Shelley and the Apprehension of Life Cambridge Studies in Romanticism Series

Percy Bysshe Shelley, in the essay 'On Life' (1819), stated 'We live on, and in living we lose the apprehension of life'. Ross Wilson uses this statement as a starting point to explore Shelley's fundamental beliefs about life and the significance of poetry. Drawing on a wide range of Shelley's own writing and on philosophical thinking from Plato to the present, this book offers a timely intervention in the debate about what Romantic poets understood by 'life'. For Shelley, it demonstrates poetry is emphatically 'living melody', which stands in resolute contrast to a world in which life does not live. Wilson argues that Shelley's concern with the opposition between 'living' and 'the apprehension of life' is fundamental to his work and lies at the heart of Romantic-era thought.

Introduction; 1. Poetry and the theory of life; 2. Living losing life; 3. Mere wheels of work; 4. Happier forms; 5. Sounds of air; 6. Poetry and the life of theory; Coda.

Ross Wilson is Lecturer in Literature at the School of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia.