SOURCE: Introduction to The Vision of “Love's Rare Universe”: A Study of Shelley's Epipsychidion, University Press of America, Inc., 1995, pp. 1-12.

In the following introduction to a full-length interpretation of Shelley's Epipsychidion, Verma evaluates the poem in the context of Shelley's theory of the imagination.

I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself and knows it is divine; All harmony of instrument or verse, All prophecy, all medicine is mine, All light of art or nature;—to my song Victory and praise in its own right belong. 

“Hymn of Apollo”

I

Epipsychidion, written in 1821, is a product of Shelley's mature years. Following the composition of his earlier poems, Shelley's thought had exhibited a rapid and dramatic growth, especially in terms of its capacity, power and magnitude. Prometheus Unbound and Epipsychidion, remarks Ghose, “show this turn of his [Shelley's] genius at its height; they are two of...