Alastor

The poem was without a title when Shelley passed it along to his contemporary and friend Thomas Love Peacock. Peacock suggested the name Alastor, which comes from Roman mythology. Peacock has defined Alastor as 'evil genius'. In Alastor the speaker ostensibly recounts the life of a Poet who zealously pursues the most obscure part of nature in search of 'strange truths in undiscovered lands', journeying to the Caucasus Mountains ('the ethereal cliffs of Caucasus'), Persia, 'Arabie', Cashmire, ...