Dec 22, 2009
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Triumph of Life is a long fragment of 547 lines (ending abruptly in the middle of line 548) written in terza rima, an interlocking three-line stanza form employed by Dante and Petrarch. The poem’s title is taken from Petrarch, who wrote a series of Triumphs, or Trionfi (1470), each one presenting the triumph of an allegorical figure. For example, Petrarch’s Triumphus Amoris celebrates the triumph of love. In Shelley’s poem, Life is the triumphant figure, but its “triumph” is far from positive.
The poem...
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