‘The Fixed and the Fluid’

This chapter addresses the question of poetic identity in the works of and literary relationship between Shelley and Byron. It identifies the mutual responsiveness of the two poets as well as their responsiveness to the self in poetry. For both poets, there is a great awareness of the possibility to re-imagine the self through poetry: to ‘multiply’ and be multiplied, to become ‘immortal’ through the continuance of one’s ideas and poetic visions, and to be born again in the minds and hearts of those readers who are receptive to the poet’s creations. Both poets, through their poetic works, explore the value of poetry through different forms. Byron’s narrative form provides means by which he can explore the self through opposing poles. As the chapter points out, for Byron, ‘Stories fix and identify; but they are also the doorways towards novelty and escape’. Shelley’s intense lyricism provides an opportunity to test the imagination’s capacity for movement between poles, to be at once fixed and fluid. Both poets present identity through the lens of poetic surrogates through whom they explore notions of isolation, the concept of heroism, a sense of suffering, and the very mortal wish for the timelessness of the soul. The two authors also deftly probe the relationship between author and reader. The chapter also explores the converging and diverging ways in which Byron and Shelley respond to Wordsworthian ideas of identity. It details how the poets’ friendship and intellectual exchange ‘changed who they were as poets’. Throughout, the chapter examines the skill with which each poet creates his works, and traces how poetic form corresponds to poetic idea.