This thesis explores the nature of creativity in the poetic vision of Percy Bysshe Shelley. "Poetic vision" is chosen for its complex connotations, which include creative imaginings, dreams and intimations of futurity. I examine questions that Shelley raises concerning perception, existence and the fabric of reality. To develop a conceptual framework that has an ontological basis, I draw on the theories of two twentieth-century non-dualist thinkers: David Bohm, who combines science, philosophy and art, and the existential thought of Martin Heidegger. I also investigate ways in which literary expression and life become interwoven and suggest that this reciprocity is explicable through a dynamically creative vision of existence. In Chapter One Shelley's reflections on the creative capacity of poetic visions to influence states of being, and his holistic apprehension of existence in On Life, provide the thesis with a conceptual paradigm which is in contradistinction to the Cartesian schism between mind and matter. A Defence of Poetry is contrasted with Peacock's The Four Ages of Poetry to show that the contention between the two writers' visions springs from questions relating to being. Shelley's declaration that the poetic impulse is central to life is examined in the light of Heidegger’s notion of the poetic as disclosing being and Bohm's quantum concepts of creativity. In Chapter Two Alastor is interpreted as a poem which raises questions about existence and I provide a counter-approach to critical positions of scepticism. Heidegger's concepts of "Being- in-the-world" and "Being-towards-death" provide the basis for an existential analysis of die Poet’s impassioned quest. A comparison between the Poet's dream of his feminine counterpart and Shelley's own vision of his ideal beloved reveals connections between artistic vision and human experience. In Chapter Three on Laon and Cythna. poetic vision is shown to operate from a metaphysical basis of thought, passion, and the human will to enact a radical transformation in consciousness. The poem's investigation of freedom is linked to Heidegger's concept of being absorbed in the "they." Chapter Four continues my extended reading of Laon and Cythna. Shelley's notion of creativity collapses the demarcations between imaginative vision and the physical world. Here his view of reality is contrasted with the psychological investigations of Jean Piaget. The poem’s vision of human empowerment is compared with Peacock's fatahsm in Ahrimanes. Chapter Five investigates challenges to Shelley's optimism. Julian and Maddalo is the major poem interpreted in a chapter v*ere the keynote is the contention between theories about the nature of reality and their validity to human life. Shelley's anxiety about communicating visions of despair is analyzed with regard to the Maniac's tragic predicament. Chapter Six interprets Prometheus Unbound as a dramatic engagement with the spiritual, imaginative, emotional and sensuous planes of being. Existence is seen to be poised on a mobile nexus of thought and emotions. Asia has a dynamic role and, through consideration of her journey with Panthea to Demogorgon, I examine Shelley's complex negotiation between free will and determinism. Spinoza's monism is discussed in relation to "Love's Philosophy. In Chapter Seven on Hellas, "Thought", "Passion", "Will", "Reason" and the "Imagination” are shown to have creative powers which determine futurity. Questions about the structure of reality are explored in the drama's dynamic interchange between the magician-like Ahasuerus and the Turkish tyrant Mahmud. Dreams are given significance as avenues of perception to realms beyond conscious experience and in relation to unfolding the future. Finally, in Chapter Eight Shelley's ideas about poetic creativity are explored through his poems to 'Jane Williams. Whilst composing these lyrics Shelley used the figure of Rousseau, in the Triumph of Life, to suggest a reciprocity between art and life. I examine the similarities between Rousseau's fictional creation of Julie in La Nouvelle Hélose and his subsequent love for Sophie d'Houdetot. Shelley's lyrics to Jane Williams communicate desire at different levels of conscious awareness, from trance-like mesmerism to overt invitation.

[pt] O objetivo desta tese é mostrar como uma situação emocional depressiva / melancólica (o mundo interior em ruínas), bem como o mundo interior, emocional, não organizado ou não pensado se transforma em canção: que fatores emocionais da personalidade do poeta são articulados em um dado momento e num determinado contexto, levando-o ou compelindo-o ao processo de criação poética. Usaremos, como ponto de partida, o que os poetas, como Manuel Bandeira, Dante Milano, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Poe, Gilberto Mendonça Teles, Jorge Luiz Borges e T. S. Eliot escreveram ou disseram em entrevistas sobre a criação ou construção do poema ou da obra de arte literária. No estudo que estou apresentando, a arte é entendida da maneira como Susanne Langer a formulou em Sentimento e forma: Arte é a criação de formas simbólicas do sentimento humano. O processo criador da arte pode ser visto, também, como uma forma simbólica pela qual a consciência organiza e expressa a experiência emocional. A arte emerge de um desejo intrinsicamente humano - a necessidade de forma. O foco da tese incide no processo criativo, na tensão entre a ruína emocional ou o caos interior e os recursos lingüísticos empregados pelo poeta na sua ordenação. Subjacente à desintegração ou não- integração psíquica existe um nível profundo que busca a ordem e que dá forma ao caos emocional. O artista deve operar sobre sua experiência, senti-la intensamente, mas simultaneamente separar-se reflexivamente dela; separar o sujeito que sofre a experiência da mente que pensa e cria a obra de arte. Tendo isto em pauta, a tese apresenta um viés psicológico. / [en] This dissertation aims to show how an emotional situation of the depressivemelancholic type (the inner world in ruins) is transformed into poetry; how emotional factors of a poet`s personality are organized in a given moment and in a given context leading or compelling him to the process of poetic creation. Poets like Manuel Bandeira, Dante Milano, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Poe, Gilberto Mendonça Teles, T. S. Eliot and Jorge Luis Borges are taken as starting points.In this study, art is understood as Susanne Langer proposed in Feeling and form: Art is the creation of symbolic forms of human feeling. Art`s creative process can also be seen as a symbolic form whereby conscience organizes and expresses the emotional experience. The focus of this thesis converges on the creative process, in the tension between the emotional ruin and the linguistic resources employed by the poet in organizing his interior chaos. Underlying the psychological desintegration or non-integration, there is a deep layer that demands order and shapes the emotional chaos. The poet must act on the basis of his experience, feel it intensely but, at the same time move away from it in a reflexive way; he must separate the subject who suffers the experience from the mind who thinks and creates the poem. Bearing this in mind, the study displays a strongly psychological colour.