Wasserman that Shelley uses Maddalo to express the "enviably heroic but negating side of himself diat he yearns to expose and convert to optimism dirough debate widi Julian.3 Julian and Maddalo turn to the maniac, bodi expecting diat his example will bolster their differing views on human potential; but according to Wasserman, the maniac proves to be "drawn ambiguously ," supporting in part the claims of each.4 The poem ends, in diis interpretation, not with a synthesis of die dialectic, but widi anticlimactic irresolution. Shelley's skeptical method, forWasserman, demands a conclusion in which opposites remain distinct and relatively unreconciled ; the effect is to express a nervous poise, as Shelley cannot finally commit himself to either view. the third [presumably the maniac, who appears in the middle of the poem] is also in some degree a painting from nature, but with respect to time and place ideal." The relationship between the maniac and Shelley has been discussed from many angles. See H. S. Salt, Percy Bysshe Shelley (London, 1888), pp. 90-91; Carl Grabo, The Magic Plant (Chapel Hill, 1936), pp. 265-71; John Harrington Smith, "Shelley and Claire Clairmont," PMLA, 54 (1939), 785-814; Ivan Roe, Shelley. The Last Phase (London, 1953), pp. 135 fT. Other critics have seen links between the maniac and the Italian Renaissance poet, Torquato Tasso; such a connection does not necessarily deny that the maniac is also a Shelleyan...