Screening: Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'The Cenci'
Sir Duncan Rice Library, Meeting Room 1 (Floor 7), Aberdeen, AB24 3AA
Wednesday 11th November 2026
Join us for the screening of a special dramatic reading of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 'The Cenci' (1819) in partnership with Red Bull Theater and The Keats-Shelley Association of America.
Based on a notorious case from Renaissance Rome, 'The Cenci' tells the story of Beatrice Cenci and her struggle against the brutal authority of her father. At once a family tragedy, a political drama, and a meditation on justice, the play remains one of the most powerful and unsettling works of the Romantic period. Although Shelley regarded 'The Cenci' as his greatest dramatic achievement and envisioned it performed on the finest stages of his day, the play has appeared only rarely over the past two centuries. This reading offers audiences a rare opportunity to experience the work as it was meant to be encountered: spoken aloud, shared in community, and brought to life through performance.
Organised by Dr Natalie Harries, Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Harries is working on the AHRC funded project, The Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott’s Poetry: Engaging New Audiences at the University of Aberdeen. She was a Research Associate on the 21st Century Oxford Authors edition of the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley at the University of Sheffield, and an Early Career Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies (University of London) where she completed a project on the late Indian influences of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her current research interests are primarily focused on the influence of Platonism/Neoplatonism, Hinduism, 'out-of-the-way reading' and supernatural scholarship on Romantic poets and writers. She is also interested in Romantic life-writing, creative collaboration, and manuscript studies.
Based on a notorious case from Renaissance Rome, 'The Cenci' tells the story of Beatrice Cenci and her struggle against the brutal authority of her father. At once a family tragedy, a political drama, and a meditation on justice, the play remains one of the most powerful and unsettling works of the Romantic period. Although Shelley regarded 'The Cenci' as his greatest dramatic achievement and envisioned it performed on the finest stages of his day, the play has appeared only rarely over the past two centuries. This reading offers audiences a rare opportunity to experience the work as it was meant to be encountered: spoken aloud, shared in community, and brought to life through performance.
Organised by Dr Natalie Harries, Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Harries is working on the AHRC funded project, The Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott’s Poetry: Engaging New Audiences at the University of Aberdeen. She was a Research Associate on the 21st Century Oxford Authors edition of the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley at the University of Sheffield, and an Early Career Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies (University of London) where she completed a project on the late Indian influences of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her current research interests are primarily focused on the influence of Platonism/Neoplatonism, Hinduism, 'out-of-the-way reading' and supernatural scholarship on Romantic poets and writers. She is also interested in Romantic life-writing, creative collaboration, and manuscript studies.
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