PREFACE No one can attempt to deal with Shelley in editorial fashion without being conscious at almost every step of the great value of Professor Dowden's biography of the poet, and of much of the other material mentioned in the Bibliography. I have tried, however, in preparing the Introduction and Notes, to maintain that independence of judgment which should characterize all Shelleyans, and to produce a text suitable indeed for student use, and conforming to classroom requirements, yet based on other than formally pedagogic principles. Literature, it seems, is not getting itself taught in our higher schools as vitally as we would like, despite immense critical apparatus. Is it because we are too judicial? Is it because a poem, like a person, invites affection before it yields its confidence? MACON, GEORGIA, December, 1906. G. H. C. |