The "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" contains in the abstract that which is approached concretely in "Ode to the West Wind," "To a Sky-Lark," and "The Cloud." After we have worked our way through its seven stanzas, you should have a pretty good "feel" for Shelley's poetic method and be able to make some sense of these other poems on your own.
Before taking a closer look, it is essential that you read the notes on Neoplatonism. (If you have not yet done so, click here.)
The "Hymn" is a confessional poem on one level, an autobiographical record of Shelley's "conversion" or dedication to Intellectual Beauty. It is also concerned with the basic human questions: Why is there so much beauty? Why is it transient? Why do we suffer pain and anguish? Why is man torn by the antitheses of "love and hate, despondency and hope"?
Stanza 1
The footnote in your text defines "intellectual" as "nonsensible."
Thus we can see Intellectual Beauty as something beyond the senses, a part of
the unknown or ideal realm that visits our world from time to time.
He refers to it as the "awful shadow of some unseen Power". What he is aware of is not the thing itself, but rather its shadow, an imperfect copy. And because this presence is something beyond our earthly comprehension, Shelley provides us with a mass of similes in an attempt to make it concrete, a technique which Richard Harter Fogle refers to as "the concretization of the abstract." We may not know what it is, but it is like "summer winds," "moonshine," "hues and harmonies of evening," memory of music fled."
Stanza 2
This laments the fleeting presence of the "Spirit of BEAUTY," points
to the typically romantic sense of the world as a gloomy "vale of tears,"
and underscores the contrast between the permanence of beauty and man's
impermanence.
Stanza 3 and 4
Here we find a good example of the often secular nature of the Romantics' explanation
of the mysteries of life. Suggesting that Intellectual Beauty alone "Gives
grace and truth to life's unquiet dream," Shelley rejects Christianity as
a "vain endeavour" to find the truth. For him, its prayers ("Frail
spells") have done nothing to remove "Doubt, chance, and mutability."
Stanza 5
This contains an autobiographical sketch. As a boy, Shelley and his sisters liked
to play games which involved the invocation of magical spirits. Here the memory
is like a Wordsworthian "spot of time," where from a later vantage point
he can see that he was searching for Intellectual Beauty--even calling on "poisonous
names" (i.e., using traditional prayers) to do so. The closing lines suggest
the moment of conversion, his sensing of the spirit. "I shrieked, and clasped
my hands in extacy!" may seem a bit overdone to modern readers, but the phrasing
follows the Platonic tradition and is similar to that found in Christian mystical
experiences.
Stanza 6
This marks his youthful dedication to Intellectual Beauty, and suggests a prayer
for creative power. He is saying that if Intellectual Beauty were here, the world
would be free from all forms of slavery, both physical and intellectual (e.g.,
traditional religion).
Stanza 7
The closing stanza shows Shelley as an adult praying for peace of mind and calm
of soul, which the serenity and harmony of Nature will provide.
The lines ". . .to one who worships thee, / And every form containing thee" clearly draw upon the Platonic Doctrine of Accommodation. If we are to know the "true" which exists in an ideal realm, we must accommodate ourselves to its forms (imperfect copies) which we encounter on this earth. Only through them can we gain a sense of the universal, unchanging world of the Empyrean.
© Scott Foll 2000. All rights reserved.