CB: Byron fought in a revolution in Greece , I think. There may be some materialism in Shelley's romanticism, which Marx might have liked.
Shelley wrote a poem "Prometheus Unbound" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Unbound_%28Shelley%29 and the following is at the end of the foreward to Marx's doctoral thesis: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/foreword.htm "Philosophy makes no secret of it. The confession of Prometheus: In simple words, I hate the pack of gods [Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound] is its own confession, its own aphorism against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the highest divinity. It will have none other beside. But to those poor March hares who rejoice over the apparently worsened civil position of philosophy, it responds again, as Prometheus replied to the servant of the gods, Hermes: Be sure of this, I would not change my state Of evil fortune for your servitude. Better to be the servant of this rock Than to be faithful boy to Father Zeus. (Ibid.) Prometheus is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar. Berlin, March 1841" CB: Also, Aeschylus was one of his favorite poets. Favourite poet ... Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe [One of] Marx's replies to a set of questions given to him by his daughters Jenny and Laura in 1865 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Marx ^^^^^ From: Lakshmi Rhone <Marx and the poets On Marx's views of Shelley and Byron, I would check SS Prawer's Marx and World Literature and Demsetz's Marx and the Poets. Don't have either with me; they are old works. Somewhere in those four volumes on Marx's social and political thought edited by Jessop there is a piece on Marx's and Engel's debt to Romantic thought. Engels translated Carlyle, I believe. Another work to check could possibly be Michael Lowy's book on Romantic thought. I don't have that with me, either. Ah but just checked it on google books. Lowy and Sayre. They argue that Shelley was not a proto-socialist and that the comparison with Byron is misleading. It's not unreasonable to believe that Marx would have agreed with Lowy and Sayre. But they do quote verse that shows how radical and exuberant Shelley's vision was. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
