QUARRELLING OVER SHELLEY.

Otago Witness, Issue 4049, 20 October 1931, Page 64

QUARRELLING OVER SHELLEY.

Shelley has been 111 years in his grave. The awkward number dues not suggest imperative commemoration, but Fascist Italy, we are told by Joseph B. Phillips in the New York Herald Tribune, places “ a great deal of emphasis on culture in general ” and tries “ by every means to prove the regime has its highbrow phases.” Added to this is the faet that Italians have “always felt that the associations of Percy Bysshe Shelley with their country were an honour to Italy.” But this year Fascism and the Vatican have not seen eye to eye on many subjects, and Shelley is one of them: “ Near the little thermal station of Sangiuliano, where Shelley composed the ‘ Adonis.' a tablet to his memory was unveiled. In Rome an impressive ceremony was held on the evening of the anniversary at the small Protestant cemetery where Shelley is buried near Port San Paulo. Students of English poetry and a number of well-known lecturers and translators in that field of art went to the cemetery by night, and by the light of torches paid homage before the tombs of Shelley and Keats and voting William Shelley. '

“In a way, the ceremony, though inspired by the anniversary of the death of Shelley, was a sort of wholesale homage to famous men of letters whose personal history is associated with Rome.

“In addition to visiting the graves of the English poets, the party also went to the tomb of Deßossis and that of Auguste Goethe, son of the poet. Perhaps in any other year the ceremonies here and at Sangiuliano would have had only praise from those who approved and silence from those who were not admirers of Shelley. This year, however, the Fascist State and the Vatican are bickering across the Tiber, and the most important element of their quarrel is the education and intellectual mold of the nation. “Almost, any literary or artist figure appearing as a hero to one party to the quarrel at the moment would certainly be condemned by the other. Shelley has not escaped. No sooner had the news of the ceremonies to his honour spread

than, the Osservatore Romano, the Vati- ■» can newspaper, became bitter about them. “‘ As long as such eulogies as these are permitted in the Fascist press,’ it said (speaking of the articles praising Shelley), ‘ the role of the Catholic Action (the lay organisation to which Fascists are objecting), of its club and its schools must remain important.’ “ The Vatican paper declared it would have been better for the world of arts and for the world in general had Shelley never been born. The art of poetry would have lost little, and great scandals would have been averted, the paper said. It recalled a long list of his personal rebellions, against authority (teachers, wife, and tlie tenets of the Church), and continued:

“‘ We are astonished that this anarchist was able to find champions in the Fascist press, which never ceases to exalt and respect authority and the necessity for discipline. This throws a revealing light on the real basis of that authority and discipline.’”