A Defence of Poetry Study Guide

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On Shelley's theories of poetry and criticism, their place among his contemporaries et al, and a defense of his work in response to his critics. Note that I use the masculine pronoun he in this essay to be more succinct as I am writing mainly about male authors, although the larger concerns are those of any author.

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The Romantic poets pursued the infinite and the invisible; they went beyond the limit of this phenomenal and nominal world in quest of absolute reality, or eternity. Also, it was the faculty of imagination, which was for them the gateway to the invisible and infinite worlds. They insisted that imagination, far from dealing with the fictitious and the non-existent, unravelled the mystery surrounding spiritual truths. They believed that when imagination was at work, it endowed one with a special insight to look beyond the surface and also enabled one to see things that intelligence could not reach. Shelley declared in his A Defence of Poetry that imagination was the highest faculty of man, and that the poet endowed with this faculty, possessed a special insight. This research paper does an analysis of one of P. B. Shelley's most influential works, A Defense of Poetry, reflecting that the main focus of poetry is to unveil the perfection of a world that is shrouded by darkness and uncertainty. To understand the significance of Shelley's essay, the paper outlines the critical line of thought on poetry back to its predecessors like Plato, who viewed poetry as blasphemous, and Aristotle, who considered poetry as a symbol of the eternal truth. The paper also explores the functions and responsibilities of poetry while elucidating the power of imaginative faculty.

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