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The Review of English Studies Advance Access originally published online on December 25, 2006
The Review of English Studies 2006 57(232):783-792; doi:10.1093/res/hgl128
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press 2006; all rights reserved

Shelley's Cosmological Sublime: William Herschel, James Lind and ‘The Multitudinous Orb’

Christopher Goulding

Royal Grammar School, Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4DX, England


  Abstract

Percy Bysshe Shelley's verse-drama Prometheus Unbound (1819) has long been recognised as a work in which Shelley makes extensive use of astronomical imagery as a metaphor for revolutionary political ideas. Hitherto, critics have largely had to rely on conjectural readings by Shelley of various contemporary scientific publications, magazines and digests that have been proposed as possible sources for his understanding of this subject. This article introduces Shelley's Eton mentor James Lind MD, FRS (1736–1812) as a more likely and more direct conduit for much of the poet's astronomical knowledge. As well as being an accomplished astronomer himself, Lind was a friend, neighbour and correspondent of Sir William Herschel (1738–1822), the greatest astronomer of the age. Here, excerpts from Shelley's verse are re-interpreted as incorporating Herchelian visions of a huge cosmic life cycle at work in the universe, encapsulating the organic process of formation of all things, from the greatest stars to the smallest particles of matter.


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