'England yet sleeps': Percy Shelley’s reworking of the progress poem in 'Ode to Liberty' and 'Ode to Naples'

Join us on Monday 22nd November from 5 p.m., when PhD student Pauline Hortolland will give a talk on Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'Ode to Liberty' and 'Ode to Naples'.

Space is limited so booking is mandatory (info@ksh.roma.it/ 06 678 42 35). Price is included in the entrance ticket.

Abstract

This talk will explore Shelley’s complex response to the tradition of the progress poem in Ode to Liberty and in Ode to Naples, two poems that were published in mid-1820 to celebrate the fall of absolute monarchy in Spain in January 1820 and the Carbonari-led constitutional revolution in July 1820 in Naples. It will be argued that Shelley destabilizes the conception of gradual progress which generally underpins the progress poem. In these odes as in the sonnet “To the Republic of Benevento”, Shelley eventually suggests that the origin of Liberty is not to be found in chronological time, but in human potentiality.  

Biographical Note

Pauline Hortolland is a PhD candidate at the Department of English and American Studies of Université de Paris (France), where she teaches translation. Her current research focuses on the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with a particular emphasis on the notions of event, becoming and potentiality. Pauline Hortolland is currently undertaking a residential KSH-SERA scholarship in Rome.