SOURCE: “Shelleyan Incest and the Romantic Legacy,” in Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol. XLV, 1996, pp. 61-76.

In the following essay, Cronin explores the evolution and significance of the themes of love and incest in Shelley's poetry. The critic contends that Romantic poetry in general and Shelley's work in particular left a difficult legacy for the Victorians, challenging them to accommodate these themes in an acceptable manner for the reading public.

I begin with a particular legacy, with the copy of The Revolt of Islam owned by Arthur Hallam and bequeathed, after his early death, to his friend and fellow-Apostle, Henry Alford. Like Hallam, Alford was a minor poet, but he lived to earn a more substantial reputation as Dean of Canterbury cathedral and as the English editor of the Greek Testament. This book was doubly precious to Alford who revered both Hallam and Shelley, and when he married on 10 March...