Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself (Vintage) [Paperback]

Ann Wroe (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage | Publication Date: November 4, 2008

From Ann Wroe, a biographer of the first rank, comes a startlingly original look at one of the greatest poets in the Western tradition. Being Shelley aims to turn the poet's life inside out: rather than tracing the external events of his life, she tracks the inner journey of a spirit struggling to create. In her quest to understand the radically unconventional Shelley, Wroe pursues the questions that consumed the poet himself. Shelley sought to free and empower the entire human race; his revolution was meant to shatter illusions, shock men and women with new visions, find true love and liberty—and take everyone with him. Now, for the first time, this passionate quest is put at the center of his life. The result is a Shelley who has never been seen in biography before.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* A vexing annoyance to his friends, Shelley's "mystifying metaphysics" has counted for little with recent biographers obsessed with his radical politics. But Wroe recognizes in those metaphysics the wellspring of great poetry. Consequently, her daringly experimental biography treats the external events of the poet's life only incidentally as it plunges the reader into an imagination that strained toward transcendent ideals. Complete immersion in Shelley's writings—especially his unpublished notebooks—recovers the surging convictions that once moved a Promethean spirit and a prolific pen. Readers thus sound the depths of a self-proclaimed infidel who devoutly adored the "World Spirit" and of a nature lover addicted to an otherworldly Platonic beauty. Contemptuous of the hell of Christian orthodoxy, Shelley nonetheless wrestled with his own demons, struggling against despair when tawdry realities crushed his dreams of justice and cursing sexual appetites that consumed him without satisfying his yearning for love. Tracing a particularly compelling strain in Shelley's work, Wroe limns a fascination with water—heaven reflected on its surface, truth hidden in its depths—that eerily anticipates the poet's death at sea. Yet it is finally not Shelley's death but his life—his imaginative and creative life—that Wroe delivers in all its perplexing brilliance. Christensen, Bryce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Intensely imaginative. . . . A biography that reads like poetry itself. . . . Wroe manages to get inside Shelley's head." —Providence Journal"If you are a fan of Percy Bysshe Shelley, you will love Anne Wroe's Being Shelley. . . . Her approach topples conventions. . . . She climbs inside his head." —The Plain Dealer“An extraordinary feat of scholarship. . . . A risky but singularly exhilarating book.” —Richard Holmes, The Guardian"Visionary . . . daring . . . [Being Shelley] is anchored gracefully in biographical and textual detail." —The Atlantic"Enthrallingly readable. . . . A magnificent book from an extraordinarily intuitive and gifted writer. . . . The biographer's achievement is on a par with that of her subject, which is no mean accomplishment indeed."—Georgia Review "Daringly experimental. . . . Wroe delivers Shelley's imaginative and creative life in all its perplexing brilliance."—Booklist (starred review)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307280527
• ISBN-13: 978-0307280527
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and Creative Look at Shelley, March 6, 2009

By 

Kevin M. Derby (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself (Vintage) (Paperback)

Ann Wroe is certainly hard to pin down. I honestly can not think of a biographer who can tackle the wide range of different subjects that Wroe has and yet do it well. Percy Shelley is as far from Pontius Pilate as any human could be and yet she captured both men very well. "Being Shelley" is not a conventional biography and Wroe seeks to capture the poet's creative side as much as possible. She does this by tracing his life and works through various elements (air, earth, water etc). It's a gamble and it pays off for Wroe beautifully. Unlike a number of his more recent biographers who want to focus on Shelley's radical politics or his rather scandalous personal life, Wroe explores his creative vision and she uses primary sources-from poems to journals-to present her argument. If she does not present a coherent life, Wroe is able to open up a little window on the heart and soul of one of the great poets of the English language in this vivid and readable book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Experimentum Crucis, June 15, 2010

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Daniel Myers (Greenville, SC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself (Hardcover)

Shelley has always been known - quite rightly to my mind - as a "poet's poet" meaning that only those gifted to some degree with the poet's transcendent vision will latch on to him as a fellow spirit and his poetry as evocative of the stirrings of their own souls. Likewise, then, Ann Wroe is a poet's biographer, limning the soul of the poet through his poetry to which only the "initiate" will respond. "Sheer astonishment at Shelley's poems made me write this book; astonishment, and regret that his spiritual force seems to have been largely forgotten." All who, like Wroe, have experienced moments when:

"I arose & for a space
The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,
Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
Of light diviner than the common sun
Sheds on the common Earth..."

cannot but share in her astonishment and so treasure this book which Wroe, in the first sentence of the Introduction calls an "experiment," "an attempt to write the life of the poet from the inside out." Who would ever wish, one asks oneself upon finishing this book, to write of a poet, especially as visionary a poet as Shelley, in any other way?

Wroe takes a non-chronological, thematic approach to Shelley's life, using the Four Elements: Earth, Water, Air and Fire as her poetic cicerones through Shelley's life and work, treating the two, rightly, as inseparable. I could go onto a lengthy disquisition here, but that is for Ann Wroe's coruscating and enrapturing narrative to do for the reader. Let me simply cite Wroe's own splendid evaluation of Shelley's pilgrimage through this world:

"One fact, however, lay at the core of all these histories: a fact so intrinsic to Shelley, and so precious, that he was unable ever to describe it. Each Shelley-character held a memory - disturbed, but not eclipsed, even by stark grief - of a blissful, momentary, controlling presence both within and beyond himself. This was what made him mad, if he was truly so: that he had glimpsed this presence while on Earth, and could not bear the rift between that reality and his existence."

After finishing this erudite yet bracing labour of love, one feels tremendously indebted to Ann Wroe. This book, to crib a bit from "Adonais," is a portion of that loveliness which Shelley made more lovely, and now Wroe has made lovelier still.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Psychological Shelley, September 11, 2009

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Richard C. Sha - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself (Hardcover)

Wroe's book offers a compelling portrait of Shelley. Its strength and innovation comes from the use of manuscript evidence to think through the poet's psychology. The limitation of this study is that those who want more of a thinking Shelley are better served by Hugh Roberts, Stuart Curran, and Earl Wasserman.