"THE REVOLT OF ISLAM" AS A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE

Program year: 1975/1976Digitized from print original stored in HDRThis study was primarily designed to determine whether “The Revolt of Islam” by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a Medieval Romance or not. In the course of this study, it was found that I first had to arrive at a definition of Medieval Romance and that, following the application of such definition to the work itself, Shellian distinctions must then be explained. This I have endeavored to do. The value of the project is, I believe, far-reaching. This is due to the fact that, as far as I know, no extensive research has been done in this area. The significance of the project is heightened by the fact that the poem has endured years of misunderstanding. The tie that binds the work together, the Medieval Romance genre, has been overlooked. This has caused critics to view the poem as “a bad and a disproportionate narrative”. Critics have complained that it is vague and “suffers on account of its lack of logical sequence and its neglect of the time factor.” These and many more of the complaints of the critics can be quickly dispelled when one views the poem as a Medieval Romance. It is this theory which I propose. When “The Revolt of Islam” is viewed as a Medieval Romance then the poem acquires a unity which it has previously appeared to lack