Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation
5-1911
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department (Legacy)
College of Arts and Sciences
Subject
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822--Criticism and interpretation
Abstract
The most striking quality of Shelley's poetry meets our attention once, in the play of ever-changing emotion through his lines. When he called himself "A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift," he characterized the spirit of his poetry, with its ever-shifting imagery, and its pulsing, leaping rhythms continually falling into new and unexpected adjustments of difficult stresses, but always resolving themselves into a wonderful coherency of thought and form which produces the effect of strange and beautiful music. He builds up large rhythm-forms in what we may call the phrasing of his lines, using the term in a musical sense, and over these large waves play the verse-waves in a vast variety of subtle adjustments. As striking an illustration as we could find of this, lies in that magnificently descriptive line from Alastor – Of wave ruining on wave, and Blast on blast. 327.
Recommended Citation
Murphy, Ethel Allen, "Some peculiarities of Shelley's rhythm." (1911). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1030.
https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1030
