The subject of Gelpi's new book is the importance of the mother-infant relationship in Percy Bysshe Shelly's poetry and life. However, her book also uses Shelley as a touchstone by which to examine the rich historical and theoretical issues relevant to motherhood in the Romantic period. Gelpi offers a detailed account of the historical rise in attention paid to mothering, the changing cultural attitudes towards the role of the mother, and the resulting effect on the nature of family life. She further discusses the psychoanalytic, Marxist, and developmental approaches to the mother/infant...

This Norton Critical Edition brings research into this beloved poet's body of work completely up to date.