It has long been my belief, based upon experience in
the class-room, that preëminent among english poems for their
educational value are certain of the representative poems of Shelley. If
made use of merely as a tool for the teaching of grammar and rhetoric,
these poems might prove themselves neither more or less inspiring than
such work as "The Vanity of Human Wishes." If so taught, on
the other hand, as to bring the student into something like sympathetic
association with Shelley’s genius, there are few poems better
calculated to exert that uplifting and stimulating influence which is
the chief part of true education. A watchword with teachers of literature
should be "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." These
poems of Shelley contain in a notable degree the excellences of
sincerity, singleness of aim, dignity and beauty of thought and diction,
unflagging imagination, and lofty ideality. The student who has been led
into vital communion with such qualities as these, who has been admitted
to such familiarity with them as is necessary to set working the
formative influence of example, has gained, it will be granted, an
appreciable step in his education.
The text of this edition, in
the main, is that adopted finally by Mr. W.M. Rossetti, and has beeen
subjected to careful comparison with the text of the first edition and
the edition of Mrs. Shelley. there are a few instances in which, with
great diffidence, I have ventured to depart from Mr. Rossetti’s
readings. In the sketch of Shelley’s careeer I have aimed at the
utmost brevity consistent with clearness. In regard to certain vexed
questions I have given conclusions only, without going into that
comparison of authorities with which none but the most advanced students
need concern themselves. Such students will, of course, turn to the
great work of Professor Dowden,— which in all crucial points has been
relied upon as final,—and to the interesting volumes of M. Felix Rabbe.
The student to whom these expensive works are unattainable may depend
upon Mr. William Sharp’s sympathetic and judicious monograph.
