Responding to Thomas Love Peacock’s partly satirical essay,

, published in Charles Ollier’s

Miscellany (1820), Shelley’s

argues for poetry’s utilitarian function. Shelley composed his rebuttal of Peacock’s arguments about the redundancy of poetry, in February and March 1821, intending

to appear in another volume of Ollier’s

. When Shelley learned that there would no further issues of Ollier’s periodical, he started on plans, which remained incomplete at the time of his death, to publish A

as a pamphlet in its own right. In 1822, Mary Shelley endeavoured to have Shelley’s essay posthumously published in

(see separate entry) but, thwarted by the journal’s…

1061 words

Citation: Sandy, Mark. "Defence of Poetry". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5662, accessed 26 November 2024.]