The death of love : the conflict between
"private" and "public" in Mary Shelley's Valperga
著者（英） Hayato Oka
journal or
publication title
Doshisha literature
number 58
page range 1‑17
year 2015‑03‑16
権利（英） English Literary Society of Doshisha University
URL http://doi.org/10.14988/pa.2017.0000014874
The Death of Love:
The Conflict between "private" and "public" in Mary Shelley's Valperga
HAYATOOKA
So soon as ... [love] is dead, man becomes a living sepulchre of himself, and what yet survives is the mere husk of what once he was.
-Percy Shelley, "On Love"
Introduction
Valperga: or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823), Mary Shelley's second novel-following the more famous Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818, 1831)-is concerned with the love between men and women. The story of Valperga mainly takes place in northern Italy when the Renaissance was beginning to flourish and the Guelphs and the Ghibellines were struggling for power. When Mary Shelley lived in Italy with her husband, Percy Bysshe, she wrote this
"romance" (Percy 353) using numerous reference materials including Niccolo Machiavelli's The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520) and Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi's The History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages (1807-18). Machiavelli praises Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328) as a great prince, whereas Sismondi calls him a tyrant, which demonstrates just how polarized are the views concerning Castruccio. Many scholars, in their essays on Valperga, have pointed out that Mary's view of Castruccio is similar to that of Sismondi, but they have focused only on the tyrannical aspect of Castruccio without referring to his
2
youth and what made him a merciless tyrant. In fact, he has seldom been brought into focus at all, for though he is the protagonist of the story, two fictional female figures have been at the center of critical discussions of Valperga-Euthanasia and Beatrice.
This tendency can be explained in part by the fact that feministic criticism used to occupy the greater portion of Mary Shelley scholarship.
In addition, there is the critical legacy oftwo important letters, one written by Percy Shelley and the other by William Godwin. In a letter to Charles OIlier, the publisher of Valperga, Percy Shelley wrote ...
[tlhe chief interest of the romance rests upon Euthanasia, his [Castruccio'sl betrothed bride, whose love for him is only equalled
[sicl by her enthusiasm for the liberty of the republic of Florence ... This character is a masterpiece .... The character of Beatrice, the prophetess can only be done justice to in the very language of the author. (Percy 353)
A letter from Godwin to Mary also praises the two female characters in Valperga: "1 think there are parts of high genius, & that your two females are exceedingly interesting .... Frankenstein was a fine thing ... Castruccio is a work of more genius ... Beatrice is the jewel of the book; not but that I greatly admire Euthanasia" (Introduction xvi). Following these letters, many scholars have taken a biased view of the novel by only focusing on the two female figures.l It is true, as Godwin points out, that the portraits of the two female characters in Valperga are more fascinating than those in Frankenstein and The Last Man (1826), for their characters and names are very complicated and there is room for us to interpret them variously.
However, 1 would like to maintain that the most important element in Valperga (and also Mary Shelley's other works) is not the brilliant portraits of the female characters but the love between two characters. If the most significant plot element in Frankenstein is the changing
relationship between Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, it is surely that of Castruccio and Euthanasia in Valperga. Shelley depicts the relationship between father and son in Frankenstein, and she insists on the preciousness of love in the novel by showing the Creature's thirst for love and his agony without it. In Valperga, she portrays love and its failure between men and women. Castruccio has to pay for his choice-choosing ambition over love-as Victor does, and both die tragically.
Studies which neglect Castruccio almost inevitably misrepresent the overall picture of Valperga. The purpose of this paper is to examine the central significance of the changing relationship between Castruccio and Euthanasia. After considering the title of the story, I trace the changing relationship between Castruccio and Euthanasia, focusing on the role of the castle ofValperga. Next, after showing the limitative power of reason in Valperga, I analyze Castruccio's tears, which have the power to change a public relation into a private one. Finally, I suggest how Mary is using the two terms, history and romance, whose definitions may be influenced by Godwin, skillfully associating them with the public and private relationship between Castruccio and Euthanasia.
I. The Fall of Valperga
The final choice of title was William Godwin's. Mary Shelley had called her novel Castruccio Prince of Lucca, but Godwin, when he revised the manuscript, changed it to Valperga: or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (Introduction xiv-xvi). Several scholars have responded positively to the revision. For example, J oseph W. Lew comments as follows: "[Olne might conclude that William Godwin, in changing the novel's title from Castruccio to Valperga, had actually displayed a rare and uncharacteristic insight .... [Valpergal suggests a similar affinity between Euthanasia (the countess of Valperga) and the fortified estate she has
inherited through her mother" (Lew 165). Just as Lew relates the main title Valperga to Euthanasia, so Michael Rossington ("Future Uncertain"
105) and Betty T. Bennett also interpret Valperga (or Valperga, an imaginary castle Mary invented) as the representation of Euthanasia or her political belief. Bennett maintains that the relation between title and subtitle shows the collision of political systems which cannot coexist:
[T]he title of the novel may be viewed as a statement of the central conflict of the novel. Valperga: or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca suggests that the story is about one or the other. The two cannot coexist; confrontation must erupt.
Victory for Valperga means universal liberty and the sharing of responsibility for government; victory for Castruccio means tyrannic government which arbitrarily subjugates and destroys the people for its own aggrandizement and perpetuation. ("The Political Philosophy" 358)
It is true that the castle ofValperga can be regarded as a representation of Euthanasia or her political belief, but it must not be ignored that the relationship of the two powers, or that of Castruccio and Euthanasia, is a fluid one. And Bennett's reading of the "or" connecting the main title and subtitle is a problematic one. Shelley's first novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, had the same title-structure, and the "or" there (as in most titles of this nature) represents equivalence rather than opposition:
Victor Frankenstein is the modern Prometheus. In the same way, the "or"
in the title of Valperga enables us to interpret the relationship of two powers as a fluid one: Valperga is the life and adventures of Castruccio.
It is true that Valperga is connected with Euthanasia, but Valperga can be linked with Castruccio's conscience, too. When Castruccio finds out that Euthanasia is involved in the conspiracy to bring him down, he grievously moans: "'she [Euthanasia] must have known, that in spite of
absence and repulse, she was the saint of my life; and that this one human weakness, or human virtue, remained to me, when power and a strong will had in other respects metamorphosed me'" (364).2 For Castruccio, who has already become a merciless tyrant, only Euthanasia stands inside his heart as his last remaining conscience. This is the foundation of my reading of the novel.
Most critics of Valperga have focused only on the tyrannical aspect of Castruccio without referring to his boyhood. Castruccio, in fact, has been involved in party warfare since he was a boy. His father, who belongs to the Ghibellines, loses the battle against the Guelphs and ends up in a desperate situation. Castruccio's mother, to save her only child, tries to hide him in the castle ofValperga ruled by Euthanasia's parents. Although Euthanasia's father belongs to the Guelphs, "[h]e was bound to Ruggieri [Castruccio's father] by the strongest ties of private friendship" (8). When Castruccio's mother is prepared to let her son go, she says to him significantly: '''Valperga is your refuge; you well know the road that leads to it'" (8). This seems to imply that Castruccio should depend on Valperga (or Euthanasia, or his conscience) as a moral anchorage.
A few years later, Castruccio loses his mother and father, and, following the latter's directions, visits his father's old friend Francesco de Guinigi, who used to be a warrior. Guinigi lives a peaceful Arcadian life after his retirement from battlefields. He tries to teach Castruccio the excellences of life surrounded by serene nature. Guinigi's pastoral life and his love of nature and peaceful landscapes are idealized. The narrator uses the aesthetic word "picturesque" three times (23, 25, 29). It is worth quoting one of the three examples: "[T]he picturesque views for a while beguiled his [Castruccio'sl thoughts" (23). The word is significantly echoed in the later description of the castle ofValperga: "The castle itself was a large and picturesque building, turreted, and gracefully shaded by trees" (86). By
6
using the word "picturesque" here, the narrator succeeds in establishing Valperga's ideal associations.
Castruccio and Euthanasia have known each other since they were children. They often meet in the castle ofValperga, suggesting an ideal and peaceful relationship, and they come to love each other; however, as Castruccio gains power and influence over the Ghibellines, Euthanasia, the castellan of Valperga, is thrown into an emotional conflict for she belongs to the Guelphs and has a duty to protect her people:
"Well may it please one so nearly useless as I [Euthanasia] am, that I can save the lives of some of my fellow-citizens. Do you not know, dearest Castruccio, that when you draw your sword against the Florentines, it is always wetted with the blood of my best friends? Love you indeed I always must; but I know, for I have studied my own heart, that it would not unite itself to yours, if, instead of these thoughts of peace and concord, you were to scheme war and conquest." (112)
Leaving hurt feelings behind, Euthanasia becomes engaged to Castruccio.
Galeazzo Visconti, a leading member of the Ghibellines, finds Castruccio's love for Euthanasia distasteful, for he thinks that Castruccio is hesitating to attack Florence where the castle of Valperga stands. To separate them from each other, Galeazzo lies to Euthanasia about Castruccio's designs on control over Florence. Things turn out just as Galeazzo wished. Euthanasia's trust in Castruccio wavers and her awkward manner plants doubts in Castruccio's mind; he becomes suspicious of people around him and starts to banish and execute them one after another. He is not what he used to be: "He [Castruccio] was no longer the same as when he had quitted it [Florence]; he returned full ofthought,- with a bent brow, a cruel eye, and a heart not to be moved from its purpose of weakness or humanity. The change might appear sudden, yet it had
7 been slow;-it is the last drop that overflows the brimming cup" (199).
Euthanasia, who cannot bear to see people dying and Castruccio's acts of brutality, visits him to stop his tyranny, but Castruccio decisively says:
"'Madonna, I know already what you are about to say ... I said that no man could with impunity sacrifice the lives of his fellow-creatures to his own private passions; but you must not torture my meaning; the head of a state is no longer a private man'" (204, emphases added). Castruccio puts his public relationship before his private one, that is his love for Euthanasia.
Not for the Guelphs, but to protect liberty and the people of Florence, Euthanasia resists Castruccio's demands for her to surrender. Castruccio realizes that it is useless to attempt to persuade her and he finally decides to attack the castle of Valperga which is the last stand for the Guelphs.
Before the battle, Castruccio orders his armies to use a passage leading into the castle which he often used when he wanted to visit Euthanasia in secret. He uses the legacy of his private relationship with Euthanasia to secure his public position. The picturesque castle ofValperga, which stands for Castruccio's conscience, is now utterly ruined as if showing Castruccio's desolate soul: "Valperga! that was now a black and hideous ruin, and he [Castrucciol the author of its destruction" (274). As the castle falls, Castruccio takes the last step towards being a merciless tyrant, and abandoning himself to ambition and revenge, he loses the most precious thing in him-his love for Euthanasia, i.e. his conscience: '''My lord [Castruccio], do not speak thus to me,' replied Euthanasia . . . 'We are divided; there is an eternal barrier between us now, sealed by the blood of those miserable people who fell for me. I cannot, I do not love you'" (260).
11. Tears of the Tyrant
Euthanasia and Beatrice are fictional characters, and they differ
8
from each other completely. While Euthanasia is portrayed as a woman of reason and intelligence, Beatrice is a girl with a passionate disposition and a wild imagination. William D. Brewer compares these two characters and points out that "the ruling passion," which has been treated by many writers including Alexander Pope, brings Beatrice to ruin.3 As "[almbition had become the ruling passion of . . . [Castruccio'sl soul, and all bent beneath its sway, as a field of reeds before the wind" (211), so a mad love for Castruccio and an unbridled imagination are "the ruling passion" of Beatrice. A "ruling passion" has a power to change one into a completely different person. On one hand, Castruccio's violent ambition and desire for revenge have changed the kindhearted boy with a sublime spirit into a cruel tyrant: "[Castruccio wasl a tyrant; a slave to his own passions, the avenger ofthose of others. Castruccio was ever at war" (210). On the other, after Beatrice's single-minded love is shattered when she hears that Castruccio loves Euthanasia, her feelings become wild and obsessive;
finally the girl who used to be called a saint turns into a madwoman: '''Save me!' she [Beatricel cried, 'save me from madness, which, as a fiend, pursues and haunts me. I endeavour to fly him [Castrucciol; but still he hovers near: is there no escape? Oh! If God be good, surely he will redeem my soul from this curse'" (324).
Euthanasia also has a "ruling passion": "A hatred and fear of war is therefore a strong and ruling passion in my [Euthanasia'sl heart" (112).
While she can subdue this with her powers of reason she cannot, as Brewer says, subdue other people's "ruling passions" (Brewer 143-44). In Valperga, reason is almost helpless against passion: "It is difficult to answer the language of passion with that of reason" (198). Thus, Euthanasia cannot subdue Beatrice's "ruling passion," that is, the madness oflove. Beatrice's death in madness tells us that, against Godwin's beliefs, reason cannot work as a panacea. The power of reason is limited in Valperga, for reason
can only save oneself, not others. Is there, then, anything that can save others ifthe power of reason is helpless? The question leads us back to the changing relationship between Castruccio and Euthanasia.
Mter the destruction of the castle ofValperga, Castruccio, who is now the prince of Lucca, dominates Tuscany and changes it into hell-like the Hell depicted by Dante. The Arcadian and picturesque scenery which Guinigi loved is gone and a huge number of the Guelphs are exiled or executed simply because they are suspicious. In the following paragraph, Shelley adds a footnote referring the reader to Dante's Inferno when she describes the massacre. Just as Dante treads on bloody bodies in the Seventh Circle of Hell in the Inferno, so Euthanasia walks along a street filled with the blood of the Guelphs: "The very path on which she [Euthanasial trod was slippery with blood; and she felt as if she walked through one of the circles of hell's torments, until she reached the foot of the rock" (255). Hellish sights and images can be found everywhere. In the cottage where Beatrice was confined, a "carnival of devils" (298) was taking place every night, and Battista Tripalda-Castruccio's spy who abducted and confined Beatrice-is likened to Cerberus, the "hell-hounds" (360). In the center of this hell, there exists Castruccio who is compared to Lucifer the fallen angel (277) and Satan (177, 345).
The Guelphs who are still resisting Castruccio approach Euthanasia and ask her to assassinate him. In order to save not only her people and homeland, but also Castruccio himself from his own diabolic power, Euthanasia makes a painful decision to participate in the conspiracy to overthrow the tyranny ofCastruccio under the condition of not taking his life: "[Llet his [Castruccio'sl life be saved; but let him be torn from the power which he uses more like a fiend than a human creature" (345).
Euthanasia, however, later discovers that Tripalda was also part of the conspiracy. Because of fears that Castruccio may discover his abduction
10
and confinement of Beatrice through Euthanasia, Tripalda, in order to remove Euthanasia, betrays the conspiracy to Castruccio. Castruccio is aghast at the betrayal of Euthanasia, but, to save her life at least, he hurries her to prison where she is held with the other conspirators, who are awaiting execution.
Castruccio meets Euthanasia after a long separation and no matter how much he begs her to live, she does not change her will to die with the other Guelphs. Castruccio kneels in front of her and as he begs her to live he starts to cry: "The light of the solitary lamp fell full upon the countenance of Castruccio: it was softened from all severity; his eyes glistened, and a tear stole silently down his cheek as he prayed her to yield" (371). Finally, Euthanasia accepts his wish. Tears play a significant role here and the narrator comments as follows:
They talk of the tears of women; but, when they flow most plenteously, they soften not the heart of man, as one tear from his eyes has power on a woman. Words and looks have been feigned;
they say, though I believe them not, that women have feigned tears: but those of a man, which are ever as the last demonstration of a too full heart, force belief, and communicate to her who causes them, that excess of tenderness, that intense depth of passion, of which they are themselves the sure indication. (371)
In a book review, J. G. Lockhart evaluated Valperga as a "modern and feminine" work too reliant on the "thoughts and feelings" ofthe characters (Lockhart 287). Rossington, in response, points out that Lockhart may have focused on the tears of Castruccio when he evaluates Valperga; he calls Castruccio "a modern man of feeling" (Introduction xix-xx). It is certainly not the power of reason that is used here to save others, but a demonstration of feeling-tears. According to the narrator, and to Anne Vincent-Buffault who wrote Histoire Des Larmes, tears show cordiality
and communicate beyond words, stemming from one's heart of hearts (Vincent-Buffault 18, 27-31, 155-61).4
Vincent-Buffault further illustrates the effect of tears which may remind and lead us to private relationship (Vincent-Buffault 161-62). The public relationship between Castruccio and Euthanasia reverts into a private one, that is, love. Castruccio's tears remind Euthanasia of when she first saw Castruccio's tears: "Euthanasia had seen Castruccio weep but once before; it was many years ago" (371-72). In their younger days, Euthanasia had said to Castruccio:
"We [Euthanasia and Castrucciol are very young; we know not what misfortunes are in store for us; what losses, perhaps what calumnies, or even dishonour, may in after times taint our names.
In calumny it is to the friends of our youth that we must turn; for they alone can know how pure the heart is, with which they were acquainted at the time when disguise could have no existence.
They, if they are true, dare not leave us without consolation."
(20)
The tears of the tyrant, albeit momentary, enable Castruccio and Euthanasia to return their past-the time free from such public relationships as political ties-and to recreate the private relationship.
Instead of words or reason, the tears link their hearts through their long- forgotten but shared memories.
Ill. Love Dies and Romance Ends
To save Euthanasia's life, Castruccio allows her punishment to be lessened. Instead of being executed, she is banished from Lucca and leaves for Sicily by ship. However, her ship gets caught in a sudden rainstorm.
Euthanasia disappears into the sea with her ship: "Such was the storm, as it was seen from shore. Nothing more was ever known ofthe Sicilian vessel
12
which bore Euthanasia. It never reached its destined port, nor were any of those on board ever after seen" (376). Here the last chapter of Valperga ends, and after the last chapter, the rest of the life of Castruccio is narrated in detached tones in the "CONCLUSION." The narrative here is similar to that in Machiavelli's The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca which Percy Shelley criticized as follows: "[Tlhenovel ofMachiavelli ... substitutes a childish fiction for the far more romantic truth of history (Percy 353).
Neither depicts the feelings and speeches of the character at all, rather describing the incidents with a detached voice. In "Of History and Romance,"
Godwin first distinguishes between "history," which is a mere statement of facts like public records, and "romance," which focuses on particular figures and portrays their way of life, including the private aspect of their life:
"That history which comes nearest to truth, is the mere chronicles offacts, places and dates. But this is in reality no history" (Godwin 297). Then he continues that it is romance that speaks the truth of history and he regards romance as the "real history": "The writer ofthe romance is to be considered as the writer of real history" (Godwin 300).
Although Castruccio, already changed into a merciless tyrant, pleaded tearfully with Euthanasia to survive, Euthanasia, who was the last remains of his human aspect-his conscience-vanishes. As if Castruccio's conscience and Euthanasia are one, after she disappears into the sea in the last chapter, the later life and death of Castruccio are narrated without any display of humanity in the conclusion, which tells us
"the sorrows of his heart" (379) effectively:
[Hle [Galeazzol expired on the third of September 1328. On the same day, and at the same hour, Castruccio died at Lucca. His enemies rejoiced in his death; his friends were confounded and overthrown. They, as the last act of gratitude, conducted the pomp of his funeral with princely magnificence. He was buried in the
church of San Francesco, then without, now included within, the walls of Lucca (380).
Castruccio is "now for ever deprived" (379) of "peace, sympathy, and happiness" (379). The narrator describes the story of Castruccio and Euthanasia from the beginning to the last chapter as "private chronicles"
(378) and calls the conclusion "public histories" (378), which corresponds to Godwin's definition of history. As mentioned earlier, the relation between Castruccio and Euthanasia via Valperga can also be found in the relation between the main and the subtitle of the novel. As Valperga-the main title of the story-disappears, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, the subtitle, connected by the equivocal word "or," also comes to an end. The "romance," which depicted both the public and private relationships ofCastruccio and Euthanasia, including their love and clash, ends leaving behind the "public histories" alone: "The private chronicles ...
end with the death of Euthanasia. It is therefore in public histories alone that we find an account of the last years of the life of Castruccio" (378).
Conclusion
Valperga ends tragically with the deaths of Euthanasia and Castruccio.
The power of reason may save oneself, but cannot save others from their
"ruling passion[sl." Instead of the power of reason, we can rather find hope in the sentimental aspect and sentimental value of men in Valperga. The key to overcoming the conflict between two powers is to depend on the private relationship which is linked to our sentimental aspect and sentimental value. For example, in the beginning of the story, when Euthanasia's father, who belongs to the Guelphs, saves Castruccio's father and his family, the narrator calls their friendship based on a supra-partisan basis "private friendship": "He [Euthanasia's fatherl was bound to Ruggieri [Castruccio's fatherl by the strongest ties of private friendship" (8). In
14
addition to this example, we must remember that Castruccio's tears-the tears of the tyrant-recreated the private relationship which saved Euthanasia's life. However, when Euthanasia, or his love, dies, the "private chronicles" (378), or the romance, also ends. In the conclusion or "public histories" (378), the rest ofCastruccio's life-the life without love-and his death, are told in a matter-of-fact way. As Castruccio chooses the public relationship at the command of his "ruling passion" over the private relationship, he has to pay the price by suffering an irrevocable loss-the death of love.
Notes
1. For example, Joseph W. Lew and Sharon M. Twigg focus on two female figures;
Michael Rossington ("Future Uncertain") and William D. Brewer on Euthanasia and Jane O'Sul1ivan on Beatrice.
2. I use the edition published by Oxford University Press and references are to this edition, the text edited by Rossington.
3. Alexander Pope reveals the evils of master or ruling passion in An Essay on Man (1734) as follows:
one master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
As Man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength:
So, cast and mingled with his very frame, The Mind's disease, its ruling passion came;
Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in souL (Pope 11. 131-40)
Brewer shows the idea ofthe master passion in the Romantic period by focusing on the works of the dramatist Joanna Baillie. See his "Mary Shelley'S Valperga:
The Triumph of Euthanasia's Mind."
15
4. In Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears, Tom Lutz also presents the history of tears and says, "tears have power precisely because they can 'change the environment'" (Lutz 225-26).
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on my presentation at the 48th annual conference ofthe English Literary Society of Doshisha University on 27 October 2013.
The title of the presentation was "Maleness and Femaleness in Mary Shelley's Valperga."
I would like to thank Dr. David Chandler for his help in reading the manuscript and providing valuable advice on it.
Works Cited
Bennett, Betty T. "Machiavelli's and Mary Shelley's Castruccio: Biography as Metaphor." Romanticism 3 (1997): 139-51. Print.
---. "The Political Philosophy of Mary Shelley's Historical Novels: Valperga and Perkin Warbeck." The Evidence of the Imagination: Studies of Interactions between Life and Art in English Romantic Literature.
Ed. Donald H. Reiman, Michael C. Jayne, and Betty T. Bennett. New York: New York UP, 1978.354-71. Print.
Blumberg, Jane. '''The Masterpiece of His Malice': Valperga." Mary Shelley's Early Novels: "This Child of Imagination and Misery." Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1993. 76-113. Print.
Brewer, William D. "Mary Shelley's Valperga: The Triumph of Euthanasia's Mind." European Romantic Review 5 (1995): 133-48. Print.
Godwin, William. "Of History and Romance." Educational and Literary Writings. Ed. Pamela Clemit. London: William Pickering, 1993. 291-
16
301. Print.
Lew, Joseph W. "God's Sister: History and Ideology in Valperga." The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Eds. Audrey A. Fisch, Anne K.
MelIor and Esther H. Schor. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 159-81.
Print.
Lockhart, J. G. Rev. ofValperga, by Mary Shelley. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 13 Mar. 1823: 283-93. Print.
Lutz, Tom. Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears. New York:
Norton, 2001. Print.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca. The Portable Machiavelli. Ed. and trans. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa. New York: Viking Penguin, 1979. 518-47. Print.
Maunu Leanne. "The Connecting Threads of War, Torture and Pain in Mary Shelley's Valperga." European Romantic Review 21.4 (2010):
447-68. Print.
O'Sullivan, Barbara Jane. "Beatrice in Valperga: ANew Cassandra." Fisch, MelIor and Schor 140-58. Print.
Pope, Alexander. An Essay on Man. Ed. Mark Pattison. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1879. Print.
Raj an, Tilottama. "Between Romance and History: Possibility and Contingency in Godwin, Leibniz, and Mary Shelley's Valperga." Mary Shelley in Her Times. Eds. Betty T. Bennett and Stuart Curran.
Baltimore: The John Hopkins UP, 2000. 88-102. Print.
Rossington, Michael. "Future Uncertain: The Republican Tradition and Its Destiny in Valperga." Bennett and Curran 103-18. Print.
---. Introduction. Valperga; or, the Life and Adventures ofCastruccio, Prince of Lucca. By Mary Shelley. ix-xxiv. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Ed. M. K. Joseph.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
---. Valperga; or, the Life and Adventures ofCastruccio, Prince ofLucca. Ed.
Michael Rossington. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "On Love." Percy Bysshe Shelley Major Works. Eds.
Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 631- 32. Print.
---. The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ed. Frederick L. Jones. Oxford:
Clarendon P, 1964. Print.
Twigg, Sharon M. '''Do you then repair my work': The Redemptive Contract in Mary Shelley's Valperga" Studies in Romanticism 46.4 (2007):
481-505. Print.
Vrncent-Buffault, Anne. The History of Tears: Sensibility and Sentimentality in France. Houndmills, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1991. Print.
White, Daniel E. "Mary Shelley's Valperga: Italy and the Revision of Romantic Aesthetic." Mary Shelley's Fictions: From Frankenstein to Falkner. Ed. Michael Eberle-Sinatra. Hampshire: Macmillan P, 2000.
75-94. Print.
