Between Flippancy and Terror: Shelley's ‘Marianne's Dream’ (1817).

Abstract

texts by Shelley that have never received any critical attention. The almost surreal and seemingly arbitrary narrative defies interpretation. In addition, the tone of the poem mixes a sense of the portentous and visionary with a lightness close at times to flippancy. This effect of playful improvisation, of the imagination at playwith certain toys of the mind, anticipates aspects of the humorous-ironic tonalities of 'The Witch of Atlas' (1820) or 'The Sensitive Plant' (1821). But there is an undeniable sense of hastiness in the verse of 'Marianne's Dream': is there, for example, any particular reason why fifteen of the poem's twenty-three stanzas should have six lines, seven seven lines and the thirteenth stanza eight lines? Nevertheless the poem is a fascinating one. It has the captivating and bizarre quality of a genuine dream, one that both demands and resists interpretation. Ambivalence characterizes 'Marianne's Dream' throughout, especially in its peculiar tone