Mythologizing history, historicizing myth : history and myth in the work of Shelley, Byron and Keats

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the interrelations of history and myth in the work of Byron, Shelley and Keats. I attempt to show that, in their poetry, myth is not a way out of history, but a vehicle for confronting and analysing both a specific historical context, and a general philosophy and understanding of history. The introductory chapter places the three poets in their historical context, and focuses on their participation and interest in the "spirit of the age" in which they lived. Within this context, the younger generation of Romantics took up their roles as poet-prophets and mythmakers - concerned with creating and re imagining myth for their own time. The introduction also focuses on the notion of the role of the poet within history, both as mythmaker and "legislator of the world". In the following three( chapters, I discuss the mythologizing of history on Shelley, Byron and Keats respectively, with each chapter divide into two main parts. The first part of the chapter on Shelley focuses on his concept of the historical process and the possibility of change with particular reference to his mythologized account of the French Revolution in "The Revolt of Islam". The second part deals with "Prometheus Unbound" and with the way that, through his radical re working of the Prometheus myth, Shelley was able to forward his ideas of the possibility of progress, liberty and change within the framework of an understanding of history. Chapter 2 focuses on the Byronic hero and the myth of Napoleon. It is concerned with Byron's initial perception of history as predominantly dependent on leadership and the actions of great men, as well as the historical connotations and contexts of the Byronic myth. In the second part of this chapter, I discuss Childe Harold and Don Juan and try to show that, in these longer poems, Byron's personal myth is placed within a wider historical and political context so that the experience and history of the Byronic heroes mirrors the history of the age. The first section of the chapter on Keats deals with Endymion and the political connotations of myth within the Cockney School of poetry. I attempt to show that the central role of myth in Keats's work is not simply an aesthetic choice, but a conscious political stance. The second part of the chapter turns to Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, throughout which I believe Keats is concerned with expressing history as individual experience and with his own need to confront history as a poet. I conclude that in the work of all three poets, history and myth are not set in opposition. Working with myth does not entail a flight from history, but a means of approaching and interpreting it.