I’ve never warmed to Shelley as a man, and when I’ve tried reading his poetry in bulk I’ve found the process curiously unsatisfying. This is odd: his writing shows staggering verbal power, and he clearly was a man of great intelligence as well as of what seem to me inspiring general principles. Let the psychologist, novelist or biographer explore relations between his genius and what seem like his emotional deficiencies. I want to glance at one tiny splinter illustrating his enormous gifts: not for the moment the superb ‘Ozymandias’, but a line from ‘Ode to the West Wind’ in which … Continue Reading