Poems Of Shelley

by Stopford Augustus Brooke

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Genres: Poetry, Classics, English Literature

408 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2008

About the author

Stopford Augustus Brooke (1832–1916) was an Irish churchman, royal chaplain and writer.

He was born in the rectory of Glendoen, near Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland, of which parish his maternal grandfather, Joseph Stopford, was then rector. He was the eldest son of the Rev. Richard Sinclair Brooke, later incumbent of the Mariners' church, Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire), and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1857, and held various charges in London. From 1863 to 1865 he was chaplain to the Empress Frederick in Berlin. In 1869 with his brother Edward he made long tours of Donegal and Sligo, and spent much time at Kells studying Irish antiquities. In 1875 he became chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria. But in 1880 he seceded from the Church, being no longer able to accept its leading dogmas, and officiated as a Unitarian minister for some years at Bedford chapel, Bloomsbury.

Bedford chapel was pulled down about 1894, and from that time he had no church of his own, but his eloquence and powerful religious personality continued to make themselves felt among a wide circle. A man of independent means, he was always keenly interested in literature and art, and a fine critic of both.

Brooke published in 1865 his Life and Letters of FW Robertson (of Brighton), and in 1876 wrote an admirable primer of English Literature (new and revised ed., 1900—but see below), followed in 1892 by The History of Early English Literature (2 vols, 1892) down to the accession of Alfred the Great, and English Literature from the Beginnings to the Norman Conquest (1898).

He gave the inaugural lecture to the Irish Literary Society, London, on "The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue" (Bloomsbury House, 11 March 1893).

Reviews

[David Withun · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books of Poetry take me a long time to read. The first time through a poem, especially poems by Romantic poets, are nearly incomprehensible to me. I've found that the best way to get "into" a poem is to read it to myself (aloud or whisper) and feel the rhythm, the pace and the sound of the words. I go back to it later, possibly in a few months or even years I will reread some poems and all of a sudden they make sense. Also if I can memorize a few lines. In other cases with very long poems I look it up on Cliff notes or Shmoop to get the background without losing the feeling of hearing the poem.
For instance, "Adonais" included here was written as an elegy for John Keats who had just passed away from Tuberculosis. I spend several days on this poem. He compares Keats to Adonis (god of love and desire) and Adonai (Used in the Hebrew Bible for The Lord and used in place of YHWH or Yahweh). It seems he mixed the two words together but for the most part compares him to Adonis. He draws a correlation between Adonis who was killed out of jealousy by Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, who drove a boar to gore him. He compares his Artemis to Keats' critics who killed him by criticizing him and not recognizing his greatness and he blames Uriana or Aphrodite for whiling away her time in paradise and not protecting him.
The Original Star Trek Series had an episode named "Who Mourns for Adonais" which is a line from this poem.
That is just one poem. Th "Ode to the West Wind" is arguably his most famous poem. Also "The Mask of Anarchy"(written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester), "Ozymandias", "The Triumph of LIfe", "Mont Blanc", "Alastor", "Prometheus Unbound", and many more are included in the book which I believe is complete.
It takes a lot of work sometimes to get some poetry and to understand it, but I find in the end it is worth it the trouble.

[Riccardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Io sussulto di aneliti profondi.
Ho pallida, fredda la faccia.
Oh stringi il mio cuore sul tuo
fino a che taccia."

Shelley cantore di una frenesia verbale, esuberanza estetizzante e enfasi assoluta troppo lontane dal nostro gusto. L'incapacità di ricondurre le proprie "urgenze fantastiche a un preciso strumento di lessico e stile" lo rendono forse il poeta romantico inglese più estraneo alla nostra sensibilità (e non a caso idolatrato da Carducci e D'Annunzio).

[Paul Klammer]

Bloom list includes, 'The Triumph of Life'