The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume I (1 of 682)

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THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, VOLUME I

Percy Bysshe Shelley


PREFACE.

This edition of his "Poetical Works" contains all Shelley's
ascertained poems and fragments of verse that have hitherto appeared
in print. In preparing the volume I have worked as far as possible on
the principle of recognizing the editio princeps as the primary
textual authority. I have not been content to reprint Mrs. Shelley's
recension of 1839, or that of any subsequent editor of the "Poems".
The present text is the result of a fresh collation of the early
editions; and in every material instance of departure from the wording
of those originals the rejected reading has been subjoined in a
footnote. Again, wherever--as in the case of "Julian and
Maddalo"--there has appeared to be good reason for superseding the
authority of the editio princeps, the fact is announced, and the
substituted exemplar indicated, in the Prefatory Note. in the case of
a few pieces extant in two or more versions of debatable authority the
alternative text or texts will be found at the [end] of the [relevant
work]; but it may be said once for all that this does not pretend to
be a variorum edition, in the proper sense of the term--the textual
apparatus does not claim to be exhaustive. Thus I have not thought it
necessary to cumber the footnotes with every minute grammatical
correction introduced by Mrs. Shelley, apparently on her own
authority, into the texts of 1839; nor has it come within the scheme
of this edition to record every conjectural emendation adopted or
proposed by Rossetti and others in recent times. But it is hoped that,
up to and including the editions of 1839 at least, no important
variation of the text has been overlooked. Whenever a reading has been
adopted on manuscript authority, a reference to the particular source
has been added below.

I have been chary of gratuitous interference with the punctuation of
the manuscripts and early editions; in this direction, however, some
revision was indispensable. Even in his most carefully finished "fair
copy" Shelley under-punctuates (Thus in the exquisite autograph "Hunt
MS." of "Julian and Maddalo", Mr. Buxton Forman, the most conservative
of editors, finds it necessary to supplement Shelley's punctuation in
no fewer than ninety-four places.), and sometimes punctuates
capriciously. In the very act of transcribing his mind was apt to
stray from the work in hand to higher things; he would lose himself in
contemplating those airy abstractions and lofty visions of which alone
he greatly cared to sing, to the neglect and detriment of the merely
external and formal element of his song. Shelley recked little of the
jots and tittles of literary craftsmanship; he committed many a small
sin against the rules of grammar, and certainly paid but a halting
attention to the nice distinctions of punctuation. Thus in the early
editions a comma occasionally plays the part of a semicolon; colons
and semicolons seem to be employed interchangeably; a semicolon almost
invariably appears where nowadays we should employ the dash; and,
lastly, the dash itself becomes a point of all work, replacing
indifferently commas, colons, semicolons or periods. Inadequate and
sometimes haphazard as it is, however, Shelley's punctuation, so far
as it goes, is of great value as an index to his metrical, or at
times, it may be, to his rhetorical intention--for, in Shelley's
hands, punctuation serves rather to mark the rhythmical pause and
onflow of the verse, or to secure some declamatory effect, than to
indicate the structure or elucidate the sense. For this reason the
original pointing has been retained, save where it tends to obscure or
pervert the poet's meaning. Amongst the Editor's Notes at the end of
the Volume 3 the reader will find lists of the punctual variations in
the longer poems, by means of which the supplementary points now added
may be identified, and the original points, which in this edition have
been deleted or else replaced by others, ascertained, in the order of
their occurrence. In the use of capitals Shelley's practice has been
followed, while an attempt has been made to reduce the number of his
inconsistencies in this regard.

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