Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Poetic Science by Argyros I. Protopapas (review)

Argyros Protopapas’s book ‘aims to explore the structure and workings of Shelley’s love-driven visionary enterprise, especially focusing upon the ensuing momentary crises of consciousness and the emerging forms and variants of the Shelleyan self as they appear in the poet’s verse’. By moving through Shelley’s major works, Protopapas examines how Shelley’s visionary consciousness is guided by his idea of love. Following an introductory chapter on the criticism of Shelleyan consciousness, the seven chapters look at: Epipsychidion, ‘The Ode to the West Wind’, Adonais, ‘Mont Blanc’ and ‘To Constantia’, Prometheus Unbound, and finally, Julian and Maddalo and ‘The Triumph of Life’. From the outset Protopapas does a keen job of guiding the reader through the crux of his argument.

The book’s first chapter, ‘Criticism and the Paradox’, seeks to provide an overview of recent Shelleyan criticism regarding the consciousness of the poet. Here, Protopapas looks to illustrate his foundational thought that the ‘dynamic selfhood-in-the-making is that of full and alert consciousness’. He traces the development of consciousness into selfhood through the critics as well as Shelley’s followers. In an interesting side note, he claims that Shelley had a working knowledge of German thought, on a par with Coleridge. This is an idea that definitely deserves further investigating as it could help shape Shelley and Byron studies.

Chapter 2, ‘The Structure of the Enterprise’, seeks to build from the studies of previous Shelley scholars as it turns to the psychological and emotional consideration of Epipsychidion. It is here that Protopapas exhibits an acute awareness for tracing Shelley’s poetic vision of self-consciousness back to his readings of Plato and Lucretius, through the experimentation with Queen Mab. He looks to the ‘psychological and mental dimensions’ including the ‘problem of distinguishing clearly between the subject (see-er), the medium or process (see-ing), and the object (seen) of perception.’ In order to explain this particular line of thinking, Protopapas turns towards a cognitive analysis and relates it to the poetry.

In possibly the most crucial chapter in the book, the third chapter, ‘The Medium of the Enterprise’, looks to the Shelleyan love-inspired poems which, according to Protopapas, are influenced by Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. This proves to be a fine connection as he makes the argument that Shelley’s interest in science ultimately leads to a focus on self-transcendence in ‘Ode to the West Wind’. However, in order to do so, Protopapas must lay the groundwork by examining critical poems prior to the ‘Ode’, such as Alastor, ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,’ ‘The Sensitive Plant,’ Epipsychidion and ‘The Triumph of Life’. By developing the Shelleyan variety of self-transcendence, Protopapas holds that it ‘foreshadows seminal, universal, sociopolitical changes far beyond any restricted, personal level’.

Chapter 4, ‘The Animate Receptacle of the Enterprise’, seeks to thoroughly examine ‘two related issues; firstly, the structure and function of that receptacle; and, secondly, the unifying process of the attending consciousness with its animate or inanimate object of perception and psycho-visual attraction’. In order to better understand the second concern, Protopapas examines the love-making scenes from Laon and Cythna (ll. 2596–665). It is his belief that Shelley’s intention is to demonstrate how the orgasmic shadowing leads to a pleasurable, momentary loss of self-consciousness. This momentary loss of consciousness occurs in both individuals as they climax in unison, and ‘it shows that the psycho-physical excitement of inspired love is associated, for the poet, with the thrilling experience of the contact with the Shelleyan divine’. Protopapas, then, traces this idea to ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’.

In the fifth chapter, ‘Major Variants: From “Mont Blanc” through “To Constantia”’, the ‘Italian’ poems (1816–18) are covered, and Protopapas examines the complexities of description where the self is ‘struggling to come to terms with the awe-inspiring impact of natural forces’ in ‘Mont Blanc’ versus the ‘consuming passion for a...