Rousseau’s Impact on Shelley Figuring the Written Self

Examines the literary relationship between Rousseau and Shelley as it presents itself historically, intertextually, and in relation to language theory. Provides the reader with close original readings of several major works by Shelley: Queen Mab, Alastor, Julian and Maddalo, The Sensitive Plant and The Triumph of Life. Finally, Shelley's search for a suitable figure through whom he sought to examine the nature of identity is generalized into an exploration of Romantic subjectivity and written expressions of the self. Such an analysis of romantic notions of identity and subjectivity has broad significance for the study of Romanticism as a whole.