Imagery of Fire and Dust
in Byron and Shelley
P. B. Shelley
Lord Byron
 A Defence of Poetry
 Childe Harold's
 Prometheus Unbound
Pilgrimage: Canto III
 Manfred, a Dramatic
Poem
(including the 'Preface')
 Ode to the West Wind
Shelley
Byron
Shelley
Byron
14
12
10
8
6
Simile
Metaphor
..Shelley maintains the
connections to physical, real-life
elements, through the choice of
using similes and analogies,
retaining the idea of the poem
as mimesis.
4
2
0
Shelley - 'fire'
Byron - 'fire'
Shelley - 'dust'
Byron - 'dust'
..the more direct, effective use of
metaphor to convey the
associated image chosen by
Byron, adds an aspect to the
purpose of the poem, shifting
from a mimetic representation to
that of a second nature, a poem
as heterocosm.
All else had been subdued to me; alone
The soul of man, like unextinguished fire,
Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt,
And lamentation, and reluctant prayer,
Hurling up insurrection, which might make
Our antique empire insecure, though built
On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear[.]
(PU, Act III Scene 1)
His very words are instinct with spirit; each is as a spark, a burning atom of
inextinguishable thought; and many yet lie covered in the ashes of their birth, and
pregnant with a lightning which has yet found no conductor.
(Percy B. Shelley)
a fire
And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire.
(CH ll. 371-4)
..[the poet] must not pass the bounds of fitness: would he pass the flammantia moenia
mundi (Lucretius), those flaming walls, that are the boundaries of the world? […] The
man who transgresses these bounds, and sees such visions, loses himself in clouds,
or buries himself in the darkness beneath.
(George Dyer)
Byron, George:

'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto III' in Selected Poems, ed. by Susan Wolfson and
Peter Manning (London : Penguin Classics, 1996), pp. 415-55.

'Manfred, a Dramatic Poem' in Selected Poems, ed. by Susan Wolfson and Peter
Manning (London : Penguin Classics, 1996), pp. 463-506.
Curran, Stuart, Poetic Form and British Romanticism (New York : Oxford University
Press, 1986).
Scott, M., 2011, WordSmith Tools. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe:

'A Defence of Poetry' in Selected Poetry and Prose, 2nd ed. by D. Reiman (New York:
W. W. Norton & co., 2002), pp. 510-35.

'Ode to the West Wind' in Selected Poetry and Prose, 2nd ed. by D. Reiman (New
York: W. W. Norton & co., 2002), pp. 297-301.

'Prometheus Unbound' (including the 'Preface') in Selected Poetry and Prose, 2nd ed.
by D. Reiman (New York : W. W. Norton & co., 2002), pp. 202-286.