In 1819 Shelley was moved to anger and derision when Wordsworth published Peter Bell. His satirical response was predicated on an ironically autobiographical interpretation of the poem, and in this respect, Shelley's reading of the poem merits further study with respect to both poets. Hazlitt, Keats, Lamb, and others, were quick to note the egotistical drive that informed Wordsworth's writing, but in Peter Bell the Third Shelley claimed that Wordsworth went far beyond that. He insisted that Wordsworth had unintentionally satirised himself with devastating accuracy in the manner of Thomas Moore's satire on political apostasy, The Fudge Family in Paris. Shelley's reading of the poem casts a fresh light on the importance of Peter Bell for an appreciation of the complexity of Wordsworth's development as a poet at the time of writing Lyrical Ballads, a complexity that relates both to the controversial style of Peter Bell, and to the ambivalent relationships within the poem between poet, narrator, protagonist, and reader.
