Shelley as Visual Artist: Doodles, Sketches, Ink Blots, and the Critical Reception of the Visual

Abstract:This paper seeks to incorporate the visual elements of P.B. Shelley’s manuscripts into our interpretation of his works. Shelley criticism is currently overly dependent for its method, the paper argues, on the final intention methodology used by the current generation of scholarly editors of Shelley’s work. While the final intention model is an obvious one for editors to employ, I argue that we need a more inclusive critical methodology when it comes to Shelley’s often complex manuscripts. Using various examples, including discussion of “Ozymandius” and “The Triumph of Life,” the paper questions traditional presuppositions concerning the aesthetics of doddles, scribbles, sketches and apparent accidents such as ink blots.