epic poet

In addition to defending the art of poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley uses A Defence of Poetry to write his own interpretation of the history of poetic greatness, elevating Bacon, praising Milton, and perhaps devaluing Virgil. Shelley denies "the title of epic in its highest sense" to the Aeneid though he says it comes far closer than Spenser's The Fairie Queen and some earlier works. Shelley's third "epic poet," the only English one, is Milton. Shelley and Lord Byron, second generation Romantics, looked to the past for their poetic idols - Milton, Alexander Pope (though Shelley did respect the 'Lakers'). "A great poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight," Shelley writes. What I wonder is if Shelley aspired to create epic on the level of Homer, Dante, and Milton. Was Prometheus Unbound an attempt? Also, would he elevate his friend Byron's Don Juan so high? "Nothing has ever been written like it in English - nor if I may venture to prophecy, will there be," he said (from Fiona MacCarthy's Byron: Life and Legend, 348).