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The color violaceous, or, chemistry and the romance of dematerialization: the subliming of iodine and Shelley's Adonais.(Critical Essay)

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From: Studies in Romanticism
Date: 20030322
Author:Peterfreund, Stuart

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY HAD AN ABIDING INTEREST IN THE CHEMICAL RESEARCHES of Humphry Davy (1778-1829). (1) Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat attribute Ione's allusion to "fire that is not brightness" (2) in Prometheus Unbound (1820) to Davy. "As Shelley knew from Sir Humphry Davy's account of the findings of Herschel (1800), there are 'dark rays'--infrared emanations that produce heat without light--which, Davy suggested, might be given off by the moon" (276n.). And in a letter of 29 July i812 to Hookham, Shelley, eager to learn of Davy's recent work, placed an advance order for ...

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