I very much enjoyed attending the conference of the British Association of Romantic Studies in Glasgow, but the conference isn't quite over yet. Today and tomorrow, numerous sessions are being held online.
This morning, I zoomed in for a panel chaired by Francesca Saggini and a roundtable put together by Omar Miranda. I was most interested, however, by a paper Pablo San MartÃn Varela delivered this afternoon as part of a session on Manifestos, Uprisings, Rebellions and Revolutions.
Varela spoke on "The Making and Unmaking of Social Structures in Shelley’s Later Dramas" including Prometheus Unbound, Swellfoot the Tyrant, and Hellas. Unlike P.B. Shelley's frequently performed play The Cenci, these dramas are all based on Greek models, and likely weren't meant for performance.
Prometheus Unbound is inspired in part by Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, which had a lost sequel by the same name as Shelley's drama. Varela said Shelley's play shows a mind trying to remake the world through imagination and love. By using myth, he argued, Shelley was able to create an alternate way of representing history in which violence did not have to beget more violence.
Swellfoot the Tyrant is a literal way of translating Oedipus Tyrannus, but Shelley's burlesque has more in common with the Old Comedy of Aristophanes than with any tragedy by Sophocles. He wrote the play in the wake of the Queen Caroline affair in Britain, and it largely reflects contemporary politics. Varela noted that the chorus of swine in the play turns into a chorus of horned bulls when they become no longer just passive representatives of the masses.
I've previously written about Shelley's Hellas, which is a reworking of another Aeschylus play, The Persians. It portrays the uprising of Greek patriots against the Ottoman Empire, but just as Aeschylus told his story of freedom from the oppressor's point of view, Hellas focuses on the Ottoman Emperor Mahmud II. Shelley opposed violence for any reason, and Varela noted that the play depicts rebels as resorting to the same violent means as their oppressors.
The online portion of the conference continues tomorrow. I'm hoping to catch a session on Rewriting Narratives of the East.
