Shelley's Shadow: Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Romantic poets like Wordsworth seem as though they have a solid foundation of where their Truth comes from. Wordsworth concentrates a great majority of his poetry on his interaction with nature, such as trees, as well as the seemingly never-ending brook that shows up in a handful of his poems. For Wordsworth, that which is tangible, that which he sees, is his Truth. Shelley, on the other hand, although he does admire Wordsworth, doesn't seem to trust the imagery he encounters, and thus doesn't attach himself to any feeling that imagery evokes within him. A lot of Shelley's imagery focuses on the intangible in his world, like the "awful shadow of some unseen Power" in Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1). Shelley's fascination with this speaks toward the idea that Shelley is more of a student of the world, still a seeker of Truth, and thus has the ability to see a deeper, more profound Truth than Wordsworth found.

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty is a rather effective piece to examine to get a sense of how Shelley feels about the seen and the unseen, and how his thoughts differ from Wordsworth. This poem allows us as readers to discover a world that Wordsworth didn't see. He concentrates so deeply on what he sees that he doesn't fully examine the intangibility of what he sees around him. Shelley's Hymn, because it begins with a look at what he cannot see, has an advantage over Wordsworth's in that it has more of an opportunity to delve to a deeper element of Truth-that element being the journey, which Shelley believes begins in the mind. Wordsworth focuses a lot on being in the moment, having already arrived at his destination, and what he learns once there. Unlike Shelley, he doesn't seem to look at the value of how he got to that point, either in his eyes or through his mind.

The opening line of Hymn begins with a line that introduces the "awful shadow," which implies a different (yet still similar) feeling than that which Wordsworth spoke of. At first, it reads as though this shadow is itself a being separate from Wordsworth's image, but it also seems like it is simultaneously a part of the same idea, since Shelley mentions them within the same line, and also uses the simple conjunction "of" to connect both ideas. Shelley also connects these ideas on a bit deeper level by using the word "awful," which Duncan Wu in his footnotes to the poem tells us means "awesome," thereby creating an equally positive feeling toward both ideas, with the key being that we think of them as equals, or inherently having the same value as functional ideas in our minds.

It is also important to note that Shelley doesn't use language that speaks toward the negative idea of a shadow, or one that we as contemporary readers would likely view upon our first glance at this line. Instead, Shelley describes this Power as "hues and harmonies of evening" (8), which evokes positive emotions in us as readers. Shelley also speaks positively in the line following, when he writes that this being is "Like clouds in starlight widely spread" (9) Although this line could be read in a couple different ways, it ought to be interpreted as saying that the unseen feeling is being examined in conjunction to clouds, but as it is written, Shelley isn't saying that the shadow is a part of the clouds. Rather, those clouds are far apart, letting "light" from the stars through.

What's interesting in that interpretation is that we readers can make a connection to that starlight coming through as though it functions to make the shadow more visible, and thus tangible, as the eyes of a poet function as fingers for his mind, allowing him to feel what he sees. Lastly in that stanza, it's important to dissect the last two lines, as they speak of the importance of the eyes being the vehicle by which the mind interacts with what it sees, through a strange kind of transcendent touch. Shelley says that this shadow "for its grace may be dear" (11), meaning that the shadow is influential because of how it makes him feel, but he then says that it is "dearer for its mystery," which means that the unseen Power is even more meaningful because of what we cannot figure out about it. For Shelley, using a word like "grace" implies a connection close to the intangible (as we connect grace with God), whereas including a word like "mystery" creates an even closer experience akin to a journey, because something mysterious almost begs to be figured out, and because that thing is a mystery, we are led to think that it does exist somewhere, so we're more likely to use our eyes to reach for it with our minds.

The second stanza begins with the phrase "Spirit of Beauty" (13), mirroring the opening line of the poem in that Shelley again speaks of the unseen, the intangible, by referring to a Spirit, and makes the idea more interesting by connecting that Spirit to beauty, which is an idea more associated with that which we can see. Just as the "awful shadow" is an unseen part of the Power in the opening line, so goes the Spirit, itself unseen, of Beauty, and in this case he means intellectual Beauty, as his title clearly states.

In the second part of line 13, Shelley says that the Spirit of Beauty "doth consecrate with thine own hues all thou dost shine upon." This particular line moves the poem into a more spiritual sense, although it isn't clear that this spirituality refers to God. In fact, this spirituality is connected specifically to ghosts, as the poem later states. At this point, however, the poem's meaning of spirituality is evident because of Shelley's choice to use "consecrate," which means to make something holy, and furthers a singular connection to a particular spirit (be it God or another) by saying "thine own hues" (14, emphasis added). Shelley doesn't end the connection there, though. He chooses another "light" image (similar to lines 5 and 9) by saying that this Spirit makes holy "all thou dost shine upon."

The following moment, in connection with this last "light" image, is an interesting one because Shelley seems to be playing with the form of his poetry. He says, in line 15, "Of human thought or form-where art thou gone?" One could read line 15 as a continuance of line 14, thereby finishing Shelley's supposed thought stemming from 14. Or, as I did, we could read line 15 as an entirely separate thought. If we do so, it reads as a turning point in Shelley's mind-one at which he seems to step back, still within himself, from his own mind, or what his eyes are feeling for him. In an odd and interesting way, it's as though Shelley is having a thought within a thought, evidenced in this case by the fact that he asks a question while he is already inherently questioning other ideas.

The third stanza begins with "No voice from some sublimer world hath ever/To sage or poet these responses given;" (25-26). In this moment, if we sift through his poetic diction, Shelley is saying that there isn't a voice that has given a sage (a wise man) or poet (Shelley himself), the opportunities, thought processes and ideas that he has discovered in his mind. What he means here is that that which he has found within himself, he has found through his own mind's processes, through that journey. This is perhaps more clearly seen through his choice of saying that there is "no voice," and more precisely no voice from a world existing within the idea of the sublime, which Wordsworth would say lies in tangible nature. The fact that he chose that phrasing suggests that he went on a very brief journey in his mind, weighing both poetically and for his own sake, the notion of a voice versus a sight, thus continuing his fascination with the intangible.

To further solidify this idea of an unseen sound being valued more than tangible nature, Shelley writes in the next two lines, "Therefore the name of God, and ghosts and heaven/Remain the records of their vain endeavour" (27-28). Here, Shelley is saying that those poets and sages (as "their" in line 28 refers to them) who rely on the belief in the sublime as the ultimate Truth, have only the name of God, and not God himself, as their proof that the sublime is the Truth. Interestingly enough, Shelley does include ghosts in that trio in line 27, which seems to speak toward his uneasiness of believing purely in any of those three ideas.

The fact that each of those three ideas was equally unsettling to him is evident in line 29, as he calls all three "frail spells" and more so that those "uttered charms might not avail to sever/From all we hear and all we see/Doubt, chance, and mutability" (29). The fact that he uses the words "charms" and "might" tells us that he really doesn't trust any of them as beliefs. No matter which he believes, with each of them comes some degree of doubt. Charms, for example, is another word for spells, which he uses in line 29, thus making the fact that he doesn't trust these images more evident.

With that doubt, though, comes a chance to explore why it exists in the first place, and in the fifth stanza, Shelley begins that journey. As he has done before, Shelley creates in the first line of this stanza a sort of moment-within-a-moment, simultaneously staying in the present with his writing, but also taking us on a journey through his mind when he was younger. This is similar to Wordsworth's childhood reflections, but unlike him, Shelley is not necessarily reminiscing peacefully. He doesn't seem at peace perhaps because he has not yet found his Truth, and in one moment, he uses the word "fearful" which implies that he is somewhat frightened while searching for his ghosts. At the same time, though, he also says that he was "pursuing" the ghosts, conveying the idea that this search is a purposeful one, despite having fear about it.

One idea that ought to be addressed here is that, since Shelley is writing this in a present moment, does he mean that he was fearful as a child, or has this fear somehow stuck with him and is affecting him here, in his present life? He editorializes this way in line 53, when he writes of prayer. He says it is that "with which our youth is fed." In that particular moment, it reads as though he isn't taking prayer or a belief in God or some higher being as a serious or valuable thing. Similar to that, then, is whether or not he is creating the same kind of message when referring to his "fearful" pursuit. Since he uses a visceral word like "fed" and describes God as "poisonous," (another similarly visceral word) I am led to believe that in both cases he is relying on his adult feelings to help him make sense of beliefs.

What is strange, though, if we accept the above interpretation, is the very sudden moment at which the shadow finds Shelley. It seems a happy moment in his life, as he says I "clasped my hands in ecstasy" (60). Yet, in the stanzas immediately after, there are moments in which it's as if he is sorry that it happened, as though he realizes his journey might be coming to an end. In the sixth stanza, he says that he "vowed that I would dedicate my powers" (61). By using dense language like "vowed" and "dedicate," he has made a promise, and because of his "beating heart and streaming eyes" (63) the promise doesn't seem as strong, or that it has already somehow been broken, at least in his mind, hence the crying and pleading heart. In lines 72 and 73, he writes "That thou, oh awful loveliness/Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express," which says that he needs the shadow to help him find himself again. From the moment that the shadow finds him until the end of the sixth stanza, Shelley seems enveloped within that moment of being discovered by the shadow, and is having difficulty making sense of the whole thing.

This poem effectively shows how that which we cannot see holds as much, if not more, value as the tangible things. For Shelley, although the unseen it is not as easy or comforting as Wordsworth's tangible nature, he is more concerned with setting himself within the process of the mind, itself an intangible, and seems to relish in the journey he takes in being a student of the world, in trying to find something in which to believe.