Rainy Thursday

Spring seems to be coming in fits and starts - the past couple of days have been cold and rainy. Perfect weather for lingering in a coffee shop over a book (perfect for me, anyway. Paul was lingering in a not-so-leisurely fashion over a philosophy paper after 6 hours of class). And yes, my coffee was served in a World's Best Granddad mug today.

I woke up this morning intending to get started on some pre-dissertation reading, but like all good procrastinators I went to the shelf and instead of picking up the mid-20th Century American novelist I was supposed to be reading, I chose to land myself in 19th Century Europe with Muriel Spark's excellent bio of Mary Shelley. I am a big fan of Mary Shelley but have to confess to being vague on her biographical details (apart from, of course, that career-making soiree at Chateau Byron), so I've no idea where this biography stands in the wider world of Shelley scholarship, but I'm enjoying it nonethless. It's even working to dispel my notion of Percy Shelley as a bit of a cad. Their romance, and the tragedy of their lives together, what with all the children they lost and drama of their family life, is compelling and sad.

Of the completion of Percy's relentless work on the poem, The Revolt of Islam, Spark writes:

Other poets have told of the anguish of returning from the visionary world to the visible. But it was to Mary that Shelley returned, with a kind of exhausted relief; and he dedicated his poem to her:

So now my summer task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

Not exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, but I can't help it, I love the Romantics.