The Spirit of Classical Hymn in Shelley's "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty"

In the exordium in stanzas 1-4, the singer invokes the Spirit of Beauty and then apostrophizes the Spirit for thirty-five lines:

Spirit of Beauty [. . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . .] - where art thou gone?

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

Thy light alone [. . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

Man were immortal, and omnipotent,

Didst thou [. . .]

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies,

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

Thou - that to human thought art nourishment,

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

Depart not [. . .]

Depart not [. . .] (13-48)

Shelley's exordium illustrates the singer's reverence for and devotion to the divinity praised, in the manner of the Homeric Hymns and, subsequently, of Callimachus, Cleanthes, and Julian. The exordium points up both the fundamental separation between singer and deity ("where art thou gone?") and the singer's desire for that deity's continued presence ("Keep with thy glorious train firm state").

In the exposition in stanza 5, the singer recounts a story associated with the Spirit of Beauty. Shelley modulates the Homeric exposition, which describes an "epoch-making moment in the mythic chronology of Olympus" and "inaugurates a new era in the divine and human cosmos," by presenting it on a much smaller scale (Clay 15). We are informed that the Spirit descended on the singer himself while he was "yet a boy" ("Hymn" 49). The introduction of contemporary persons and events into the classical hymn has its precedent in the Callimachean hymns; the singer's relation of a personal encounter with the divinity praised has its precedent in Julian's hymn "To King Helios." Like Shelley's singer, Julian's describes an "extraordinary longing" for metaphysical knowledge that overcame him during his "earliest years" ("To Helios" 130C). "I walked abroad in the night season," explains the singer, and "abandoned all else without exception and gave myself up to the beauties of the heavens; nor did I understand what anyone might say to me, nor heed what I was doing myself" (130D). At last a "heavenly light shone all about me," and "it roused and urged me on to its contemplation," Julian writes, so that now "I regard the god [. . .] as the father of all mankind" (131B-C). Similarly, Shelley's singer wanders "through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, / And starlight wood," futilely pursuing metaphysical knowledge, until the Spirit of Beauty descends suddenly and unexpectedly upon him ("Hymn" 50-51).

Following the narrative section, Shelley's "Hymn" closes with an earnest peroration in stanzas 6-7 that includes another apostrophe, a prayer for future grace, and the singer's pledge of continued devotion. The singer's reference to himself as "one who worships thee, / And every form containing thee" maintains both the poem's supplicatory style and the dialectic of separation and integration that most classical hymns require (81-82). Shelley uses genre-linked features to prevent genre from becoming fixed and lifeless. He keeps the dialectic of containment and effusion alive by suggesting that the Spirit of Beauty can be worshipped both within and without "containing" forms.