This book studies and articulates the emergence from the poetical subtext of six major English romantics of "the androgynous sublime", a mode that conflates the motif of psychic androgyny (traceable as far back as the Book of Genesis and Plato's Symposium) with the mode of sublimity, first discussed by Longinus and much debated from the eighteenth century onward. Frequently echoed by the romantic poets, Milton's description of the Holy Spirit's role in the creation of the world is androgynous. Since humane creativity mirrors divine creativity, it follows that the artist qua artist muct also be androgynous - that is, endowed with what Lyrical Ballads, calls "a more comprehensive soul" than is "supposed to be common among mankind". Characterized by a flexuous, limber style and an association with androgynous subject matter, the androgynous sublime subverts conventional notions of sublimity while offering a more comprehensive model with which to supplement, of non supplant, them. The methodology of this study is to present a "counter-deconstructive" reading of the text and, where applicable, designs of Blake, as well as the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, seen from this somewhat novel but not ignoble perspective.

Keats and Shelley: Winds of Light combines unrivalled textual knowledge, biographical and contextual expertise, and profoundly insightful close readings of the poetry in a selection of outstanding essays from a leading critic of English Romantic Poetry. Some of the essays have been previously published and are established as classic studies, which have strongly influenced scholarly interpretation of the poems they discuss, including landmark readings of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, 'Julian and Maddalo' and 'Ozymandias', and Keats's 'Isabella: or the Pot of Basil' and his sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'. These are brought into relationship with new work on the two poets, in a wide-ranging set of meditations which centre on Shelley's great elegy for Keats, Adonais. An introductory chapter considers the strongly contrasting poetic styles and achievement of the two iconic 'young Romantics', a contrast which has been obscured by their conventional close pairing in popular culture. Five studies of Keats are followed by a pivotal account of Shelley's elaborately-wrought poetic tribute to Keats's destined greatness, which leads in to a balancing six studies of Shelley. Both poets are situated illuminatingly in their literary, personal, and social-historical milieu, through a series of perspectives which combine lucid particularity with powerful generalization. The essays move from detailed analysis of textual minutiae to deep reflection on fundamental themes in the work of Keats and Shelley, including the ultimate themes of transience and permanence, and of life, death, and immortality.