THE ISLE.
THE LADY OF THE SOUTH. (FRAGMENT)
THE LAKE’S MARGIN. (FRAGMENT)
THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT.
THE MASK OF ANARCHY
THE PAST.
THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE NEAR PISA.
THE QUESTION.
THE RETROSPECT: CWM ELAN, 1812.
THE RUDE WIND IS SINGING. (FRAGMENT)
THE SENSITIVE PLANT.
THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY. (FRAGMENT)
THE SOLITARY.
THE SPECTRAL HORSEMAN.
THE SUNSET.
THE TOWER OF FAMINE.
THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.
THE TWO SPIRITS: AN ALLEGORY.
THE VIEWLESS AND INVISIBLE CONSEQUENCE. (FRAGMENT)
THE VINE-SHROUD. (FRAGMENT)
THE WANDERING JEW’S SOLILOQUY.
THE WANING MOON.
THE WITCH OF ATLAS.
THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE WORLD’S WANDERERS.
THE ZUCCA.
THOUGHTS COME AND GO IN SOLITUDE. (FRAGMENT)
TIME LONG PAST.
TIME.
TO — .
TO — .
TO — .
TO — .
TO — .
TO — .
TO A BALLOON LADEN WITH KNOWLEDGE.
TO A FRIEND RELEASED FROM PRISON. (FRAGMENT)
TO A SKYLARK.
TO A STAR.
TO BYRON. (FRAGMENT)
TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING.
TO CONSTANTIA.
TO DEATH.
TO EDWARD WILLIAMS.
TO EMILIA VIVIANI.
TO HARRIET *****.
TO HARRIET.
TO HARRIET.
TO IANTHE.
TO IRELAND.
TO ITALY. (FRAGMENT)
TO JANE: ‘THE KEEN STARS WERE TWINKLING’.
TO JANE: THE INVITATION.
TO JANE: THE RECOLLECTION.
TO MARY —— ——
TO MARY — .
TO MARY SHELLEY.
TO MARY SHELLEY.
TO MARY WHO DIED IN THIS OPINION.
TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
TO MISS —— (HARRIET GROVE) FROM MISS —— (ELIZABETH SHELLEY).
TO NIGHT.
TO ONE SINGING. (FRAGMENT)
TO SOPHIA (MISS STACEY).
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
TO THE MIND OF MAN. (FRAGMENT)
TO THE MOON.
TO THE MOON. (FRAGMENT)
TO THE MOONBEAM.
TO THE NILE.
TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. (FRAGMENT)
TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART.
TO THE REPUBLICANS OF NORTH AMERICA.
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
TO WORDSWORTH.
TO-MORROW.
UNTITLED.
UNRISEN SPLENDOUR OF THE BRIGHTEST SUN. (FRAGMENT)
VARIATION OF THE SONG OF THE MOON.
VERSES ON A CAT.
VICTORIA.
WAKE THE SERPENT NOT. (FRAGMENT)
WAR.
WEDDED SOULS. (FRAGMENT)
WHAT MEN GAIN FAIRLY. (FRAGMENT)
WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST. (FRAGMENT)
WHEN SOFT WINDS AND SUNNY SKIES. (FRAGMENT)
WINE OF THE FAIRIES. (FRAGMENT)
WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE.
YE GENTLE VISITATIONS OF CALM THOUGHT. (FRAGMENT)
ZEPHYRUS THE AWAKENER. (FRAGMENT)
The Poetic Dramas
The Soho House, Birmingham, where Shelley attended several meetings of the Lunar Society, held by Matthew Boulton, one of Britain’s leading industrialists.
THE CENCI
This five-act tragedy was written in the summer of 1819 and was inspired by the life of the Italian Beatrice Cenci. Shelley composed the play at Rome and at Villa Valsovano near Livorno, publishing it later in the same year. The Cenci is set in Rome in 1599, narrating how a young woman was executed for the pre-meditated murder of her tyrannical father. It was a well-known true story that had been handed down orally and documented in the Annali d’Italia, a twelve-volume chronicle of Italian history written by Ludovico Antonio Muratori in 1749. The events occurred during the Pontificate of Pope Clement VIII.
Shelley tried to have the drama staged, describing it as “totally different from anything you might conjecture that I should write; of a more popular kind ... written for the multitude.” The playwright expressed to his publisher Charles Ollier that he was confident that the play “will succeed as a publication.” However, the play was not performed in its day, most likely due to its themes of incest and parricide, and so was first performed in England as late as 1922, when it was staged in London.
The 1819 title page
CONTENTS
Introductory Note
Author’s Preface
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V
Beatrice Cenci (1577-1599) was an Italian noblewoman made famous as the protagonist of a lurid murder trial in Rome.
Introductory Note
The Cenci was Shelley’s first attempt at writing drama, a form of composition for which he had conceived himself to have no talent. It was executed with greater rapidity than any of his earlier works, being begun at Rome by May 14, and finished at Leghorn, August 8, 1819, though as usual Shelley continued to revise it till it left his hands. He printed two hundred and fifty copies at an Italian press, and these were issued in the spring of 1820, at London, as the first edition. A second edition was published the following year. Shelley desired that the play should be put upon the stage, and had it offered at Covent Garden by Peacock, but it was declined on account of the subject. He thought it was written in a way to make it popular, and that the repulsive element in the story had been eliminated by the delicacy of his treatment. His interest in it lessened after its refusal by the managers; but their judgment was supported by the unfavorable impression made by it when it was privately played for the first time under the auspices of the Shelley Society, at London, in 1886.
Mrs. Shelley’s note, as usual, gives nearly all that is essential to the history of the poem and of Shelley’s interest in it:
‘When in Rome, in 1819, a friend put into our hands the old manuscript account of the story of The Cenci. We visited the Colonna and Doria palaces, where the portraits of Beatrice were to be found; and her beauty cast the reflection of its own grace over her appalling story. Shelley’s imagination became strongly excited, and he urged the subject to me as one fitted for a tragedy. More than ever I felt my incompetence; but I entreated him to write it instead; and he began and proceeded swiftly, urged on by intense sympathy with the sufferings of the human beings whose passions, so long cold in the tomb, he revived, and gifted with poetic language. This tragedy is the only one of his works that he communicated to me during its progress. We talked over the arrangement of the scenes together....
‘We suffered a severe affliction in Rome by the loss of our eldest child, who was of such beauty and promise as to cause him deservedly to be the idol of our hearts. We left the capital of the world, anxious for a time to escape a spot associated too intimately with his presence and loss. Some friends of ours were residing in the neighborhood of Leghorn, and we took a small house, Villa Valsovano, about half-way between the town and Monte Nero, where we remained during the summer. Our villa was situated in the midst of a podere; the peasants sang as they worked beneath our windows, during the heats of a very hot season, and at night the water-wheel creaked as the process of irrigation went on, and the fireflies flashed from among the myrtle hedges: — nature was bright, sunshiny, and cheerful, or diversified by storms of a majestic terror, such as we had never before witnessed.
‘At the top of the house there was a sort of terrace. There is often such in Italy, generally roofed. This one was very smal
l, yet not only roofed but glazed; this Shelley made his study; it looked out on a wide prospect of fertile country, and commanded a view of the near sea. The storms that sometimes varied our day showed themselves most picturesquely as they were driven across the ocean; sometimes the dark lurid clouds dipped towards the waves, and became water spouts, that churned up the waters beneath, as they were chased onward, and scattered by the tempest. At other times the dazzling sunlight and heat made it almost intolerable to every other; but Shelley basked in both, and his health and spirits revived under their influence. In this airy cell he wrote the principal part of The Cenci. He was making a study of Calderon at the time, reading his best tragedies with an accomplished lady [Mrs. Gisborne] living near us, to whom his letter from Leghorn was addressed during the following year. He admired Calderon, both for his poetry and his dramatic genius; but it shows his judgment and originality, that, though greatly struck by his first acquaintance with the Spanish poet, none of his peculiarities crept into the composition of The Cenci; and there is no trace of his new studies, except in that passage to which he himself alludes, as suggested by one in El Purgatorio de San Patricio.
‘Shelley wished The Cenci to be acted. He was not a play-goer, being of such fastidious taste that he was easily disgusted by the bad filling up of the inferior parts. While preparing for our departure from England, however, he saw Miss O’Neil several times; she was then in the zenith of her glory, and Shelley was deeply moved by her impersonation of several parts, and by the graceful sweetness, the intense pathos, and sublime vehemence of passion she displayed. She was often in his thoughts as he wrote, and when he had finished, he became anxious that his tragedy should be acted, and receive the advantage of having this accomplished actress to fill the part of the heroine. With this view he wrote the following letter to a friend [Peacock, July, 1819] in London: —
‘“The object of the present letter is to ask a favor of you. I have written a tragedy on the subject of a story well known in Italy, and, in my conception, eminently dramatic. I have taken some pains to make my play fit for representation, and those who have already seen it judge favorably. It is written without any of the peculiar feelings and opinions which characterize my other compositions; I having attended simply to the impartial development of such characters as it is probable the persons represented really were, together with the greatest degree of popular effect to be produced by such a development. I send you a translation of the Italian MS. on which my play is founded; the chief subject of which I have touched very delicately; for my principal doubt as to whether it would succeed, as an acting play, hangs entirely on the question, as to whether such a thing as incest in this shape, however treated, would be admitted on the stage. I think, however, it will form no objection, considering, first, that the facts are matter of history and, secondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have treated it.
‘“I am exceedingly interested in the question of whether this attempt of mine will succeed or no. I am strongly inclined to the affirmative at present; founding my hopes on this, that as a composition it is certainly not inferior to any of the modern plays that have been acted, with the exception of Remorse; that the interest of its plot is incredibly greater and more real, and that there is nothing beyond what the multitude are contented to believe that they can understand, either in imagery, opinion, or sentiment. I wish to preserve a complete incognito, and can trust to you that, whatever else you do, you will at least favor me on this point. Indeed this is essential, deeply essential to its success. After it had been acted, and successfully (could I hope such a thing), I would own it if I pleased, and use the celebrity it might acquire, to my own purposes.
‘“What I want you to do, is to procure for me its presentation at Covent Garden. The principal character, Beatrice, is precisely fitted for Miss O’Neil, and it might even seem written for her, (God forbid that I should ever see her play it — it would tear my nerves to pieces,) and in all respects it is fitted only for Covent Garden. The chief male character I confess I should be very unwilling that any one but Kean should play — that is impossible, and I must be contented with an inferior actor.”
‘The play was accordingly sent to Mr. Harris. He pronounced the subject to be so objectionable that he could not even submit the part to Miss O’Neil for perusal, but expressed his desire that the author would write a tragedy on some other subject, which he would gladly accept. Shelley printed a small edition at Leghorn, to insure its correctness; as he was much annoyed by the many mistakes that crept into his text, when distance prevented him from correcting the press.
‘Universal approbation soon stamped The Cenci as the best tragedy of modern times. Writing concerning it, Shelley said: “I have been cautious to avoid the introducing faults of youthful composition; diffuseness, a profusion of inapplicable imagery, vagueness, generality, and, as Hamlet says, words, words.” There is nothing that is not purely dramatic throughout; and the character of Beatrice, proceeding from vehement struggle to horror, to deadly resolution, and lastly, to the elevated dignity of calm suffering, joined to passionate tenderness and pathos, is touched with hues so vivid and so beautiful, that the poet seems to have read intimately the secrets of the noble heart imaged in the lovely countenance of the unfortunate girl. The Fifth Act is a masterpiece. It is the finest thing he ever wrote, and may claim proud comparison not only with any contemporary, but preceding poet. The varying feelings of Beatrice are expressed with passionate, heart-reaching eloquence. Every character has a voice that echoes truth in its tones. It is curious, to one acquainted with the written story, to mark the success with which the poet has inwoven the real incidents of the tragedy into his scenes, and yet, through the power of poetry, has obliterated all that would otherwise have shown too harsh or too hideous in the picture. His success was a double triumph; and often after he was earnestly entreated to write again in a style that commanded popular favor, while it was not less instinct with truth and genius. But the bent of his mind went the other way; and even when employed on subjects whose interest depended on character and incident, he would start off in another direction, and leave the delineations of human passion, which he could depict in so able a manner, for fantastic creations of his fancy, or the expression of those opinions and sentiments with regard to human nature and its destiny, a desire to diffuse which was the master passion of his soul.’
Though Shelley’s references to the drama, in his correspondence, are many, they are rather concerned with the stage-production and publication of it than with criticism. While still warm with its composition he wrote to Peacock, ‘My work on The Cenci, which was done in two months, was a fine antidote to nervous medicines and kept up, I think, the pain in my side as sticks do a fire. Since then I have materially improved;’ and in offering the dedication to Leigh Hunt, he says,—’I have written something and finished it, different from anything else, and a new attempt for me; and I mean to dedicate it to you. I should not have done so without your approbation, but I asked your picture last night, and it smiled assent. If I did not think it in some degree worthy of you, I would not make you a public offering of it. I expect to have to write to you soon about it. If Ollier is not turned Christian, Jew, or become infected with the Murrain, he will publish it. Don’t let him be frightened, for it is nothing which by any courtesy of language can be termed either moral or immoral.’
In letters to Ollier he describes it as ‘calculated to produce a very popular effect,’ ‘expressly written for theatrical exhibition,’ and ‘written for the multitude.’ He doubtless had in mind, while using these phrases, its restraint of style, in which it is unique among his longer works, and its freedom from abstract thought and the peculiar imagery in which he delighted. Its failure disappointed him, as it is the only one of his works from which he seems to have expected contemporary and popular success. ‘The Cenci ought to have been popular,’ he writes again to Ollier; and the effect of continued neglect of his writings, in depressing his spirits, is shown in a
letter the preceding day to Peacock,—’Nothing is more difficult and unwelcome than to write without a confidence of finding readers; and if my play of The Cenci found none or few, I despair of ever producing anything that shall merit them.’ Byron was ‘loud in censure,’ and Keats was critical, in the very point where criticism was perhaps least needed; he wrote, acknowledging a gift copy,—’You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six months together. And is not this extraordinary talk for the writer of Endymion, whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards?’ Trelawny records Shelley’s last, and most condensed judgment: ‘In writing The Cenci my object was to see how I could succeed in describing passions I have never felt, and to tell the most dreadful story in pure and refined language. The image of Beatrice haunted me after seeing her portrait. The story is well authenticated, and the details far more horrible than I have painted them. The Cenci is a work of art; it is not colored by my feelings nor obscured by my metaphysics. I don’t think much of it. It gave me less trouble than anything I have written of the same length.’Dedication to Leigh Hunt, Esq.
MY DEAR FRIEND, — I inscribe with your name, from a distant country, and after an absence whose months have seemed years, this the latest of my literary efforts.
Those writings which I have hitherto published have been little else than visions which impersonate my own apprehensions of the beautiful and the just. I can also perceive in them the literary defects incidental to youth and impatience; they are dreams of what ought to be or may be. The drama which I now present to you is a sad reality. I lay aside the presumptuous attitude of an instructor and am content to paint, with such colors as my own heart furnishes, that which has been.
Had I known a person more highly endowed than yourself with all that it becomes a man to possess, I had solicited for this work the ornament of his name. One more gentle, honorable, innocent and brave; one of more exalted toleration for all who do and think evil, and yet himself more free from evil; one who knows better how to receive and how to confer a benefit, though he must ever confer far more than he can receive; one of simpler, and, in the highest sense of the word, of purer life and manners, I never knew; and I had already been fortunate in friendships when your name was added to the list. In that patient and irreconcilable enmity with domestic and political tyranny and imposture which the tenor of your life has illustrated, and which, had I health and talents, should illustrate mine, let us, comforting each other in our task, live and die.
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 97