Shelley's Goddess This page intentionally left blank SHELLEY'S GODDESS Maternity, Language, Subjectivity BARBARA CHARLESWORTH GELPI New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1992 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1992 by Oxford University Press, Inc Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gelpi, Barbara Charlesworth Shelley's goddess : maternity, language, subjectivity/ Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-19-507383-5(cloth) —ISBN 0-19-507384-3 (pbk.) Shelley, Percy Bysshc, 1792-1822—Criticism and interpretation Mother and child in literature Psychoanalysis and literature Subjectivity in literature Motherhood in literature Infants in literature I Title PR5442.M67G45 1992 821'.7—dc20 91-35901 246897531 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Albert, Christopher, and Adrienne This page intentionally left blank Preface The writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley take on significant new meaning when read through two intersecting ideologies: the ideology of the maternal, which underscored the necessity of mothers' constant, immediate, and personal care of infants and young children; and the ideology of the aesthetic, as it has been defined by Terry Eagleton With the Greek meaning of aisthesis (pertaining to sense perception) as his warrant, Eagleton gives "aesthetic" its widest possible meaning The word establishes a distinction not between "art" and "life" but between "the whole region of human perception and sensation, in contrast to the more rarefied domain of conceptual thought" (13) He theorizes that the aesthetic, in this inclusive sense, takes on the significance it had during the eighteenth century (and later) as a way of mollifying the rigors of bourgeois individualism: "In economic life, individuals are structurally isolated and antagonistic; at the political level there would seem nothing but abstract rights to link one subject to the other This is one reason why the 'aesthetic' realm of sentiments, affections and spontaneous bodily habits comes to assume the significance it does" (23) Eagleton does not make an explicit connection between the importance placed on the aesthetic and the segregation of women into a domestic realm of "sentiments and affections," where they were charged with the task of instilling their children with "spontaneous bodily habits." The omission is rather surprising, since the point has been made by a number of feminist scholars that middle-class women's function within a capitalist system was—and is, since the "thousand points of [volunteering] light" are gendered—recuperative and thus conservative in two senses of that word (Gallagher 119; Newton 19; Poovey 10; B Smith 10) While availing myself of Eagleton's phrase and the ideas it signifies, my thinking is actually closer to that of Alan Richardson, who argues that "in moving from an 'Age of Reason' to an 'Age of Feeling' male writers drew on the memories and fantasies of identification with the mother in order to colonize the conventionally feminine domain of sensibility" (13) My reading of what is involved in that identification and of the range of its effects is somewhat different from Richardson's Using broader terms than he does, I would say, that the the role assigned to mothers, with its attendant effects on the construe- viii Preface tion of subjectivity and the acquisition of language, has consequences for every possible area of human activity, including literature Thus, much material in the first two chapters of this book is relevant to a consideration of other nineteenth-century writers and has benefited from earlier work in this field My study provides a sociological context, together with a broader psychological schema, for Barbara Schapiro's pioneering but overly narrow analysis of Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and dovetails with Anne Mellor's discussion of the signal importance of the domestic in the writings of Mary Shelley Jerome McGann suggests the possibility that the poetry of Byron also reflects the workings of this dual ideology Paul Sawyer writes that "Wisdom [Athena in Ruskin's Queen of the Air] is Ruskin's name for what Eagleton calls the 'ideology of the aesthetic,' the introjection of the social law experienced as consensus" (139) My area of interest overlaps in a number of ways that of Nathaniel Brown, though we come to precisely opposite conclusions Brown holds that the eighteenth-century doctrine of sympathy offered a "psychological alternative to the traditional polarization of the sexes into separate spheres," whereas I see the two as part of a cultural whole, with the doctrine not implying "the dissolution of sex roles" but reinscribing them I most emphatically not subscribe to the view that Shelley was a feminist, much less "the first major writer to experiment in literary consciousness-raising" (Brown 3) My work is perhaps most constantly in dialogue with Shelley's Process by Jerrold Hogle The chiming of our two titles, while unplanned in that we were working completely independently, is appropriate In defining the centrality of "radical transference" to Shelley's creativity, Hogle writes: "Indeed, his self-reproducing and self-altering transference is the otherness-of-self-fromself long consigned to 'woman' by patriarchal discourse and recently revived in French theory as the feminine 'unconscious' on which the construct 'man' (including the Freudian version) is actually based without realizing the fact" (18) In a note Hogle adds that "Jardine's notion of gynesis striving toward gynema is very close to what I mean by Shelleyan transference" (347) As will become clear in the first chapter, Hogle and I use the same phenomenon—the mirrored maternal at the core of subjectivity—as our starting point We subsequently move in different, though not antithetical, directions, our differing methodologies steering us toward different areas of interest Both of us, however, can be numbered among those critics employed in exploring what Coppelia Kahn has described as "that gray, shadowy region of identification, particularly male identification with the mother" (88) Although I endow the maternal ideology, as implementation for the ideology of the aesthetic, with very broad relevance, distrust of generalization has led me to focus on a single subject—Percy Bysshe Shelley That the relation to the maternal of virtually all writers since the mid-eighteenth century bears careful investigation seems to me incontrovertible, yet in each case the nature of that relation will vary according to the circumstances, the personalities, and the historical moment In the second chapter, therefore, I limit myself to the Preface ix version of the maternal ideology disseminated at the time of Shelley's infancy and ehildhood, and in the third I link it to the interactions that characterized the Shelley family I then read only one work by Shelley—albeit a long and significant one—in order to track the presence of the maternal, with the explicit understanding that this deeply ambivalent relationship, while present in many other places, will not manifest itself in the same way even in different works by the same poet The specificity needed for such a task justifies my concentrating on only one nineteenth-century poet But why Shelley should be my choice requires further explanation My reading of Shelley's poetry as part of an academic apprenticeship aside, I first took an interest in his work—a negative interest, to be sure—while I was considering the viability of androgyny as a feminist concept When an "androgynous" pair, Laon and Cythna, is first presented to us, Cythna is curled up beside Laon "like his shadow" (Laon and Cythna I.lx.534 [CW I, 274]), but the Jungian term "anima" would describe her more appropriately: "None else [besides Laon] beheld her eyes—in him they woke / Memories which found a tongue, as thus he silence broke" (I.Ix.539-40) An analysis of this and similar fantasies in works by other authors underlies my caveat (in "The Politics of Androgyny") against androgyny as historically misogynist; its ambition is to "transcend" relationships with actual women by subsuming "the feminine" into the subjectivity of the male More generally, one could say that Shelley's obsession with finding "a soul within our soul that describes a circle around its proper Paradise which pain and sorrow and evil dare not overleap" ("On Love," SPP 474) expresses a desire for unity of being that denigrates and seeks to escape the actualities of human dependence and interdependence There were other cogent reasons for abandoning androgyny as a feminist project, but this—at least in my own case—was the primary one My notations on incest as, so to speak, an androgynous metaphor in Shelley's work drew my attention to the fact that the incestuously paired sister and brother Cythna and Laon functioned like figures painted on a theatrical scrim, at once revealing and concealing their true stage presences as mother and son Kenneth Cameron's insights into the biographical significance of Shelley's relationship with his mother (Young Shelley 3-5) had not received further scholarly attention, and a study of that bonding caught my interest as a possible project Contextually, I had as models the brilliant feminist analyses of mothering that appeared in the mid-1970s: Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, a breakthrough conceptualization of motherhood as an institution, a constructed and therefore not a "natural" experience; Nancy Chodorow's Reproduction of Mothering, an analysis of the ambivalence created through sons' separation from and daughters' identification with the mother, constructed to be their primary—and often sole—care giver; and Dorothy Dinnerstein's study The Mermaid and the Minotaur, which theorizes that the ambivalence toward maternal power created by infant dependence on a female caretaker produces in both genders a fear of experiencing empowerment in women Incidents in Index Initiation ritual, 200, 205-6, 210, 220-21 "Interchange" (III.iii.96), 251, 272 Interpersonal narrative, 17-31 in Nye, 17 in Stern, 17-21,24-27,29 Interpersonality and identity, 16 Intersubjectivity, 20, 21, 187-88 Introjection of words by mother into child, 11 Io, 140-42, 239 lone, role of, in Prometheus Unbound, 173, 174, 176, 177, 183, 225, 226, 236, 245, 260 Ivy associated with Dionysus, 161, 203 associated with Prometheus, 161 as bisexual, 161-62 meaning of, in Prometheus Unbound, 16162 Jacobsen, Thorkild, 224-26 Jardine, Alice, viii, 4, 5, 29 Jeaffreson, John, 92 Jesus effect of, to intensify tyranny Prometheus sought to end, 222 as unfathered son, with relation thereby to Prometheus, 222 Word of, misused in this world, 200 Jones, Frederick, 116, 119, 126 Jung, Carl Gustav, 119, 149, 176 concept of anima, 173, 229 n Jupiter empowered by Prometheus as prerequisite for gift of language to humankind, 137, 147, 221 and concept of Jupiterean Prometheus at end of Prometheus Unbound, 264-65 curse of Prometheus against, 146, 148, 149 dethroned by Demogorgon in avalanche of changed perception, 236, 237, 242 downfall of, 170, 222 evils resulting from reign of, 144-45, 221 "eyeless" as applied to Jupiter-Prometheus relationship, 146 as Father God, 139-40 fear as source of strength of, 237 identification of Prometheus with, 174 malevolence of, 257 as master vs Prometheus as slave, 151 mirroring between, and Prometheus, 153, 167, 168 n patriarchal power or tyranny of, contested, 137-38, 140,145 Phantasm of, meaning of, 149, 153, 167 Prometheus freed from destructive miming of, 183 297 as punisher of Prometheus for giving gift of language to humankind, 137, 139, 144, 147, 191, 214 rape of Thetis by, significance of, 236, 23841,248 snow of, meaning of, 237, 238 as a syphilitic and universal source of contagion, 240 as "third term" in Prometheus Unbound, 147 Kant, Immanuel, 156, 163, 168 n Keach, William, 28-29, 217 Keats, John, viii, 53 Kennedy, Captain, 125-26 Kittler, Friedrich, 30-31 Klein, Melanie, 95, 131 n 6, 153, 212-13 Kristeva, Julia on acquisition of language, 11, 21, 22, 69 influence of, on American feminist theory, x "glossolalia" of, 11, 12 on killing substance to make it signify, 10 on parents, 12 revision of Lacanian infancy narrative by, 267-68 on semiotics, 11, 13, 175 on sounds of infants and mothers, 7, 148 on subjectivity, 13, 15 Kuhn, Adalbert, 144 Lacan, Jacques, 5, 6, 10, 106, 151, 212, 21421,220,269 aim of, to resolve human dilemma by coming to terms with it, 14, 157 application of his theory to Shelley's work, x, 53 on causes and results of acquisition of language by infants, 9-11, 69, 146 on gaze, 186 on identity, x on incest taboo, 163 and individuality, influence of, on American feminist theory, x on mirroring, 8, 16 on parents, 12 on subjectivity, x, xi, 5-16, 146, 149, 198 on unary and binary signifiers, 9-10, 25 on unconscious, 213 Lacanian theory of acquisition of language, 21-22, 24, 26, 71 of arriving at subjectivity, 5-6, 16-19, 31 n 3, 149, 175 concept of, of mother and child as a speechless dyad with masculine agent of speech and consciousness, 22 298 Index Lacanian theory (continued) on conflation of feminine with nonbeing, 29 on mirroring an Other, 16 of mother or primary caretaker of infant as mirror for forming its subjectivity, 4, 19, 31 n resolution of, on Oedipal conflict, 152 on split subject, 169 n on subjectivity as illusory construct, 17 Lady's Magazine, The, 58, 60-63, 65-66, 69 Lady's Monthly Museum, 47-48, 67 Language, 11, 28 acquisition of, vii-viii, x, xii, 9-11, 21-27, 32-33 n 11, 33 n 13, 14, 192, 193, 265 n analysis of, by Rousseau, 192-93, 197-98 definition of, 28 as human soul, born from love of everdying, ever-reborn poet and goddess, 273 of males' struggle for power as false and tyrannical, 204 meaning of, to Shelley, 29, 192, 194, 197200, 204 multistability of, in Shelley, 16 and poetry, 25-26 and poet's task to make poetry create "impossible" artistic and political changes, 26, 191, 195 restoration of potential for development of, in new world order, linked to dyad of mother and child, 247-51 restructuring of, through remembering and re-membering relationship with mother, xiii speech of, and creating thought, 197 and subjectivity, x, xii, 16 true, vs false Jupiterean language in Prometheus Unbound, 199 working of, through all the senses, 197-98 Laon and Cythna (Shelley), 78, 92, 171, 263 accession to language through infantmother relationship in, 265 n and androgyny, ix role of Cythna in, 129 Laver, James, 48 Lawrence, D H., 123-24 Lemaire, Anika, 10 Lenclos, Ninon de, 117-118 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 10, 12, 163 Lewis, C S 40-41 Lichtenstein, Heinz, 167, 269 Locke, John, 13, 21, 36, 38, 70, 72, 188 Locock, Charles, 185 Lower, Mark Antony, 85 Lucan, 209, 210, 240, 252 Luxima, 171, 229 n Macfarlane, Alan, 38 Maenads as nursing mothers who form thiasos of Dionysus, 250, 251, 257-58 shared communal life of, 258 Magnetic energy and Shelley, 231 n 11 Mahler, Margaret, 18, 166 Male identification with mother, viii, 204 Malthus, Thomas Robert, 238-40 Marcuse, Herbert, 162-65, 169 n 10, 183, 269 Marks, Lawrence, 198 Marriage contract between autonomous male and weaker female, 36-37, 39-40 fiction of equal partnership in, 37, 39-40 Marx, Karl, 162, 169 n Masculinity See also Father; Men as appropriative, 175, 236, 242, 271 identified with consciousness, 11-12, 22 as impermeable, 240 as invulnerable, 271-72 and knowledge, 221-22 and power, 37, 142 Mask of Anarchy, The (Shelley), 242 Masons rituals of, and Shelley, 205-6 syncretic love of, used by Shelley to reveal nature of the human, 212 Massey, Marilyn, 41, 42 Maternal, the See also Mother; Mothereducator; Motherhood and acquisition of language, vii-viii, x, xii, 11, 19-28, 101, 149,227 ambivalence of children toward, ix, 17, 101, 133 n 15 and construction of subjectivity, vii-viii, x, 4, 7, 26 definition of, in Shelley's writings, vii eroticization of, ix, xii, xiii, 4, 5, 7, 43-60, 80,81 n 10, 118,249,250,267 experienced as dissolution, death, and nonbeing, 28 as having power to transform social order, 42 identification with, xii, 164 ideology of, vii-ix, 42, 55-57, 62, 64-66, 79-80, 90, 97, 101, 127, 128, 133 n 15, 226, 249, 250 implementing the aesthetic, viii Lacanian-Kristevan narrative of, 5-17 mirrored, at core of subjectivity, viii, xiii, 4, 7, 188 Index mirroring of, xii, xiii, 7-8, 19 and Shelley family, ix, xiii, 5, 35, 70-71, 80, 83-87, 90-94, 101, 112-14, 119-20, 124, 125, 188 Shelley's obsession with, as socializing agency, xi-xii, 17, 38, 39, 93, 98, 106, 141 as "sonorous envelope," 48-49, 69-71 as superior to the paternal, 40, 72-73 Matriarchal theory, 62, 251 Matthews, G M., 92, 189, 196, 201-2, 204-5, 214, 238, 242 McGann, Jerome, viii, 123 Medwin, Thomas, 83, 87, 102, 130 n 1, 152, 157, 179-80 Mellor, Anne, viii, 101, 128 Men infantilization of, 44, 49, 132-33 n 12 needed by women to become mothers, 66 relationship of, to women, 10-11, 36, 39, 40, 43-44, 51-52, 58-62, 99 as invulnerable, 271-72 Merle, Joseph, 98 Mesmer, Franz Anton, 180, 181, 183, 257 Mesmerism, 179-82, 230 n 11, 231 n 12 See also Hypnotism fluid of, and its action, 183-84 influence of theories of, in Panthea's remembered dream, 181-83 Milton, John, 195, 201 significance of Comus to Shelley, 127-28, 130 Mimesis See also Mirroring as central to human development, 267 connection of, with sexuality, 174 as diagnostic, not Utopian, function of Prometheus Unbound, 229 n as producer of subjectivity, 4, 11, 182 responsiveness through, as source of human interaction making the aesthetic possible, 236 as salient aspect of mimetic desire, 95, 97, 150, 168n Mimetic rivalry, 150, 182 See also Girard, Rene Mirroring, 11, 70, 93, 97, 165, 168 See also Affect attunement; Mirrors, seeing through danger of, 15 desire as having nature of, 204 in fourth Spirit's song in Prometheus Unbound I.i.737-51, 160-62 of Furies' faults and effect on Prometheus, 167, 174 299 as guide to self-knowledge, 167 infant as, mother's desire, 269 and infant development, 169 n of the maternal, viii, xiii, 4, 7-8, 19, 102, 149-51, 174, 182, 188, 198 of Prometheus' love for Panthea, 167 of salvific action, 170 as source of illumination, 159-60 and subjectivity, viii, xiii, 4, 124, 149-50, 169 n 5, 198, 239 Mirrors, seeing through, 137-69 See also Mirroring Moi, the, 9, 151 See also Lacan, Jacques Moir, John, 68 "Mont Blanc" (Shelley), 196, 217 Moore, Thomas, 104 Morraga, Chern'e, xi More, Hannah, 65, 67-68, 70 Morning star, significance of, in Prometheus Unbound, 171, 176-77, 227, 230 n 5, 234 n 28 Moss, William, 45-46 Mother See also Maternal, the; Mothereducator; Motherhood ambivalence toward, ix, 17, 101, 133 n 15, 153 as anima, 173-74 as archetype, 173 characteristics of, after 1750, 39 compared to Providence, 72-73 desire by both genders for care from, 82 n 19 identification with, viii, 169 n 7, 204 as man's moral superior, 61 new social order by reestablishing connection with, suggested in Act II of Prometheus Unbound, 224 as physical pleasure, 24, 177 power of, feared by both genders, ix, 6768,74, 82 n 19, 175 as primary caregiver, ix, 23, 25-27', 3839 replaced by language, 28 representation of, as erotically related to shepherd-poet, implied in Act II of Prometheus Unbound, 204 restructuring language and subjectivity through remembering and re-membering relationship with, xiii, 27-28 role of, in infants' acquisition of language, vii-viii, x, xii, 11, 19-27, 33 n 14 as socializing infants and children, xi-xii, 39,41,93, 98, 106 and subjectivity, 21, 29, 30, 33 n 14 tasks of, after 1750, 39 300 Index Mother and son, 245-60 and cave of Earth, beside a temple, 245, 252-60 and cave of Prometheus, where he will remain with Oceanides, 245-52 dyad of, restored in Ill.iii as new world order, 242-51, 257 Earth (Mother) reunited with Prometheus (son), 246, 249-50 erotic relationship of, in Shelley's writings, 265 n transformation of Aeschylus' catastrophe into vision of new world order, 245 and unbinding of Prometheus by Hercules, 245 Mother Goddess, 72-82, 234 n 28, 235 n 30 See also Diana of Ephesus; Earth (Mother); "Venus" as ally in overthrowing Father God in Greek mythology, 137-39 as alternative for Shelley to violent, unjust patriarchal given of world, 79, 222 associated with snakes, 100, 234 n 26, 252, 255 bees and, 119, 160-61 divinized feminine as, 57, 72-73, 75, 79, 128 as emerging from motherhood mystique of Shelley's era, 128 fusion of Christain providential imagery with classical evocations of, 75-76 loving power of, as answer to Shelley's need,226 Mary Shelley as, for Shelley, 128 as mother/lover who retrieves lost son/ fructifier from underworld to restore world, 223-24 relation of Shelley's mother to, in his eyes, 80, 128, 226 role of, in Prometheus Unbound, 138, 14649, 200, 204, 221-22, 249-52, 255-57, 261,263,273 transition of mother from angel to, 75 Mother-educator, xiii, 21, 39, 60-72, 79 See also Maternal, the; Mother; Motherhood as avatar of the Divine in Wollstonecraft's stories, 73-74 conservative social function of, 66 divinized feminine as, 57, 73 examples of, 55-57, 63-66, 68 fate of women to be, in Shelley's day, 6061,90 from, to Mother God(dess), 72-73 little boys and little girls first taught by, 102 power as mother vs powerlessness as female, 60 specific tasks of, 66-71 superiority of, to servants as educators, 69 Motherhood See also Maternal, the; Mother; Mother-educator 18th and 19th-century texts on, and effect on Shelley, 30-31,39, 43,76 as historical phenomenon, 36, 39 as institution, ix, x, 31 n meaning of, to Shelley as infant, child, and youth, xii, xiii, 26 sphere of, 38-40 Mother-son alliance, 105-20 and accusation by Shelley against mother of adultery, 105, 107, 111, 117-19, 12122 comparison of mother to queen bee by Shelley, 119-20 and mother as ally or co-conspirator of Shelley, 105, 106, 109, 112-14, 119-20 and mother's role regarding Shelley's love for his cousin Harriet Grove, 105-8, 115 resentment of Shelley against parents when sent away to school, 105 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 233 n 22 Multistability defined,16 of language in Shelley, 16 "Mutability" (Ill.iii.25), significance of, 24748, 264, 269, 273 Mystery cults of antiquity, initiation ceremonies of, 205, 208, 211, 233 n 21 Mythmaking, 78, 79 Narcissism, 165 Freud on, 231 n 10 and infant development, 169 n and infant mirroring, 169 n Shelley's fascination with, 53, 159, 160-65, 169 n Necessity of Atheism, The (Shelley and Hogg), 109 Nelson, James, 44-45 Neumann, Erich, 11, 173 Newton, John Frank, 205, 207 Newton, Judith Lowder, vii Nietzsche, Friedrich, 136 Nightingale, song of the, linking journey of Asia and Panthea and aged Oedipus, 203 Nisbet, William, 43, 44, 75 Nurse's soul, the, 1-134,228 entrance of, into child through breastfeeding, 3-4, 19, 39, 67, 91, 149-50, 250, 269-70 infancy narratives, 3-34 Jupiterean vs Dionysian, in Shelley, 19 Index Nye, Andrea, x, 12-15, 17, 27, 31 n Nysa, nymphs of as nurses of Dionysus, 257-58 as first Maenads, 257 shared communal life of, 258 Oceanides of Prometheus compared to thiasos of Dionysus, 257-58, 260 See also Asia; lone, role of, in Prometheus Unbound; Panthea Oedipal crisis, 9, 10, 182, 262, 273 See also Oedipus compared to dipsas of desire, 261 Freud and Lacan on resolution of, 151-52 Marcuse on, 164-65, 169 n 10 relation of, to language acquisition, 24, 25 and Shelley, 92, 132 n 12, 151, 263, 265, 267-70 sources of, 267-70 Oedipus See also Oedipal crisis links in Prometheus Unbound (II) to story of, 203-4 stories of, and Prometheus converging at Delphi and Athens, 259 Omphalos (umbilicus), 215, 255 Ong, Walter, 194 "On Life" (Shelley), x, 13, 95, 216-19, 271 "abyss" in, 16, 26 on fluidity of pronouns as true inscription of life's unity, 250 and rape of Thetis in Prometheus Unbound (III), 239-40 "reverie" and its significance in, 148 "On Love" (Shelley), ix, 6, 53, 103 Oracle See Delphi Orientalism, 76, 160-62, 171, 225-27, 229 n Otherness first discovered within subject, 15 as mirror in which subjectivity finds itself, x, 8, 16, 149-50 mirroring of an, by psyche and soma, 152 resulting from sensory impressions associated with primary caretaker, Otto, Walter, 161 Oughourlian, Jean-Michel, 18, 181-82 Oxford, 107, 109, 111 Padding as arousing men's fears about their paternity, 60 role of, in women's clothing in 18th-century England, 35, 46, 59-60 Pan, link of, to Demogorgon and pastoral and to the uroboros, 200-209, 233 n 19 301 Panthea descent of, 210, 216 dreams of, and their function, 170, 173, 177-78, 188-90, 256 and Echoes, 190, 193, 195, 199 and future after Prometheus' liberation, 225, 245 gaze of, effect of, 186-88, 191 held in lone's arms, 177-78 hypnotism of, by Prometheus, 181, 272 influence of mesmerism and hypnotism in remembered dream of, 179-88 interaction of, with Asia and Demogorgon, 183, 215-16, 253 journey of, 203, 204 reunion of, with Prometheus, 236 in reverie, 178 role of, in Prometheus Unbound, 167', 173, 174, 176, 177, 183-86, 188, 226-28, 260 syncretic religious influences on dream of, regarding Prometheus' transfiguration, 178-79,183 Parke, E W.,254 Parker, Robert, 109 Pastoral poetic tradition in Apollo and Hyacinth myth, 191-93 characteristics of ancient mythical shepherd heroes in, 224-25 as exemplified in Prometheus Unbound, 201-3 myth of Venus and Adonis closely associated with, 201-2, 257 Pateman, Carole, 10, 36, 37, 39-40, 49, 51-52 Pater, Walter, 13 Paternal, the acquisition of language and, xii phallus as prerogative of, 27, 269 Patterns of imagery in Prometheus Unbound (fig 8), 231-32 n 13 Pausanias, 160, 209, 253-55, 258, 259, 266 n Peacock, Thomas Love, 176-78, 205, 207 conscious mythmaking in, 79 on link of Pan to Demogorgon, 208-9 and Mary Shelley, 86 in Shelley's fantasies, 98 Peck, Walter E., 100 Penis See Lacan, Jacques; Lacanian theory; Phallus Pestalozzi, Johann Friedrich, 41, 81 n 14 Phallus, association of name of Prometheus with, 144 having vs being, 32 n of Heaven (Ouranos) severed by Kronos 302 Index Phallus (continued) using sickle provided by his mother (Earth), significance of, 138 of Jupiter compared to serpent seps (III.i.40), 240, 260 as kindling fire of life in womb, 144 power of, as male prerogative, 27, 269 "Philosophical View of Reform, A" (Shelley), 237-39, 263 as Shelley's poetic and social manifesto, 273 Piaget, Jean, 22 Pilfold, John, 106, 111-13, 116, 121 Plato, 12, 13, 159-60, 166 Plato's Symposium on nature of love, 5, translated by Shelley (1818), Pliny, 161 Plotinus, 164 Polidori, John, 230-31 n Poole, Lady, 87, 88 Poole, Sir Ferdinando, 87, 88 Poovey, Mary, vii, 30 Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson (Shelley), 107-8 Pottle, Frederick, 190, 195 Pound, Ezra, 150, 214 Power desirability of transfer of, from feminine to masculine questioned by Shelley, 14243 equated with knowledge, 221-22 ramifications of, in caves of Demogorgon and Prometheus, 269 renunciation of will to, in Prometheus Unbound, 151,204,272 over sexual desire in Act III of Prometheus Unbound, 269, 270 Prometheus See also Prometheus Unbound; Prometheus Unbound (Act I); Prometheus Unbound (Act II); Prometheus Unbound (Act III) Aeschylus' version of myth of, 137-38, 140 as apotheosized, 189, 259 Asia as anima of, 173 cave of (Ill.iii), and Dionysus, 161-62, 245-52 as creator of new human subjectivity, 188, 189, 222 desire of, to be Asia, 174 and Dionysus, 161-62 eliding of, with Adonis, 225-27, 257 eliding of, with Dionysus, 257 equation of knowledge with power by, 221— 22 "eyeless" as applied to Prometheus-Jupiter relationship, 146, 203 female companions of, 226 Freudian interpretation of, as bringer of language, 144, 151-52,162 Furies (Terrible Mother) rejected and vanquished by, 174 gaze of, as that which will re-create the world, 186-88, 191 gifts of, to humankind and consequences, 26, 143, 221 Hesiod's version of myth of, 138-39, 144 hypnotism of Panthea by, 181 as innocent victim of Jupiter poisoned by latter's sputum, 144 and lo, 140 and Jesus as Word, 200 as Jupiterean Prometheus at end of Prometheus Unbound, 264-65 liberated by Asia, 211, 222, 225, 228 liberated by Hercules, 139, 236, 245 liberated by his new understanding, 228 limitless potential of, in Shelley's play, 147 link of, to the aesthetic, 152, 183 linked by Shelley to fertility figures, 224 as love-filled and desire-filled, 228-29 as male deity, 227 as mirror of human suffering and ideal image, 248 mirroring between, and Jupiter, 153, 167, 168 n 12 new order of, 155, 225, 262, 263 as needing healing but also as healer, 183 Oceanides of, comparable to thiasos of Dionysus, 257-58,260 personality of, as similar to ancient mythical shepherd heroes, 224-25 punished by Jupiter, 137, 139, 144, 147, 191,214 purpose of, in giving Jupiter dominance, 137, 147, 221 relationship of, with the maternal, 225-27 repenting curse and enraged defiance against Jupiter, 151, 183, 204, 225 reborn as mother's son, 222 reunion of, with Earth (Ill.iii), 246, 24950,257 as ruler of chance, death, and mutability, 264-65 soul of, as also that of Asia, 229 transfiguration of, 178-79, 183 vulnerability of male demonstrated in symbolic castration of, 240 Prometheus Lyomenos (Aeschylus) hypothesized denouement of, 142 Index reconcilation between Champion of mankind with its Oppressor in, criticized by Shelley, 137, 151-52 said to be by Aeschylus, 168 n setting of, 143 Prometheus Purphoros (Aeschylus), 259 Prometheus Unbound (Shelley), 6, 13 See also Prometheus abyss concept in, 129 action of, 4-5, 129 affect attunement between Earth and Prometheus in, as stepping stone to speech, 147 aim of Shelley in, 26, 229-30 n alienation caused by Jupiter's reign in, 145 antagonism between mothers and fathers in, 147-48 aspects of Prometheus in, 14 characteristics of, similar to many operarelated masques, 154 Demogorgon in, as aspect of Prometheus having potential for social changes, 145 eating out one's heart in, 153-54 establishment of speech and subjectivity by earlier speechless infant in, 146-47 experiencing by Prometheus of the semiotization of the symbolic that characterizes artistic production in, 148-49 "eyeless" in, reminiscent of King Lear, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Samson Agonistes, 145-46 fantasy of a maternal realm in, 62 initial act of male violence leading to desire for vengeance by female protagonists and their male allies in, 140 inspired by conflicts, alliances, and strategies of Shelley's life, 130 interpretation of Prometheus myth in, 13738 Jupiterean vs Dionysian perception of how speech creates thought in, 16-17, 19, 26, 32 n liberating potential of woman as muse in, 27 loss of male dominance in, as price for modifying system, 145 message of Furies in, 152-53 and Mozart's Magic Flute, 233 n 22 multistability of language in, 16 partial loss of memory by Prometheus in, and significance, 146-48 possession through aggressive infiltration in, 149-51 "recall" of curse of Prometheus against Jupiter as movement forward in, 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154 303 results of remembering and re-membering relationship with mother in, xiii sacrificial and castrated son in, eventually to rule as father, 145 setting of, and significance, 143-44 shared soul in, 17 Spirits in, and their messages, 154-56, 15862, 165-67 substructure of patriarchal rule and relation of fathers and sons in, 146 theme of present misery and future hope in, 165 two worlds of life and death in, 149 world "beyond the grave" as identification with the unconscious in, 149 Prometheus Unbound (Act I), 137-69 See also Prometheus accession through speech to subjectivity in, 149 ambivalence in, of infant toward mother, 153 curse of Prometheus against Jupiter in, 146, 148,149 examples in, of attempted liberation bringing greater oppression, 153 failure of Prometheus' gift of speech in, and cause, 153 human ability to unite to achieve liberty in, 155 infant-mother bond in, 152 meaning of "golden chalice" and "overflowed" in, 165-69 poets as molders of their societies in, 155-62 refusal of Prometheus to submit to Jupiter in, 151-52 rejection by Prometheus of males' struggle for power in, 151, 204, 272 sage's dream in, as potentially leading to Shelley's longed-for changes, 155-56 seeing through mirrors in, 137-69 speech in, while creating thought, leads to alienation of symbol between human beings and their experience, 105 strategy of Prometheus to free himself from identification with Jupiter in, 184 structure of, 167, 170 volcanic terminology and its significance in, 204-5, 214 Prometheus Unbound (Act II), 170-235 See also Prometheus analysis of canceled passage in, 184-85, 187 apotheosis of Asia (scene v) in, 170 creation of sense of reverie in, 171-73 dreams of Panthea and significance in, 170, 177-78, 181, 183, 188-90 304 Index Prometheus Unbound (continued) enlightenment of Asia and liberation of Prometheus after initiation in, 211 evils of society exposed and vision of a better one offered in, 197 feminine presences as protagonists of, 170 freeing of Prometheus and downfall of Jupiter predicted in scene iv of, 170 initiatory rites in descent of Asia and Panthea, 210-11,217 journey of Asia and Panthea (ii-iii) in, 170 links in, to Oedipus story, 203-4, 220 as mirroring salvific action being dramatized, 170 new social order suggested in, 204 pastoral allusions in, 201-3 presence/absence of Prometheus in, 174 purpose and method of Shelley in writing Prometheus Unbound by contrasting Shakespeare's Ariel with Shelley's aim in, 197 renouncing knowledge (Jupiterean and masculine) and allying oneself with Love (the Mother Goddess) as solution in, 221-22 as re-vision of pastoral descent of Mother Goddess to rescue her lost beloved, 227 role of gaze in, 186-88 setting of, as Vale of Kashmir, 170, 171 source of desire as seeking end of desire in, 170-235 subjectivity as projection of self (Jupiterean) vs shared subjectivity (Dionysian), 186, 187 transfer of energy from medium, Panthea, to its final recipient, Asia, in, 184 Prometheus Unbound (Act III), 236-66 See also Prometheus action in, as turning on love as an exchange, 236 cave of Earth, beside a temple in, 245, 25260 cave of Prometheus in, 245-52 dipsas of desire in, 260-65 mother and son in, 245-60 poison from sputum of Jupiter's lips as venereal disease in, 194 rape of Thetis and significance in, 236-43 resolution in, 263-65 unbinding of Prometheus and his reunion with Oceanides and Earth in, 236 Utopian difficulty for Shelley in, 263-65 Utopian paradigms in, 243-45 "where the split began" in, 236-66 Prometheus/Adonis and Mother Goddess, 222-29 "Proposals for an Association" (Shelley), 206-7 Psychoanalysis and case of H.D., 211-14 interaction with unconscious in, as parallel to Masonic rituals, 212 theory of, applied to Act II of Prometheus Unbound, 214-16, 220 on the unconscious speaking through dreams, slips of the tongue or pen, jokes, and physical symptoms, 213 Psychosis vs hypnotic state, 181-82 Pulos, C E., 216,238,242 Queen of the Field Place hive, 83-134 and Comus at Field Place, 120-30 and dearth of information about Elizabeth Pilfold Shelley, 83-87 and Elizabeth Pilfold Shelley as queen bee, 119-20 and mother-son alliance, 105-20 and relationship within Shelley family, 43, 109-13, 116, 119-20 and strategies of infant desire, 87-105 and upbringing of Elizabeth Pilfold Shelley, 87 Queen Mab (Shelley), 77, 78, 263 Ragland-Sullivan, Ellie, 6-9, 80, 175, 186 Rajan, Tilottama, 170, 185, 230 n Rape of Beatrice Cenci in The Cenci and significance, 271 of Thetis in Prometheus Unbound and significance, 185, 236-43,271 Reiman, Donald H., 13, 239 on influence of Plato concerning Shelley's theories about love, 166 on reason for name of Asia, 227 on Prometheus Unbound as myth of renovation of human psyche and whole cosmos, 263 on Shelley's mythmaking, 41, 43, 78, 166 on snow of Jupiter vs that of Asia, 257 Re-membering the mother, 135-266 and seeing through mirrors (Act I), 137-69 source of desire as seeking end of desire (Act II), 170-235 sympathy and shared love at center of human subjectivity as lived fact equivalent to, 227 "where the spilt began" (Act III), 236-66 Reverie, 95, 148, 204 atmosphere of, surrounding Asia (II.i), 171, 178,246 Index Bachelard on, 172, 173, 175-76 creation of, through Shelley's grammatical slippages, 172 nature of poetic, 172, 173, 219 purpose of, for Shelley, 172 Revolution French, and Crucifixion as revolutions that attempted liberation but brought greater oppression, 152 Shelley's attempt to bring about a, to reorder human society 26, 229-30 n 4, 23739, 263, 268, 273 Rich, Adrienne, ix, xi, 31 n 2, 101, 132-33 n 12, 133 n 15, 136 Richards, I A., 78 Richardson, Alan, vii, 41-42, 44 Richardson, Samuel, 73 Ritual descent, 204-22 in ancient myth, where goddess/mother/ lover retrieves lost son/fructifier from underworld to restore world, 223-24 of Asia and Panthea, 210-11, 216, 217 and forced entry of desirous male into maternal cave, 223 of male who with feminine presence as cover makes his way toward fantasized source of his desire, 223 in search of illuminating knowledge, 205, 209, 223 Rogers, Neville, 122 Rbheim, Geza, 163 Rolleston, Maud, 56 Romney, George portrait of Charlotte Grove by, 88, 89 portrait of Emma Hamilton by, 76 portrait of Lady Elizabeth Shelley by, 46, 47 (fig 1), 83, 88, 89 portrait of Sir Timothy Shelley by, 89 portrait of Thomas Grove by, 89 "Rosalind and Helen" (Shelley), 160, 171, 201 Rosolato, Guy, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 37, 43-44, 52, 61, 191-92, 197-98, 206 Roustang, Francois, 182 Ruskin, John, viii Ryerson, Alice, 38-39 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 10, 28 Sawyer, Paul, viii Scarry, Elaine, 7, 271 Schapiro, Barbara, viii, 31 n Schiller, Friedrich, 156, 157, 168 n Schubart, C F D., 30 Self See also Subjectivity 305 experience of, tied to influence of maternal ideology, 80 loss or murder of, by use of "I" as signifier of separated self, 10 Self-conception See also Subjectivity effect of, on world, xi, xii effect of mothers or mother surrogates on, xi, xii, effect of others' conceptions of us on, xi, xii and inscription, xii Semele, echo of rape of Thetis in myth of, 242 Semiotics, 177 and symbols, 11, 13 Sentimental, the, 53,102,103,108,123-24,126 Servants role of, in changed family structure in 18thcentury England, 138 warnings against mothers leaving children with, 69, 71 Sexuality, as core of identity, 238-39 of infants and children, 11-12, 38, 163 mimesis grounded in, 174 and mirror of bisexuality by poets, 160-62 of Shelley, 92, 99, 117, 118, 123, 124, 132 n 12, 133-34 n 16, 151, 166-67, 267-70 Shaftsbury, Earl of, 73 Shakespeare, William Ariel's song in The Tempest contrasted with Shelley's writing of Prometheus Unbound 196-97 echoes of King Lear in Prometheus Unbound (Ill.iii), 247 opening of Twelfth Night as pastoral, 201 parallels between mode of, and that of Shelley, 261-62 Shelley, Bysshe death of, in 1815, 127 elevation of, to baronetage, 89 Shelley's grandfather, 83, 89, 124 Shelley, Clara, 94, 128 Shelley, Elizabeth (Shelley's sister) as ally of Shelley, 109 and Edward Graham, 121-23 and Harriet Grove, 106 and Hogg, 111-15, 123 incestuous feelings of Shelley toward, 123, 124 and John Grove, 115 Shelley's sister, 90, 93, 98, 107, 109, 123 Shelley, Harriet (nee Westbrook), 98, 124 anecdote about, regarding breast-feeding, 3,31 n 1,91,94 as initiator of elopement with Shelley, 234 n 27 Index 306 Shelley, Harriet (continued) relationship of, with Shelley, 98, 112, 120, 121, 128, 171 relationship of, with Shelley's mother, 112, 125, 128 and son Charles, 85 Shelley, Hellen, 84, 107 attitude of, toward brother Shelley, 85, 91, 93, 94, 97-100, 109 as source of information on Shelley, 84, 85, 91-94, 97-100,109 Shelley, lanthe, 3, 91, 125 Shelley, John, 86, 93, 99 Shelley, Lady Elizabeth Pilfold accused of adultery by Shelley, 105, 107, 111, 117-19, 121-25, 127 as ally and co-conspirator of Shelley, 105, 106, 109, 112-14, 119-20, 124, 125 attempted reconciliation by, of Shelley and father, 85 as avatar of mother goddess created by maternal ideology of the day, to Shelley, 80, 129 characteristics of, 83-87, 89, 101, 115 comparison of, to queen bee by Shelley, 119-20 and daughter Elizabeth and Hogg, 112-115 and daughter Elizabeth and John Grove, 115-16 death of, 86 desire of, to train Shelley traditionally, 83, 84 family of, 83,87 final break of, with Shelley after his desertion of Harriet for Mary, 127, 128 and Harriet Grove, 105-8, 115 and Harriet Westbrook, 112, 127 incestuous feelings of Shelley toward, 123, 129 as incompatible with Shelley, 84-85 marriage of, 87-89 and Mary Godwin Shelley, 85-86, 111, 127-28 as mother to Shelley, 70-71, 87, 90-93, 102, 106, 124 other children of (besides Percy), 84, 85, 90,91 portrait of, 46, 47 (fig 1) refusal to mention Shelley's name not initiated by, 85, 91 rift of, with Shelley, 123-24, 127, 128 and Shelley's expulsion from Oxford, 109, 127 and Shelley's schoolboy letter to, 103-4 sparse information about, 83-87 Shelley, Lady Jane as contributor to creation of Shelley legend, 85,86 devotion of, to Mary Godwin Shelley, 85, 86, 128 hostility of, to Shelley's mother, 85, 86 Shelley, Mary (Shelley's sister), 93, 107 Shelley, Mary Godwin breast-feeding her children, 94-95 characterization of Frankenstein by, 101 displacing Shelley's relationship with his mother, 128 Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by, 101,223 and her father, William Godwin, 128 and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, 128 hostility of, to Shelley's mother rather than to his father, 85-86, 111 hostility of Shelley's mother to, 128 as initiator of love affair with Shelley, 234 n 27 as magnetizing Shelley, 231 n 11 meaning of Shelley's death to, 128 as Mother Goddess to Shelley, 128 as mothering Shelley, 128 passion of Shelley for, before marriage, 126 as principal creator of Shelley legend, 85 and significance of her novel's subtitle, 101 Shelley, Percy Bysshe abyss of, 14-16, 271 accusation by, against mother as adulteress, 105, 107, 111,117-18 on acquisition of language, 17, 92 Adonais, 128, 161, 176, 202 and adoption, 98-99, 101, 132 n 16 "Alastor," 27-28, 100, 129, 207, 233 allied with his mother, 105, 106, 109, 11214,119-20 ambivalence of, toward feminine power, x, 101 attitude of, toward breast-feeding, 3-4, 91 "Arethusa," 92 belief of, in nurse's soul entering child, 3-4, 270 birth of, in 1792, 35 Cenci, The, 144, 151, 203, 239-41, 271 childhood pranks of, 93, 99, 101 and Claire Clairmont, 95 comparison of mother to queen bee by, 119-20 concept of woman as possession or object and as muse by, 27-28 "Defence of Poetry, A," 117, 167, 184, 194-95 Index desire of, to appropriate maternal power and fear of resulting castration/death, 101 desire of, to reorder society, 26 "Discourse on the Manner of the Ancient Greeks, A," 102, 103 as disruptive of social stability, 109-11 effect of births of his children on, 125 effect of childhood experiences on, xii, 340 "Epipsychidion," 176 "Essays on Friendship, An," 102-3 expulsion of, from Oxford, 109, 111 fantasies of, on tyrannical husband/father vs moral mother as model for moral action, 62-63 fear of, regarding abandonment, iii, 120-21 financial troubles of, 94 "From a Magnetic Lady to her Patient," 231 n 11 and Edward Graham, 102-8, 116-23 and Harriet Westbrook, 112, 120, 121, 124 and his father, 62, 85-86, 89, 92, 93, 107, 109-12 and his mother, ix, xiii, 70-71, 83-87, 10520 and Hogg, 84, 108-9, 111-15, 123 homophobia of his times acceptable to, 104 ideologies of writings of, vii—x implication of, that father was a drone in hive, 120 incest and, 99, 117, 118, 123, 124 infancy and childhood of, 29, 91-92 influences on, x, 13, 35-43, 76-79, 81 n 11, 118, 123, 124, 130 n 3, 134 n 20, 156-58, 191-92, 207-8 influences contributing to mythology of maternal deity of, 30-32, 41, 78-80, 91 intellectual system of, 13, 32 n interest of, in Illuminati and Masons, 205-6 on language, 26, 28-29, 229 Laon and Cythna, ix, 78, 92, 129, 171, 223, 263, 265 n legend of, largely created by Mary Shelley, 85 Marx's assessment of, 169 n and Mary Godwin Shelley, 126-28 Mask of Anarchy, The, 242 and mesmerism, 198-99 as a modern Prometheus, 105 "Mont Blanc," 196, 217 mother connection to, as source of new social ordering, 204, 268-69 Mother Goddess in works of, 128-29 on mother-infant relationship, xii, 4, 5, 192 mothering by women-lovers a need of, 128 307 mystical communion with nature as a belief of, 272 narcissim of, 53 Necessity of Atheism, The, 109 obsession of, with adopting a baby girl, 132 nn and 10 obsession of, with the maternal, 5, 62, 9899 obession of, with venereal disease, 144, 151 Oedipal soul of, 92, 93, 132 n 12, 151, 26770, 273 "On Life," x, 13, 16, 26, 95, 148, 216-19, 239-40, 250,271 "On Love," ix, 6, 33, 103 paradox of language in works of, 29 pastoral poetry tradition and, 201-2 "Philosophical View of Reform, A," 23739, 263, 273 on poets as molders of society, 158 poor health of, 94, 95 Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, 107-8 Prometheus myth fascinating to, 101, 105 Prometheus Unbound, xiii, 4-5, 137-266 proposal of, regarding his inheritance, 109— 11 "Proposals for an Association," 206-7 pseudonymous letter writing of, 116-17 pyromania of, 101, 133 n 14 Queen Mab, 30, 77-79, 263 rebelliousness of, based on childhood and school experiences, 268 rejection of, by mother after he deserted Harriet for Mary, 127-28 romance of, with Harriet Grove, 105-9, 111 "Rosalind and Helen," 160, 171, 201 and sadism and masochism, 119 schoolboy letter of, to his mother as illustrating his sense of abandonment, 103-4 schooling of, and its effects, 85, 93, 101, 102, 105, 133-34 n 16 scientific interests of, 101 shared souls as a belief of, 258 and sibling rivalry, 93-97, 99 significance of Comus to, in his attempted return to Field Place, 127-28 and sister Elizabeth, 90, 93, 99, 107, 109, 123, 124 and sister Elizabeth and Hogg, 111-15, 123 and sister Elizabeth and John Grove, 11516 and somnambulism, 180 solution of, in peaceable matriarchate, 26869 308 Index Shelley, Percy Bysshe (continued) on soul as both prison and gift, 270, 271, 273 on subjectivity, x, xii, 4, 5, 13-14, 28, 32 n 9,91,92, 192 synesthetic imagery of, 231-32 n 13, 246, 255-56 "To a Skylark," 129 "To Constantia," 94, 95, 96 (fig 5), 119-20 "To thirst & find no fill," 94, 95, 96 (fig 5), 97 (fig 6), 219-20 and transference, viii, 250 "Triumph of Life, The" 129 ubiquity of thirst in works of, 94 unresolved paradoxes in thought of, 194-95 untimely death of a young man as theme of, 273 view of woman as Goddess/Demon of unattainable unity that promises and then disappoints, 29 "Witch of Atlas, The," 179 Word of God (Jesus' Gospels) misused in world, according to, 153 Zastrozzi, 106, 107 Shelley, Percy Florence, 85, 86 Shelley, Timothy, 110-11, 114, 116 background and upbringing of, 89 banishing Shelley, 122-24, 127, 128 as drone in hive, 120 elevation of, to title, 127, 128 feelings of, toward Shelley, 85-86, 91, 107, 109-11 feelings of Shelley toward, 62, 89, 107, 10913, 116, 119, 124, 134 n marriage of, 87-89 as Member of Parliament, 112 as sadistic tyrant coercing women, according to Shelley, 119, 123 Shelley's father, 35, 80, 83, 85, 93, 120, 124 and Shelley's expulsion from Oxford, 109 and son's first wife, Harriet Westbrook, 127 transformation of, into Jupiter of Prometheus Unbound, 119 Shelley, William, 94, 95 Sibling rivalry, Shelley and, 93-97, 99 Silverman, Kaja Acoustic Mirror, The by, 7, 8, 21, 149 on the gaze, 175, 186 Subject of Semiotics by, x, 5, 6, 9, 10, 169 n on subjectivity, x Slater, Philip, 101, 133 n 15 Slatter, Henry, 107 Smile as clothing and building psyche, 187 Smith, Bonnie, vii Snakes See also Uroboros associated with Mother Goddess, 100, 222 and Shelley's Great Old Snake, 99-100 Somnambulism, 180 Shelley and, 230-31 n Soul, 23, 151, 167 Bakhtin on, 270-71 exchange of, 17, 227, 242, 250, 258 Foucault on, 269-70 as gift from Shelley's goddess, 271, 273 as language, born from love of ever-dying, ever-reborn poet and goddess, 273 maternal, 41, 80 nurse's, as entering child, 3-4, 108, 267 Oedipal, 267 as prison, 271 as "unextinguish'd fire" still resistant to Jupiter (Ill.i), 237-38 Spenser, Edmund, 201 Sphere, women's, 39-41, 55, 60, 62, 66, 68 "Spirit of the Earth" and Asia, 260-63 called Phosphoros, male aspect of planet/ goddess Venus, 260 called "torch-bearer," an epithet of Prometheus, 259, 260 calling Asia "mother" (III.iv.24), 260 parallels between Shakespeare and Shelley in interchange between, and Asia, 26162 predicting a future of "infant joy," 261 promise of happy changes by, 261 torch of, symbolic of his love for Asia, 260 Spirit of the Hour, 262-65 speech of, as imaging ideal man as ruler, 264-65 speech of, as implying humankind does not transcend human potential as we know it, 262-63 speech of, as showing humankind subject to chance, death, and mutability, 264 Split, beginning of the, 236-66 See also "Where the split began" and analysand addressing unconscious of analyst, 213 new plot for world history in, based on ancient, mother-centered ritual, 138 between preconscious being and conscious subject, 157 and psyche as divided yet driven by incestuous desire it must consciously repress, 214 and split subject of Lacan, 169 n and split within consciousness making possible speaking subject, 214 Index St Croix, Marianne de, 98 Stanhope, Anna Maria, Marchioness of Tavistock, 55-56, 56 (fig 3) Steele, Sir Richard, 37 Steele, Valerie, 46, 48, 54 Steichen, Lilian, 193 Steinthal, Heymann, 144 Stern, Daniel, 169 n on acquisition of language, 21-27, 29, 69, 146 on affect attunement as facilitating intersubjectivity, 19-21 on affect attunement as stepping stone to verbal relatedness, 21, 22, 26, 198 on audio-visual correspondences with infants, 198 on domains of infancy, 17-21 on infantile development involving self and Other, 17-19 on interpersonal narrative, 17-21, 24-27', 29 on link between being mothered and acquiring language, 17, 146 on maturation of infant, xii, on potential of language to effect change, 25-26 on relationship between infant and caregiver, 175, 230 n on socialization of infants within human community, 29 on subjectivity in infant, 17-19, 146, 174, 175 Stone, Lawrence, 35-39, 93, 103-4 on changes in child rearing, 35-39, 103-4 on changes in family in late 18th century, 36-39,103-4 Strategies of infant desires, 87-105 abandonment scenario in, as shown by Shelley's schoolboy letter to mother, 103-4 acquisition of steep gradient affect by Shelley in desiring the mother, frustrated by incest taboo, 105 childhood pranks of Shelley as, 93, 99, 101 fantasies of Shelley as, 97-99 mimetic, of Shelley, 97-98 for possession of maternal attention, 99101 pyromania of youthful Shelley as, 101 sibling rivalry and its effects on Shelley, 9395,97 terrifying themes of Shelley as, 99-101 Strong, Archibald, 155, 157 Struensee, Johann Friedrich, 65 Subjectivity acquisition of, 156, 164, 166, 175, 182, 220 309 and body, 15, 42, 170, 179, 181 Cartesian, 31 n construction of, vii-viii, x 4-10, 26 fluid nature of, 241 inscribed, 169, 292, 265 Kristeva on, 13 and language, x, xii, 16, 26, 197 in Plato's Symposium, in relation to mother, ii-viii, x-xii, 4, 7, 26, 28, 29, 41, 53-54, 79-80, 91, 105, 175 shared, 186, 187 Shelley's search for new understanding of, to alter human institutions, xii, 13-15, 28, 42, 53-54, 146-50 split, 6, 8, 31 n 3, 153, 160 women's, 27, 29, 176 Sucking connection of, with soul and lovers, 108 connection of, with soul and nurse, 3-4, 19, 91, 108 Sun vs wilderness, as masculine vs feminine, 12, 13, 15 Sunstein, Emily, 95, 128 Symbolic, the, 177 Sympathy, 43, 147, 166, 185, 226, 249 and breast-feeding, 43 as connectedness, 227 as 18th-century doctrine, 183 and hypnosis, 180-81,272 and sensibility, 42 and synesthesia, 231-32 n 13 Synesthetic imagery, 17, 21, 231-32 n 13, 246, 255-56 See also Cross-modal perceptions Tammuz, 225, 226, 235 n 29 Taylor, Anne, 66 Taylor, Thomas, 208 Theocritus, 202, 225 Theophrastus, 161 Thetis appropriation of speech of, by Jupiter during his rape and significance, 248 echo of Semele's fate in rape of, 242 rape of, by Jupiter and significance in Prometheus Unbound, 236-43 rape of, reminiscent of The Cenci and "On Life," 239-42 Thirst ubiquity of, in Shelley's work, 94 weaned infant trope in fragment "To thirst & find no fill," 94 "To a Skylark" (Shelley), 129 Toilet training in nuclear family, 38, 81 n Transference, viii, 42, 52, 224, 250 310 Index Transmodal perception See Cross-modal perceptions "Triumph of Life, The" (Shelley), 129 Trotter, Thomas, Trumbach, Randolph, 37-39, 93 Turner, Cornelia, 125 Ulmer, William A., 184 Unary signifier, 9-10, 15 Unconscious Freud on the, viii, 13-14 identification derived from the, 174-75 Lacan on the, 213 poets as intuiting but not fully understanding the, 214 as world "beyond the grave" in Prometheus Unbound, 149 Uroboros connection of, with Demogorgon and Pan, 233 n 19 as emblem of the "wonder of our being," 215-16 symbol of, used in rituals of the Illuminati, 211 as symbol of power in mother-infant relationship, 222 Utopian paradigms, 243-45 pastoral form of, 243 and Plato, 243, 244 problems posed by, 245 Shelley's additions to, 243-44 Varro, Marcus, 215, 255 Venus (Aphrodite), 202, 227-29, 230 n 5, 234 n 27 See also Earth (Mother); Mother Goddess and Adonis, in pastoral tradition and Shelley's works, 201-2, 257 bees and mother goddess of the hive, 119 as both morning star (male Venus) and evening star (female Venus), 176 as core of subjectivity (Stern), 29-30 hive of, as mother of humankind, 78, 119, 249 myth of, as Mother Goddess, and her lover, Adonis, as underlying Act II of Prometheus Unbound, 138, 176, 201 peacock and, 79 Phosphorus (Ill.iv) as male aspect of, 260 as planet, 244, 260 as producing relationships, 154 resurgence of, from eroticization of the maternal, as a conduit for revolutionary energies, 43 Shelley and, 78, 79 use of, by Shelley in Prometheus Unbound to sabotage social institutions, 43 Vernant, Jean-Pierre, 138 Virgil, 160,201,205 Viviani, Teresa, 98 Volcanic terminology, significance of, in Prometheus Unbound, 204-5, 214 Volney, Constantin, 76-78 Voltaire, 206 Vulnerability assigned to women by Shelley, 271-72 as fearsome but potentially salvific in Shelley, 272 human, through mirroring that produces subjectivity, 69 n poet as representative of universal human, 273 of psyche, 271 rapes in Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci as illustrations of, 271 Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich, 2, 21-24, 69 Wasserman, Earl, 148, 201, 205 "Weakness" nonresistance to, as bringing about denouement of Prometheus Unbound, 218, 221, 225 significance of the word, in Prometheus Unbound (III.iii), 93-98 Webb, Timothy, 272-73 Wecklein, Nikolaus, 139, 142 Weishaupt, Adam, 206, 212 Westbrook, Harriet See Shelley, Harriet Wet nurse, 38, 90-91 See also Breast-feeding "Where the split began," 236-66 See also Split, beginning of the and dipsas of desire, 260-65 between eternal ideal and humanity's actual situation, 248 and Eagleton's split between autonomy of individuals and exchange or appropriation among subjectivities, 236, 240 and mother and son, 245-60 and rape of Thetis, 237-43 and Utopian paradigms, 243-45 White, Newman Ivey, 3, 84-85, 87, 110, 179 Whitton, William, 109-11, 117, 120, 122, 124, 127 Williams, Jane, 91,231 n 11 Winnicott, D W., 24 Winnington-Ingram, R P., 142 "Witch of Atlas, The" (Shelley), 179 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 12, 198 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 30, 70, 71, 229 n favoring breast-feeding, 94 Index mother of Mary Godwin Shelley, 94, 128 on mother-educator as avatar of the Divine, 73-74 on significance of kindness to animals, 73-74 Women See also Maternal, the; Mothereducator empowerment in, ix-x, 60, 110-11 emphasis on differences between bodies of, and men, 54 exclusion of, from language, 27 fear of dominance of, 81 n 12, 110-11 fiction of equality of, to men after 1750, 36-37,39-40 fulfillment of, through use of language, to Shelley, 27 function of, within capitalist system, vii as Goddess/Demon of unattainable unity that promises and then disappoints, 29 maternal breast-feeding by, after 1750, 39 as muse, 27 311 relationship of, to men, 10-11, 29, 36, 37, 40, 43-44, 51-52, 58-62 Shelley's dynamic between male worshiper and maternal goddess not conducive to liberation of, 269 sphere of, 39-41, 55, 60, 62, 66, 68 as vulnerable, 271-72 Wood, Robert, 76 Woodbridge, Robert, 59-60 Woodman, Ross, 173, 176, 263, 266 n Wordsworth, William, viii infantilizing of husband in The Prelude by, 44, 99, 132 n 12 Wormell, D E W., 254 Wormhoudt, Arthur, 145, 151-52 Yeats, William Butler, 130, 153 Zastrozzi (Shelley), 106, 107 Zillerman, Lawrence, 185 ...Shelley's Goddess This page intentionally left blank SHELLEY'S GODDESS Maternity, Language, Subjectivity BARBARA CHARLESWORTH GELPI New York Oxford... of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gelpi, Barbara Charlesworth Shelley's goddess : maternity, language, subjectivity/ Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi p cm Includes bibliographical references... the same: a subjectivity haunted by/mirroring Other(s) who have the character of specters This shared epistemology, along with shared fascination in the links between subjectivity and language,