The Palgrave Literary Dictionary of Shelley by Martin Garrett (review)

Perhaps it is a symptom of the proliferating, expansive nature of Romantic studies under the twinned impulses of historicism and canon revision that more and more titles are emerging with the goal of being analytic reference works. From Oxford Handbooks to the familiar Cambridge Companions, it seems today’s scholars and students have an appetite for texts that marshal and organise. The Palgrave Literary Dictionaries, unique in that they take short, alphabetised entries rather than even short essays as their structural principle, are another entrant into this kind of market.

Such texts are rather difficult to review, since both the concept and the content of the book is at stake. What do they do, and for whom would they actually be of use? We might begin by looking at a minor poem, 1811’s short lyric ‘On an Icicle that clung to the grass of a grave’. Garrett briefly notes it was sent to James Hogg, revised for the Esdaile notebook, figures it as a lament for a forlorn woman, and suggests a few connections within and outside Shelley’s work (e.g. to Thomas Moore). The entry is characteristic in covering the poem’s origin, noting pertinent textual variations, offering a précis, and sketching intertextual references. Perhaps understandably the shortest entries, such as these, offer little critical reflection, but in pointing the reader to the notes of the ongoing John Hopkins UP edition (as this one does), a slight problem is raised, which is that even the longer entries in this dictionary cannot compete with the lavish commentaries offered there.

Nevertheless, more analysis is certainly present when turning to more canonical poetry: for instance, the entry on ‘Mont Blanc’ is a mini-essay of over two pages. Once again, the basics are present: origin, composition, relevant biography, information on drafts and so forth. The middle of the entry turns extensively to intertextuality, noting relations with Coleridge’s ‘Hymn Before Sun-Rise’ (but not any of the critical work on this dialogue) and Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ (better documented), especially in regards to the classic theme of inward versus outward. This latter dichotomy is very much the dominant note of the entry. Garrett goes on to cite both Leavis and recent criticism by Kim Blank and William Keach in exploring the tension between metaphorical richness and blank physicality in the text. A rather sketchy mention of more political readings, as well as Shelley’s contentious materialism, conclude the entry – which one could argue subtly misrepresents the current state-of-play in Shelley criticism (something also apparent in the fact that two of the four ‘further reading’ entries are from the early 1970s).

Alongside entries on poems and prose, the dictionary is filled with short pieces on places, influences and correspondents, helpfully structuring a mass of biographical information. It works excellently as a quick reference for a figure like Prince Mavrokordatos (the Greek political exile to whom Hellas was dedicated) or to efficiently remind one of the exact lineaments of the Byron/Shelley relationship. For instance, besides the summarised biography, the entry on Lord Byron traces the friendship’s major fault-lines (optimism versus pessimism, Shelley’s jealousy of Byron’s success) as well as evoking key moments of textual influence. These entries, one can imagine, would be very useful in the midst of research. If one wishes to know about Shelley’s relations with The Quarterly Review or when and where Shelley travelled through Germany, then this information is all conveniently to hand.

Its use as a critical reference tool depends on several different aspects of the book. Certainly, there is a very strong and comprehensive bibliography at the back. And, as already noted, individual entries are threaded through with judicious references to criticism, with many possessing further reading listed at the foot of the entry (although this can be inconsistent: nothing for ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’ or ‘Ozymandias’, but a cue to Judith Chernaik in the much shorter entry...