Epipsychidion
Addressed to a young Italian woman shut up in a convent by her father, it argues that true love is not gold or clay to be portioned out, that to divide is not to take away, and that whoever keeps one object and one form is chained to the dreariest of jails. The middle section recasts the writer's own life as a search conducted among a Sun, a Moon and a Comet, and the last proposes an escape to an isle under Ionian skies with a ruined tower and a people who have forgotten the mainland. Shelley published it anonymously and soon asked his publisher to suppress it, saying it had been meant for the esoteric few.
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- 48% · 10 shared