The discourse referred to was begun but never completed. It is given in his prose works, usually under the title On the Arts and Manners of the Athenians. In reading through this discourse we are forcibly struck by a marked timidity and caution, quite foreign to Shelley’s nature. Here is an author who frankly advocated “lawless love” and defended incest; and yet he was quite unable to face the question of Greek Paiderastia. He set out to write an essay on that one theme, for that is the subject of the Symposium, if one differentiates between Greek Love and Love in Modern Nations. Yet when his essay, after a general introduction, demands a statement and description of this custom he at once hedges, and digresses into vague general statements, and finally breaks off.
It is obvious that mere respect for the prejudices of publishers or readers would not have deterred Shelley had he wished to describe or even to defend Paiderastia; moreover, he wrote in Italy, and states that he had no particular intention of publishing the discourse, nor even the Symposium. It is possible that he deferred somewhat to the feelings of his wife, for one can hardly suppose that Mary would enthuse over certain passages of Plato. On the whole, however, his timidity and weakness in handling this theme sprang from internal subjective causes. Instinctively he shrank from a definite conscious revelation of his own half-repressed impulses, even if that revelation were only made to himself. And yet Shelley was vaguely aware, in a quite general way, of a conflict within himself, even although he could not specify precisely the sources of the trouble. He rightly attributed his constant melancholy to this cause, as his self-analysis in Prince Athanase shows:
For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil
Between his heart and mind—both unrelieved
Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.
The fact that he was thus dimly aware of a conflict proves that the repressed impulses were somewhat near the surface, and were not entirely subjugated.
V
IF, as is here maintained, Shelley suffered from a repression of homosexual impulses, an experienced psychoanalyst should be able to trace the effects of this on his life and behaviour. The writer is not such an expert, but he would nevertheless indicate in a general way how psychoanalytic theories may confirm his views as to Shelley’s nature.
Shelley suffered from Paranoia, in a distinct, though not acute, degree. Paranoia is a mental disease characterised by delusions of persecutions, jealousy, or grandeur. These delusions are usually intermittent, and often change in their content. For example, the persecutor may first be one person and later another, or several others, or a whole class (e.g. the “Kings, Priests, and Statesmen” of Queen Mab).
Sometimes a delusion of persecution is replaced by one of jealousy, or vice versa.
Shelley’s delusions have been described, but only very inadequately discussed, by his biographers, and I can only summarise them here. The earliest of them is the most important, for it probably reveals the cause of them all.[21] It concerned his father, who was a bluff Country Squire, rather boorish, and totally incapable of understanding Shelley’s nature. What the relations between Shelley and his father were before this delusion, we do not know; but for the rest of his life the poet was hostile and antagonistic to Mr. Timothy, and, moreover, suspicious of him.
At one time in his boyhood Shelley contracted a fever, and, presumably during his convalescence, he became convinced that his Father was secretly plotting to have the boy (who was indubitably erratic) locked up in a mad-house. Shelley appealed to Dr. Lind who, so the story goes, came over and spoke strongly to Mr. Timothy, and thus rescued Shelley. The date of this delusion is not known, but it occurred while the boy was at school, probably in the earlier Eton days. Peacock, after quoting Hogg’s account of Shelley’s description of this scheme, adds: “However this may have been, the idea that his father was continually on the watch for a pretext to lock him up haunted him through life, and a mysterious intimation of his father’s intention to effect such a purpose was frequently received by him, and communicated to his friends as a demonstration of the necessity under which he was placed of changing his residence and going abroad.”