Ep 27. Fiona Sampson reads and discusses Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (Part 1)

Our guest on this episode of the Keats-Shelley Podcast is the poet, biographer and critic Fiona Sampson - who is also Chair of 2022's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes. 

• Read 2022's Keats-Shelley Prize shortlists
• Read 2022's Young Romantics Prize shortlists

Our conversation begins with Fiona reading her favourite Shelley poem, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty - which inspired the title of Fiona's new book, Starlight Wood. This forms the basis of our discussion, which roams freely to ponder issues including: the importance of reading aloud; what is 'Intellectual Beauty'; and what does it mean for an atheist like Shelley to write a hymn? Fiona Sampson the poet unravels the sound patterns of Shelley's verse and compares the 'Hymn' to its sister-poem, Mont Blanc. Fiona Sampson the biographer tells the story of the poem's composition and the infamous summer without a summer of 1816, which also inspired Mary Shelley to begin Frankenstein. 

Part 2 of the conversation will follow.

Read more about Fiona Sampson here.

Buy a copy of Starlight Wood here.