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A podcast about John Keats, PB Shelley, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. Readings, conversations, and stories about their lives and writings.
Ep. 27 Fiona Sampson reads and discusses Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (Part 1)
The Keats-Shelley Podcast
43 minutes 9 seconds
3 years ago
Ep. 27 Fiona Sampson reads and discusses Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (Part 1)
Our guest on this episode of the Keats-Shelley Podcast is the poet, biographer and critic Fiona Sampson - who is also Chair of 2022's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes.
Read 2022's Keats-Shelley Prize shortlists
Read 2022's Young Romantics Prize shortlists
Our conversation begins with Fiona reading her favourite Shelley poem, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty - which inspired the title of Fiona's new book, Starlight Wood. This forms the basis of our discussion, which roams freely to ponder issues including: the importance of reading aloud; what is 'Intellectual Beauty'; and what does it mean for an atheist like Shelley to write a hymn? Fiona Sampson the poet unravels the sound patterns of Shelley's verse and compares the 'Hymn' to its sister-poem, Mont Blanc. Fiona Sampson the biographer tells the story of the poem's composition and the infamous summer without a summer of 1816, which also inspired Mary Shelley to begin Frankenstein.
Part 2 of the conversation will follow.
Read more about Fiona Sampson here.
Buy a copy of Starlight Wood here.
The Keats-Shelley Podcast
A podcast about John Keats, PB Shelley, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. Readings, conversations, and stories about their lives and writings.