Perhaps it is this—this careful wrapping up and concealment of the main purport—which explains the curious neglect on the part of critics and others, from which the poem has suffered this long time—all the more curious because one might certainly have been inclined to suppose beforehand that the air of mystery would have had the opposite effect, namely of directing attention to the poem. Professor Dowden, for example, who is usually very scrupulous about such matters, gives hardly any space to The Witch of Atlas; and Mrs. Campbell (Shelley and the Unromantics), who is generally a keen and active-minded observer, ignores the work altogether! one is left to conclude (as the omissions could hardly be accidental) that these and other critics have deliberately passed the poem by on account of its fanciful and Utopian character, yet this in itself is hardly an adequate reason, since in reality the importance of the poem consists in the veritable glimpse it affords of the working of Shelley’s mind and of the ideals which he entertained, rather than in the actual practicability of the latter.
The third point that I wish to emphasise is the conclusion, derived from modern psycho-sexual studies, that delusions and mental aberrations can frequently be traced to some disturbance or repression of an intimate love-passion.
Apart from Freud and all his works, we can easily see the great probability of this conclusion. The love-instinct roots so deep and dates so far back—even to the very beginnings of human life in the earth—that necessarily any displacement of it affects the human being most profoundly. It would not do to say at once and without collateral evidence that Shelley’s mental disturbances were due to repressed or disappointed love, but we have to hold that clue in mind, remembering at the same time his extremely emotional and imaginative nature. Shelley’s later love-affairs are pretty well known, but there does not seem to be one among them which quite answers the requirements of the case. Harriet Grove and Harriet Westbrook may soon be dismissed. Mary Godwin had more hold on the poet’s affection, but her nature was cold and argumentative—too like her father’s—and there is little indication of an attachment between her and the poet sufficiently passionate to cause by its rupture any actual dislocation of the latter’s mind. Trelawny, with whom on one occasion I had a longish conversation, was somewhat contemptuous of Mary as a rather shallow person much attracted by society considerations; and though I think Trelawny himself was often swayed by prejudice and personal bias, yet it must be allowed that he knew Mary pretty well. Then there is Emilia Viviani (alluded to above) to whom Shelley wrote the long and enthusiastic poem Epipsychidion; but here again, though the poem is full of rarely beautiful passages, one cannot help feeling that it is “up in the air” all the time—a charming piece of work, but wanting in actuality and grip on life.
There remain Shelley’s attachments to men friends, but these again are somewhat disappointing. Hogg, whose name is often associated with that of the poet, was, one would say, a rather uninspiring creature, but who has this claim to our respect—that he certainly was genuinely attached to Shelley. Though rather commonplace in character, it yet may be said of him that he was virile and of quite keen intellect. He was also very susceptible to feminine attractions. He obviously liked Shelley much; but Shelley may fairly be said to have loved him, and in quite romantic manner. Then, at a later time, there appeared that other devoted friend, Trelawny, who, after reading Shelley’s Poems could not rest till he had made the poet’s acquaintance, and who after that returned again and again to the poet’s side, and to be with him. He was a very different type from Hogg, somewhat bombastic, but spirited and adventurous.
One concludes that Shelley certainly attracted the devotion of his men friends; and on the other hand, that he was capable of warm and faithful attachment to them, some of them.[7]
This is, I think, clearly indicated not only by his relations with Hogg and by numerous passages in Adonais and other poems, but by the fact of his giving so much time and thought to the translation of Plato’s Symposium (whose chief subject, of course, is love between men) as well as to the study (see his letters) of the Greek statuary. Modern psychoanalysis has forced on people recognition of the fact that avoidance of certain words or of allusions to certain subjects does not by any means justify one in concluding that such words or subjects were not present to the speaker’s or writer’s mind. Rather the contrary. In many cases (as Barnefield reminds us) such avoidance indicates an over-self-consciousness which leads the speaker or writer to suppress the very things which interest him most, or the words which would betray his interest.
Shelley was by his very nature greatly in advance of his age. And The Witch of Atlas shows this. All through that strange poem there peep in and out suggestions of sex-variation and of variations in sex-attraction.[8] That poem was written a hundred years ago, but to-day the same subjects have become almost an obsession, and situations are freely handled and discussed which would (as the saying goes) cause our grandfathers and grandmothers to turn in their graves! What there may be preparing we do not know; but we can see that civilisation has arrived at a cusp or turning-point in its progress, where further movement is likely to be in a quite unexpected direction. Love between two persons of like sex is nowadays widely accepted, as being an attachment resting on a sympathy and soul-union very deep and sincere—even though it may elude the physical ties or take little account of them.
The modern Woman’s movement—so concrete and world-wide in its character—seems destined to impress this more feminine conception of love on the present age. That movement began with Mary Wolstonecraft, whose Rights of Women is even to this day one of the very best books on the subject with which it deals; and one can trace her influence extending down into the mind and philosophic outlook of Shelley, and colouring many passages in his poems. I do not, of course, mean that this last variety of affection (comradeship it might be called) was the only or even chief variety in Shelley’s mind. But there it was, and quite possibly it was kept out of sight just on account of the strange spell or attraction the subject exercised upon him.
Without having myself any prejudice against those people whose predominant love-attraction is towards their own sex, and believing, as I do, that many of that type belong to the highest ranges of humanity, I still do not think that Shelley quite shared their temperament. What temperamental changes he might have developed in the further course of his unfinished life, of course we do not know; but his fervent and unceasing idealisation of his female friends does, to my mind, make any contention of the above kind seem decidedly difficult. Shelley was quite normal, I should say, in the majority of his love affairs; but his rapid and fertile imagination may have rendered it possible for him (as in The Witch of Atlas) to leap to the understanding of things which to the majority of human beings still remain occult and unintelligible.
It will be remembered that in the last-mentioned poem, when the Wizard-lady steps into the boat which is destined to bear her through all the Kingdoms of the Earth, she brings to birth there (or creates):