Julian and Maddalo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Percy Bysshe Shelley | |
 Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genres | Philosophical poem, dialogue |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Percy Bysshe Shelley Posthumous Poems |
| Publisher | John and Henry L. Hunt |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Publication date | 1824 |
Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation (1818–19) is a poem in 617 lines of enjambed heroic couplets by Percy Bysshe Shelley published posthumously in 1824 in the Posthumous Poems collection.
This work was penned in the autumn of 1818 at a villa called I Capuccini, in Este, near Venice, which had been lent to Shelley by his friend Lord Byron, and it was given its final revision in 1819. Shelley originally intended the poem to appear in The Examiner, a Radical paper edited by Leigh Hunt, but then decided instead on anonymous publication by Charles Ollier. This plan fell through, and Julian and Maddalo first appeared after Shelley's death in a volume of his works called Posthumous Poems in 1824 (see 1824 in poetry), edited by his widow Mary Shelley.[1] It is inspired by conversations Shelley had with Byron in Venice in 1818, in which they explored their different outlooks on life. The bitter cynicism of Count Maddalo in the poem reflects closely Lord Byron's views, as Julian's atheism and faith in the potentialities of man does those of Shelley himself. It is written in a conversational, natural style, which had not until then been usual in Shelley's works, and which may have been partly suggested by Byron's poem Beppo. Julian and Maddalo was in its turn a strong influence on the dramatic monologues of Robert Browning.[2]
