Shelleys Poetics of Reticence

Exploring the rhetorical and phenomenological links between shame and reticence, this book examines the psychology of Shelleys anguished poet-Subject. Shelleys struggles with the fragility of the self have largely been seen as the result of thinking which connects emotional hyperstimulation to moral and political undermining of the individual will. This work takes a different approach, suggesting that Shelleys insecurities stemmed from anxieties about the nature of aesthetic self-representation. Shame is an appropriate affective marker of such anxiety because it occurs at the cusp between internal and external self-evaluation. Shelleys reticent poetics transfers an affective sense of shame to the reader and provokes interpretive responsibility. Paying attention to the affective contours of texts, this book presents new readings of Shelleys major works. These interpretations show that awakening the readers ethical discretion creates a constructive dynamic which challenges influential deconstructive readings of the unfinished nature of Shelleys work and thought.