English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

7-23-1971

Abstract

This analogical study attempts, through comparison, to define and elucidate Blake's and Shelley's ideas about the origin, manifestation and eradication of evil. Neither poet, for the most part, possesses a “tragic” view of evil, but it is the conclusion of the dissertation that the view they do have is nevertheless intellectually respectable and tenable. Blake defines evil as a "negative accident," a sin, error or mistake arising from suppressed energy. Shelley, however, accepted sane evils as absolute (the death, chance and mutability of Prometheus Unbound, for example), and his skepticism (based on reason) always kept up a running battle with his belief (based on feeling) in the perfectibility of man. Consequently, his finest. and most representative poem, Prometheus Unbound, contains a tentative and precarious utopia in contrast to Blake's total apocalypse at the end of his masterpiece, Jerusalem. The Cenci, moreover, presents in the character of Count Cenci an immedicable and radical evil.

Despite these differences, however, Blake and Shelley reveal strik­ing similarities in their ideas of evil, which remain fairly constant throughout their poetry and prose, early and late. Both poets contend

that the evils of selfishness, tyranny, lust, war, the desire for power, hypocrisy, hate, deceit and cruelty, rest on man's imperfect perception. The first chapter, therefore, discusses the nature and quality of the poets perception. Through their "prophetic" poetry, which looks forward to a time of regeneration, Blake and Shelley attempt to raise perception into the infinite so that these evils can be eradicated. To the poets, all things must be seen sub specie aeternitatis.

Chapters Two and Three then turn to a more precise definition and analysis of Blake's and Shelley's idea of evil. While Chapter One reveals the basic affinities of view between the two poets, Chapters Two and Three establish the several major differences I have indicated in the first paragraph of this Abstract. The remaining chapters deal with parallel thematic patterns within Blake's and Shelley's poetry. In Chapter Four I discuss the poets' idea of the evil selfhood (selfishness), its origin within the mind of man, and its manifestation in the oppressive father, the hypocritical priest, the malicious king and the tyrant God. This is the most profound similarity between Blake and Shelley. They diverge widely, however, in their notions of a true God who can take the place of the orthodox Christian deity. To Blake, God is the personal Divine Humanity; Shelley speaks of the impersonal Spirit of the Universe (or Love). In Chapter Five, I compare and contrast the Blakean Emanation and the Shelleyan epipsyche. Both poets see the universe in the mythic terms of a male (Albion or Prometheus) and a female (Asia or Jerusalem) principle which must be united before man can achieve wholeness and overcome evil. The final chapter, six, deals largely with Blake's and Shelley's notion of woman and sex in a more literal, realistic sense than in the preceding chapter. The poets views on the evils of marriage and prostitution, and lust as distinguished from passion, are strikingly alike, though Shelley stresses women's equality to men, whereas Blake tends to view the female life as a reflection of the male's.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

Ivan Peter Melada

Second Committee Member

Mary Jane Power

Third Committee Member

James L. Ruff

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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