"The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento."
-Percy Bysshe Shelley.
from the Advertisement
of Epipsychidion (1829)
-Percy Bysshe Shelley.
from the Advertisement
of Epipsychidion (1829)
* "It would be a great shame for one to rhyme under cover of a figure or rhetorical colour; and then afterwards, when asked, not to know how to strip one's words of that clothing, in such a way that they should have a true meaning." -- Vita Nuova
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