SOURCE: "Shelley's View of Poetry: A Lecture," in The Albany Review, Vol. 11, February, 1908, pp. 511–30.

In the following essay, which was originally presented as a lecture, Bradley comments on Shelley's adherence in his work to the poetics he set out in his essay Defence of Poetry.

The ideas of Wordsworth and of Coleridge about poetry have often been discussed and are familiar. Those of Shelley are much less so, and in his eloquent exposition of them there is a radiance which almost conceals them from many readers. I wish, at the cost of all the radiance, to try to see them and show them rather more distinctly. Even if they had little value for the theory of poetry, they would still have much as material for that theory, since they allow us to see something of a poet's experience in conceiving and composing. And, in addition, they throw light...