Shelley’s Alastor presents the poet as a “young man” who relies solely on his “sweet”, eloquent words for his sustenance. The Poet is on a journey through a vast landscape to satisfy his hunger for Nature’s mysteries. He enjoys the beauty of the scenery. The Poet’s vegetarian diet, revealed as “bloodless” food, contributes to the harmony between him and Nature. The Poet’s appetite for Nature’s secrets is what allows him to be properly nourished. A fascinating dream triggers an insatiable appetite for the impossible. It is a supernatural idea. This corrupted hunger makes the Poet lose his aesthetic ability and forces him into a passive surrender. The Poet’s Hunger is deceptive and drains the energy of the poet, leading him to a life-long pursuit of intellectual beauty that ends in death. After the visionary girl is seen, the first signs of the hunger of the poet are immediately apparent. The Poet can’t find a replacement for the joy he felt in the dreamworld. In his eagerness to be united with “sweet, human love,” Poet considers suicide as a way to reach that ideal. The Poet, after a few passages describing his sulky existence, flirts with suicide a second, screaming out “Vision and Love!” I have seen thy path. Sleep and Death Shall Not Divide Us Long!” (366-368) The Poet’s constant misery caused by a dissatisfaction that never ends with the materialistic world has led him to accept death. Hunger is an essential survival mechanism in the biological world. In this way, hunger can be a motivating force. It tells the body that it must find nourishment to survive. The Poet’s natural hunger changes in a negative way. His hunger is now incredibly defective and leads him to an endless cycle that does not lead to satisfaction. It is not as beneficial to him now that his hunger has become dysfunctional. In Alastor’s poet, hunger is not the force that drives him to survive, but a degenerative, malignant force. His hungry gaze leads him to see death as an option. Hunger is a dangerous force. Insatiable hunger for “sweet love of man” causes the Poet to lose interest in the images of Nature that he once cherished. Hunger also squanders the artist’s potential, which is again detrimental to the Poet. The Poet sacrifices his lifeblood in the pursuit of an idealized beauty. He is willing to give up everything to achieve this. The poet contemplates the flight of a Swan, asking, “And who am I to linger here with a voice more beautiful than thy dying note, a spirit vaster than thys, a frame more sensitive to beauty? Wasting these transcending powers in the deaf atmosphere, blind earth, or heaven that does not echo my thoughts?” (286-290). The poet is unhappy with his life on earth because it does not reflect what he dreams of. A poet who is destined to be dissatisfied with the physical appearance of his world will always feel dissatisfied. Shelley wrote in the first line of her poem about Nature’s “fountains, which were divine philosophy,” not leaving his thirsty lips. The Poet is unable to find satisfaction with the same food source. The natural world no longer satisfies him. Whereas before “every sight, sound and sensation from the vast air and earth sent to his soul its finest impulses,” today nothing is enough. After he comes across a field of flowers, the sudden urge strikes him to “deck” his hair in their bright colours (413-414). He is once more compelled to “deck with their bright hues his withered hair” when he stumbles upon a bed of flowers. How could an artist (who had once been so taken with Nature) turn down such a rich, vibrant color as Shelley did in her yellow flowers. The vibrant, youthful energy of yellow flowers is a stark contrast to Shelley’s withered condition. This color represents joy and stimulates creative energies. A deranged appetite can destroy all reason and creativity. Hunger has a powerful grip on the poet’s desires, as evidenced by his ability to “forbear”, or refrain from the beauty that is set in front of him. The Poet loses all previous pleasures. His natural taste for aesthetics is ruined by his dreams. In order to match the beauty of his dreams and the images he sees in nature, the Poet must reject all the familiar beauty in front of his eyes. The Poet’s diet is no longer sustainable without his art. The Poet’s aesthetic enjoyment is gone, and he sinks deeper into isolation. Hunger takes over and makes him passive. The Poet’s aimless wandering could have been easily stopped had he acknowledged earlier that death was the only solution to his burning desire of beauty. The Poet, who is “obedient of the light that shone inside his soul,” has his appetite deceive him into continuing his deadly pursuit. Hunger cannot kill the Poet immediately, as it must also keep his host alive. Hunger is the parasites that feed off of Poet. Hunger is portrayed as a positive “light” in the soul of the Poet, but it is not. “At Night the Passion Came” and hunger is described as a “Fierce Fiend of a Distempered Dream, Which Shaked Him from His Rest, and Led Him forth / into the Darkness”, bestowing a almost-Satanic nature to the force present in the poet (224-227). The word “led” is used to emphasize that the Poet did not actively choose this metaphorical walk into the darkness, which foreshadows death. This shows the poet’s passivity. It appears that death will always be his final destination, as his hunger is in control and won’t let go. But he did give up a bit of his high, holy soul before it went. This is a sign of how his hunger has seduced him. While the Poet was dying, the poet experienced no pain or fear. He entered a tranquil and peaceful state and imagined the heaven where he would be going (639-664). Alastor’s lonely Poet, though he ate food without blood, was unable to consume his natural surroundings because of a dysfunctional appetite. As a visionary artist, he is not an ordinary man. Inclusion in society tends have a grounding affect on individuals, since civilization is rational. Because the poet lives in solitude, his creative pursuits are more extreme. This is because he has no one to tell him to back off. The lifelong misery caused by chasing after unattainable shapes and forms was punishment for a distorted ego, perhaps resulting from loneliness. Is a life spent in misery, wandering aimlessly and loneliness not a well-lived life if the Poet can die in peace? Was the Poet’s art not the highest kind of mortal? Shelley called the poem “Alastor,” which is Greek for “avenging demons” or “evil intellect,” to describe the evils of solitude. However, the Poet achieves an incredibly noble goal by dying alone without regret, fear, or pain (Bean 60). The Poet may be forgotten by his brothers, but his artistic life is immortalized in this poem. Bean, John C. – “The poet borne darkly: the dream-voyage allegory of Shelley’s Alastor”. Keats-Shelley Journal. Vol. 23, (1974), pp. 60-76 . Keats – Shelley Association of America, Inc. March 12, 2012
