By Ana K. Silva Hernandez, Student, University of Wisconsin-Rock County
An introduction to The Artist
“A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.”
Ah! The great words of the great man that once was Percy Bysshe Shelley, words of wisdom that this admirable artist not only lived his life by, but also words that he applied to his works. As we all know, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most celebrated poets and lyricists of not only the Romantic Period of English literature, but also to this day remains one of the greatest poets of all time.
The day the world saw the birth of Percy Bysshe Shelley was on August 4th of 1792 at Field Place, near Horsham, West Sussex in England. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born to Sir Timothy Shelley a member of parliament and his wife Elizabeth Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley was the eldest of six children that included one brother and four sisters. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born a blue blood, which means that he was of noble descend; one of his distant ancestors was Anne Boleyn the second wife of Henry VIII and the mother of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I of England.
As a young adult, Shelley, as was expected of nobility, became a student at both Eton College and Oxford University, it was at these institutions, more especially Oxford, that witness the development of his amazing flare for writing. While attending Oxford University, together with his close friend and school companion Thomas Jefferson Hogg, they published a pamphlet known as The Necessity of Atheism, in which he ardently expresses his atheistic points of view, which eventually got him expelled from Oxford University. Although Shelley’s father attempted to have him reinstated into Oxford with the condition that his son, Percy Bysshe Shelley, must refused to acknowledge the pamphlet as well as to denounce the atheistic views expressed in the brochure. However, Shelley refused to do as he father wished, because that would mean he would have to go against his beliefs. This minor altercation between him and his father caused his father to part ways with Shelley and leave him in financial distress until he came of age.
The year that he was expelled from Oxford University, a nineteen-year-old Shelley and a sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook fled to Scotland to get married, a marriage that produced two children Ianthe and Charles Shelley. It was after his three year marriage to Harriet and after Harriet committed suicide that Shelley who had been in love with the daughter of his friend William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (aka Mary Shelley), decided to get married. The marriage between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley produced several offspring all of whom died except for their only surviving son Sir Percy Florence Shelley. After Harriet’s dead Percy Bysshe Shelley was refused the custody of his children with Harriet due to the fact that he was an atheist.
Throughout his career Percy Bysshe Shelley employed many themes and methods that were dominant during the Romantic Period. Two of those themes were the Role of Nature and the Role of the Poet. Like so many of the Romantic writers the role of nature was an essential part of Shelley’s writing. Nature in all of her aspects was quite important to Shelley because he not only found it extremely beautiful and pleasing to the eye and to the mind, but he also felt quite connected to Nature. Since Shelley was an atheist, it’s somewhat probable that Shelley believed in pantheism as many of his contemporaries did. This belief was one of the many things that prompted Shelley to vehemently become a passionate vegetarian, as well as promote vegetarianism among his peers. This was mostly because he had a soft spot for animals and because he was against the idea of slaughtering animals simply for the consumption of Human beings since he saw it as a low form of servitude. Shelley believed that the immaculate pureness and innocence of Nature was a great source of not only his inspiration, but also the muse of many others. Because in his time Shelley was a radical thinker he believed that Nature was an important part of social change in the fact that what Shelley admired most about Nature was her destructive side. And that was what made Nature a sublime inspiration.
This idea of Nature being the bringer of social change goes hand in hand with the idea that a poet, like himself, could play a pivotal role in social change through passive and non-violent protests. Shelley’s main mode of distributing his message then was through his many writings especially his poetry. Since Shelley was a zealous believer of social justice, evident in his disregard for religion, authority and despotism, it comes to no shock that he use his political ideas in his writing. Shelley employed the theme of a poet that was deeply connected to Nature but had a moral responsibility with the rest of the world. This why many of his poems he uses the image of the poet as a prophet, a visionary prophet that was so intertwined with nature and social justice that he used the poet in his poems as the bringer of political, social, and spiritual change. Shelley believed that he was this prophetic poet.
One of Shelley’s works that makes use of both of these themes is also an extensive allegory written as a narrative poem. This poem is Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. In the poem, Shelley decided to write it as a narrative poem, to express his emotions, feelings and beliefs of not only death, but also his radical political views. The poem is narrative poem in that it shows Shelley’s ability to write fiction, while at the same time telling a story. The poem in itself it’s an allegory because it’s is an extensive metaphor of Shelley himself. As afore mentioned, Shelley uses the themes of Nature and the Poet to express how the institutions of religion and government, corrupt and isolate a person, that they become desensitized to everything and everyone around them, while yearning to break free from the numbness of institutions. But he argues that in the end it is him and all other poets that will win the battle for social change with the help of nature’s destructive side, because once all of the government and religion have collapsed it’s the poet and his works that will survive the erosion of time, since words are everlasting they will continue on to inspire new generations for ages to come long after the poet himself has died, ideas that still ring true to this very day.
Monographs:
The Cambridge Companion to Shelley
In this edition of The Cambridge Companion to Shelley, the author along with several other contributors, collaborate together in order to analyze, to explain, and to decipher the man that was Shelley and the works of that man. The book is comprised of many different essays by many different authors. The essays were written as a compendium of what were the life, the writings, and the age of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Throughout the book, the authors of the essays seek to convey what ‘the poetry, the prose, the drama and the fiction’ that Shelley wrote about was truly comprised of, and how his writings were influenced by the ideas of the time. Not only do they focus on what comprised Shelley’s poetry, but they also focus on aspects of his life that made him the exemplary writer that he has become nowadays. The authors discuss how his political activism, philosophical thinking, his views on the environment (nature), his atheism, and vegetarianism, contributed to his life with himself, with others and with his writing, and how each was affected by his beliefs. In all, the purpose of the monograph is to provide a guide to Shelley scholars and to the common folk as well as expanding the current knowledge of whom this distinguished and celebrated wordsmith of the 18th-19th century truly was, a man with a flair for the political and the written word. The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume One
.
This monograph is the first of seven volumes on the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. This first volume aspires to include precise and concise annotations to Shelley’s selected works for this volume, in order to provide a coherent and comprehensible knowledge and understanding to the works of the Romantic poet. The authors of the first volume, make it clear in that, their attempt in annotating and deciphering Shelley’s works, they’re going to be explicit and unambiguous to the work by applying precision to the detail and to the components of Shelley’s poetry. What the authors hope to accomplish throughout the text is to provide readers with an accurate, genuine, and authentic look at Shelley’s poetry as well as to who the man was, what he stood for and what comprised this creator of beautiful and everlasting words.
Useful in Scholarly Research
I believe that these monographs would be useful to others doing research on Percy Bysshe Shelley in the mere fact that they provide a treasure trove of information of the author’s works, life and ideals. If a person is trying to find information in regards to Shelley’s life and personal beliefs, The Cambridge Companion to Shelley, would be an excellent source since it provides detailed information on Shelley’s political, philosophical and religious background. It also examines how the radical changes that were happening around the world and in England at this time not only affected Shelley on a personal level, but also how it affected his writing mode. Furthermore, it forms a link between Shelley’s life and beliefs with that of his works, and analyzes certain aspects of Shelley’s life with that of his writings. Now, if a person is trying to find information specifically in regards to Shelley’s poetical works then they should consider consulting The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley. This particular work provides the reader with substantial information, kind of like a mini-analysis of Shelley’s work. If a person is looking to expand and to broaden their knowledge of Shelley’s poetry than this particular book is an excellent selection. However distinct, both compositions are great compilations of knowledge about Shelley, as well as an excellent read for those who are just reading for the enjoyment of reading sublime and regal poetry.
Scholarly Articles:
The following articles are scholarly articles because they were found through UW-Rock County’s library database in JSTOR. Also, because not only do they entail the life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, but also because they promote learning and understanding on the subject matter, these articles not only represent someone’s ideas of what Percy Bysshe Shelley was, but the transmission of those ideas to others, and thus increasing the academic and broad knowledge of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his works.
"Nature's Silent Eloquence": Disembodied Organic Language in Shelley's Queen Mab
In the article by Monika Lee, the author’s main focus is an extensive and in-depth examination of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s memorable poem Queen Mab. Throughout the article the author makes comparisons between the current ideas and beliefs people have of the Romantics use of language and views of the world. Furthermore, the author also probes at the many different ways in which Shelley wrote the poem and the types of language he employed and how he implemented language in his poem. What the author does in her article is to attempt to explain how is it that Shelley was able to incorporate, as she puts it, organic language and conventional language into Queen Mab. She argues that the manner in which Shelley chose to exploit the language was not only an integral part of Queen Mab but also a crucial manifestation of Shelley’s political and philosophical views, that were expressed in many other of Shelley’s works.
The Lament and the Rhetoric of the Sublime
What Linda Austin strives to accomplish in her article about the sublime is to exactly find out what the sublime in combination with death meant to Shelley and other Romantic writers. However, she also emphasizes how the idea on the sublime and of ecstasy not only did they influence literature and music, but also other schools of thought such as philosophy and medicine. In her article she is determined to explain how the sublime played a pivotal role in the development of Romantic poetry such as Shelley’s A Lament (the piece of literature that she focuses throughout her piece) as well as Harris’s Epigram. In her article Austin, discusses how the rhetoric plays a substantial part in Shelley’s writing. For example, she argues that Shelley’s poem A Lament is a manifestation of the sublime and death. She points out how the idea of the sublime not only affected the writing of poets, but how its ideals spread throughout literature and were implemented in other fields such as medicine.
The Politics of Medusa: Shelley's Physiognomy of Revolution
In Judson’s article, the author seeks to explain how the metaphorical image of Medusa played a pivotal role not only in Shelley’s life but also in his literature. She discusses some of Shelley’s work that includes Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci. In her article Judson, tries to evoke the passion in which Shelley wrote those two pieces of literature. However, Judson lets the reader know that although the image of the gorgon Medusa was present in Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, the imagery of Medusa is more of the representation of Shelley’s political beliefs and ideals. Those two pieces of literature were Shelley’s way of saying ‘don’t judge a book, by its cover’ because no one ever knows what goes on behind closed doors (in the case of the Cenci’s). She argues that the image of Medusa was Shelley’s way of expressing a desire for a just society and the starting gun for political change through writing, which is the purest form of civil disobedience.
Websites:
For more extensive information on Percy Bysshe Shelley, I found the following websites to be of tremendous use, since they provide substantial information in regards to the poet.
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson: Being Poems Found Amongst the Papers of That Noted Female Who Attempted the Life of the King in 1786
St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian. A Romance, as a Gentleman of the University of Oxford
The Devil's Walk: A Ballad
Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem: With Notes
A Refutation of Deism: in a Dialogue
Wolfstein; or, The Mysterious Bandit
Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude; and Other Poems
Mont Blanc
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century
The Revolt of Islam, A Poem, in Twelve Cantos
Ozymandias
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (Preface)
Rosalind and Helen: A Modern Eclogue; With Other Poems
Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills, October 1818
Ode to the West Wind
The Masque of Anarchy
Men of England
England in 1819
The Witch of Atlas
A Philosophical View of Reform
Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation
Peter Bell the Third
Prometheus Unbound. A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems
To a Skylark
Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts
Hellas, A Lyrical Drama
Plato,Ion, translation from Greek into English
Epipsychidion
The Cloud
The Triumph of Life
Short prose works
The Assassins, A Fragment of a Romance
The Coliseum, A Fragment
The Elysian Fields: A Lucianic Fragment
Una Favola (A Fable)
Essays
Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things
The Necessity of Atheism
Declaration of Rights
A Defence of Poetry
A Vindication of Natural Diet
On the Vegetable System of Diet
On Love
On Life
On a Future State
On The Punishment of Death
Speculations on Metaphysics
Speculations on Morals
On Christianity
On the Literature, the Arts and the Manners of the Athenians
On The Symposium, or Preface to The Banquet Of Plato
On Friendship
On Frankenstein
Collaborations with Mary Shelley
History of a Six Weeks' Tourthrough a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Proserpine
Midas
Drama:
(1819) The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts
Letters and Other Works, and Works Posthumously Released:
A Letter to Lord Ellenborough
A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote Throughout the Kingdom, as The Hermit of Marlow
Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion etc.
An Address, to the Irish People
Original Poetry
Proposals for An Association of those Philanthropists
Letters From Percy Bysshe Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchener
Letters from Percy Bysshe Shelley to William Godwin
Select Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Preface by Mrs. Shelley to First Collected Edition.
Preface by Mrs. Shelley to the Volume of Posthumous Poems Published in 1824.
The Daemon of the World. A Fragment.
Prince Athanase. A Fragment.
Letter to Maria Gisborne.
Fragments of an Unfinished Drama.
Early Poems [1814, 1815].
Poems Written in 1816.
Poems Written in 1817.
Poems Written in 1818.
Poems Written in 1819.
Poems Written in 1820.
Poems Written in 1821.
Poems Written in 1822.
= Chronology of Life and Family:= August 4th, 1792 -Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, near Horsham in West Sussex, into an aristocratic family, the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley and his wife Elizabeth Shelley. 1804- Enrolls at Eton College, a boarding school for boys. It is well know that while he attended Eton he was bullied by his peers for his delicate countenance and capricious behavior. 1810 -Enrolls Oxford University College, it is well known that he didn’t attend class while at Oxford. -While at Oxford instead of going to class, he instead wrote and published his first novel Zastrozzi. -Also while at Oxford he published Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson with his school mate Thomas Jefferson Hogg. 1811 -Shelley was expelled from Oxford for publishing The Necessity Of Atheism, together with Thomas Jefferson Hogg - Shelley and his father have a row due to the publication of The Necessity of Atheism. His father cuts off all economic support. -This same year Shelley elopes with Harriet Westbrook to Scotland to get married. 1812 - Shelley visit Ireland and writes An Address, to the Irish People - This same year Shelley writes Proposals for An Association of those Philanthropists 1813 -Shelley publishes his first and most celebrated poem, Queen Mab. -Daughter Ianthe Shelley is born on June 23rd. 1814 - Shelley begins his association with William Godwin -Meets and falls in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, while his wife Harriet is pregnant with son Charles. -Shelley and Mary eloped to Europe, accompanied by Mary’s half-sister Claire Clairmont, lover of Lord Byron. -Shelley writes an unfinished novella, The Assassins -Shelley also writes A Refutation of Deism: in a Dialogue -Shelley, a pregnant Mary and Claire, return to London. Mary and Shelley live apart due to the fact that Shelley went into hiding to avoid paying his debts. -During his isolation writes Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. -Shelley’s second child by Harriet, a boy name Charles Shelley is born on November 30th. 1815-Mary Shelley gives birth to Shelley and Mary’s first child on February 22nd, a premature daughter named Clara, who dies only two weeks after her birth. 1816-Mary Shelley gives birth to second child by Shelley, a boy named William Shelley on January 24th. -Shelley’s poem Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude; and Other Poems is published. -Also this year Mary’s half-sister Fanny Imlay Godwin dies by an overdose. -Also this same year Shelley’s first wife Harriet Westbrook commits suicide by drowning herself in the Serpentine River while pregnant with his third child. -Weeks after Harriet’s death, Shelley and an pregnant Mary proceed to get married at St. Mildred's Church in London to secure the custody of his children with Harriet, but custody was denied due the fact that Shelley was an atheist. -The Shelleys move to the village of Marlow in southeast England. -This the year when Shelley meets and becomes friends with John Keats. 1817 -The Shelleys collaboration the journal History of a Six Weeks' Tourthrough a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Hollandis published. -Mary Shelley gives birth to their third child on May 14th, a daughter named Clara Everina. -Shelley writes Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century a poem that due to the themes of incest only a few copies were published. - Shelley also publishes A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote Throughout the Kingdom, under the pen name of The Hermit of Marlow. 1818 -The Shelleys make their move to Italy. -Mary Shelley publishes her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. -Percy Shelley publishes The Revolt Of Islam and Ozymandias. -On September 24th the Shelley’s daughter Clara Everina dies of dysentery. -While in Naples, Shelley registers a daughter as Elena Adelaide Shelley, who dies soon after. It’s not known whether the baby girl was Shelley’s daughter with another woman or if he adopted her to please Mary who was suffering from depression. 1819 -During a brief stay in Rome the Shelley’s son William, dies of malaria on June 7th, while Mary is pregnant with their fourth child. -Shelley publishes Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems -The Shelleys move to Florence, where Mary Shelley gives birth to their last and only surviving offspring Percy Florence Shelley on November 12th, he was named after his father and the city in which he was born. - Shelley writes The Masque of Anarchy and Men of England. 1820- The Shelley’s moved to Pisa. -Shelley publishes Prometheus Unbound. A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poemsas well asOedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant. A Tragedy, In Two Acts. 1821 -Shelley publishes Epipsychidion. -Shelley writes and publishes Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats after the death of his friend John Keats, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 26. 1822 -The Shelleys make the moved to the Bay of Lerici. -Also the Hellas: A Lyrical Drama is published. July 8th, 1822 -Percy Bysshe Shelley dies by drowning in the Gulf of Spezia while sailing to Leghorn to meet his friend Leigh Hunt. On his return trip to Lerici, his small schooner sank due to the bad weather, Shelley along with Edward Williams and Charles Vivien died that same night. When the bodies washed ashore in the presence of Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, they were burned on the spot, while Edward Trelawney took Shelley’s heart and later gave it to Mary Shelley, who has his body cremated and kept the heart until the day she died. (However, there’s a belief that there was foul play involve due to Shelley’s radical beliefs.) 1824 - Mary Shelley publishes Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley which were also edited by her. -However, Timothy Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley father, threatens to cut off all support to Mary Shelley and her son Percy Florence Shelley if she continues to publish and edit her late husband’s work. A poor Mary Shelley agrees. 1839 -With the approval of Timothy Shelley, Mary Shelley publishes The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Four volumes, edited by her, and later also publishes essays written by her husband.
Father: Timothy Shelley (Member of Parliament, b. 1753, d. 1844) Mother: Elizabeth Pilfold Wife: Harriet Westbrook (m. 18-Aug-1811, d. 9-Nov-1816 suicide) Daughter: Ianthe Eliza Shlley (b. 1813, d. 1876) Son: Charles Shelley (b. 30-Nov-1814, d. 1826) Wife: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin a.k.a. Mary Shelley (m. 30-Dec-1816, until his death) Daughter: Elizabeth Ianthe Shelley (b. 14-Jan-1816, d. 7-Jun-1818) Son: William Shelley (b. 14-Jan-1816, d. 7-Jun-1818, with Mary) Daughter: Clara Everina Shelley (b. 2-Sep-1817, d. 24-Sep-1817, with Mary) Son: Percy Florence Shelley (Baronet, b. 12-Nov-1818, d. 6-Dec-1889, with Mary)
= Study Questions:= Study Questions on Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude What are the main themes that Shelley uses throughout the poem, and explain how they’re significant? What role does the image of the mythical Alastor, played in the poem? How is it important? What’s the significance of the visions, Alastor suffers throughout the poem? What’s the importance of the supernatural in the poem? What’s the role of the Arab maiden in the poem?
= Works Cited:= Austin, Linda M. “ The Lament and The Rhetoric of the Sublime.” Nineteeth-Century Literature. Vole 53. No. 3 (1998): 279-306. Web. 09 May 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2903041>.
Judson Barbara. “The Politics of Medusa: Shelley’s Physiognomy of Revolution.” ELH. Vol 68. No.1 (2001). 01 May 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30031961>.
Lee, Monika H. “ Nature’s Silent Eloquence’: Disembodied Organic Language in Shelley’s Queen Mab.” Nineteeth-Century Literature. Vol 48. No. 2. (1993): 169-193. Web. 28 April 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2933889>.
Morton, Timothy. The Cambridge Companion to Shelley. 1st ed. 1 vol. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 1-10. Print
“Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Poets. Org from the Academy of American Poets. Academy of American poets, n.d. Web. 05 May 2011. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179>.
Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822)The Romantic Era
By Ana K. Silva Hernandez, Student, University of Wisconsin-Rock County
An introduction to The Artist
“A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.”
Ah! The great words of the great man that once was Percy Bysshe Shelley, words of wisdom that this admirable artist not only lived his life by, but also words that he applied to his works. As we all know, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most celebrated poets and lyricists of not only the Romantic Period of English literature, but also to this day remains one of the greatest poets of all time.
The day the world saw the birth of Percy Bysshe Shelley was on August 4th of 1792 at Field Place, near Horsham, West Sussex in England. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born to Sir Timothy Shelley a member of parliament and his wife Elizabeth Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley was the eldest of six children that included one brother and four sisters. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born a blue blood, which means that he was of noble descend; one of his distant ancestors was Anne Boleyn the second wife of Henry VIII and the mother of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I of England.
As a young adult, Shelley, as was expected of nobility, became a student at both Eton College and Oxford University, it was at these institutions, more especially Oxford, that witness the development of his amazing flare for writing. While attending Oxford University, together with his close friend and school companion Thomas Jefferson Hogg, they published a pamphlet known as The Necessity of Atheism, in which he ardently expresses his atheistic points of view, which eventually got him expelled from Oxford University. Although Shelley’s father attempted to have him reinstated into Oxford with the condition that his son, Percy Bysshe Shelley, must refused to acknowledge the pamphlet as well as to denounce the atheistic views expressed in the brochure. However, Shelley refused to do as he father wished, because that would mean he would have to go against his beliefs. This minor altercation between him and his father caused his father to part ways with Shelley and leave him in financial distress until he came of age.
The year that he was expelled from Oxford University, a nineteen-year-old Shelley and a sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook fled to Scotland to get married, a marriage that produced two children Ianthe and Charles Shelley. It was after his three year marriage to Harriet and after Harriet committed suicide that Shelley who had been in love with the daughter of his friend William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (aka Mary Shelley), decided to get married. The marriage between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley produced several offspring all of whom died except for their only surviving son Sir Percy Florence Shelley. After Harriet’s dead Percy Bysshe Shelley was refused the custody of his children with Harriet due to the fact that he was an atheist.
Throughout his career Percy Bysshe Shelley employed many themes and methods that were dominant during the Romantic Period. Two of those themes were the Role of Nature and the Role of the Poet. Like so many of the Romantic writers the role of nature was an essential part of Shelley’s writing. Nature in all of her aspects was quite important to Shelley because he not only found it extremely beautiful and pleasing to the eye and to the mind, but he also felt quite connected to Nature. Since Shelley was an atheist, it’s somewhat probable that Shelley believed in pantheism as many of his contemporaries did. This belief was one of the many things that prompted Shelley to vehemently become a passionate vegetarian, as well as promote vegetarianism among his peers. This was mostly because he had a soft spot for animals and because he was against the idea of slaughtering animals simply for the consumption of Human beings since he saw it as a low form of servitude. Shelley believed that the immaculate pureness and innocence of Nature was a great source of not only his inspiration, but also the muse of many others. Because in his time Shelley was a radical thinker he believed that Nature was an important part of social change in the fact that what Shelley admired most about Nature was her destructive side. And that was what made Nature a sublime inspiration.
This idea of Nature being the bringer of social change goes hand in hand with the idea that a poet, like himself, could play a pivotal role in social change through passive and non-violent protests. Shelley’s main mode of distributing his message then was through his many writings especially his poetry. Since Shelley was a zealous believer of social justice, evident in his disregard for religion, authority and despotism, it comes to no shock that he use his political ideas in his writing. Shelley employed the theme of a poet that was deeply connected to Nature but had a moral responsibility with the rest of the world. This why many of his poems he uses the image of the poet as a prophet, a visionary prophet that was so intertwined with nature and social justice that he used the poet in his poems as the bringer of political, social, and spiritual change. Shelley believed that he was this prophetic poet.
One of Shelley’s works that makes use of both of these themes is also an extensive allegory written as a narrative poem. This poem is Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. In the poem, Shelley decided to write it as a narrative poem, to express his emotions, feelings and beliefs of not only death, but also his radical political views. The poem is narrative poem in that it shows Shelley’s ability to write fiction, while at the same time telling a story. The poem in itself it’s an allegory because it’s is an extensive metaphor of Shelley himself. As afore mentioned, Shelley uses the themes of Nature and the Poet to express how the institutions of religion and government, corrupt and isolate a person, that they become desensitized to everything and everyone around them, while yearning to break free from the numbness of institutions. But he argues that in the end it is him and all other poets that will win the battle for social change with the help of nature’s destructive side, because once all of the government and religion have collapsed it’s the poet and his works that will survive the erosion of time, since words are everlasting they will continue on to inspire new generations for ages to come long after the poet himself has died, ideas that still ring true to this very day.
Monographs:
The Cambridge Companion to Shelley
In this edition of The Cambridge Companion to Shelley, the author along with several other contributors, collaborate together in order to analyze, to explain, and to decipher the man that was Shelley and the works of that man. The book is comprised of many different essays by many different authors. The essays were written as a compendium of what were the life, the writings, and the age of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Throughout the book, the authors of the essays seek to convey what ‘the poetry, the prose, the drama and the fiction’ that Shelley wrote about was truly comprised of, and how his writings were influenced by the ideas of the time. Not only do they focus on what comprised Shelley’s poetry, but they also focus on aspects of his life that made him the exemplary writer that he has become nowadays. The authors discuss how his political activism, philosophical thinking, his views on the environment (nature), his atheism, and vegetarianism, contributed to his life with himself, with others and with his writing, and how each was affected by his beliefs. In all, the purpose of the monograph is to provide a guide to Shelley scholars and to the common folk as well as expanding the current knowledge of whom this distinguished and celebrated wordsmith of the 18th-19th century truly was, a man with a flair for the political and the written word.
The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume One
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This monograph is the first of seven volumes on the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. This first volume aspires to include precise and concise annotations to Shelley’s selected works for this volume, in order to provide a coherent and comprehensible knowledge and understanding to the works of the Romantic poet. The authors of the first volume, make it clear in that, their attempt in annotating and deciphering Shelley’s works, they’re going to be explicit and unambiguous to the work by applying precision to the detail and to the components of Shelley’s poetry. What the authors hope to accomplish throughout the text is to provide readers with an accurate, genuine, and authentic look at Shelley’s poetry as well as to who the man was, what he stood for and what comprised this creator of beautiful and everlasting words.
Useful in Scholarly Research
I believe that these monographs would be useful to others doing research on Percy Bysshe Shelley in the mere fact that they provide a treasure trove of information of the author’s works, life and ideals. If a person is trying to find information in regards to Shelley’s life and personal beliefs, The Cambridge Companion to Shelley, would be an excellent source since it provides detailed information on Shelley’s political, philosophical and religious background. It also examines how the radical changes that were happening around the world and in England at this time not only affected Shelley on a personal level, but also how it affected his writing mode. Furthermore, it forms a link between Shelley’s life and beliefs with that of his works, and analyzes certain aspects of Shelley’s life with that of his writings. Now, if a person is trying to find information specifically in regards to Shelley’s poetical works then they should consider consulting The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley. This particular work provides the reader with substantial information, kind of like a mini-analysis of Shelley’s work. If a person is looking to expand and to broaden their knowledge of Shelley’s poetry than this particular book is an excellent selection. However distinct, both compositions are great compilations of knowledge about Shelley, as well as an excellent read for those who are just reading for the enjoyment of reading sublime and regal poetry.
Scholarly Articles:
The following articles are scholarly articles because they were found through UW-Rock County’s library database in JSTOR. Also, because not only do they entail the life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, but also because they promote learning and understanding on the subject matter, these articles not only represent someone’s ideas of what Percy Bysshe Shelley was, but the transmission of those ideas to others, and thus increasing the academic and broad knowledge of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his works.
"Nature's Silent Eloquence": Disembodied Organic Language in Shelley's Queen Mab
In the article by Monika Lee, the author’s main focus is an extensive and in-depth examination of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s memorable poem Queen Mab. Throughout the article the author makes comparisons between the current ideas and beliefs people have of the Romantics use of language and views of the world. Furthermore, the author also probes at the many different ways in which Shelley wrote the poem and the types of language he employed and how he implemented language in his poem. What the author does in her article is to attempt to explain how is it that Shelley was able to incorporate, as she puts it, organic language and conventional language into Queen Mab. She argues that the manner in which Shelley chose to exploit the language was not only an integral part of Queen Mab but also a crucial manifestation of Shelley’s political and philosophical views, that were expressed in many other of Shelley’s works.
The Lament and the Rhetoric of the Sublime
What Linda Austin strives to accomplish in her article about the sublime is to exactly find out what the sublime in combination with death meant to Shelley and other Romantic writers. However, she also emphasizes how the idea on the sublime and of ecstasy not only did they influence literature and music, but also other schools of thought such as philosophy and medicine. In her article she is determined to explain how the sublime played a pivotal role in the development of Romantic poetry such as Shelley’s A Lament (the piece of literature that she focuses throughout her piece) as well as Harris’s Epigram. In her article Austin, discusses how the rhetoric plays a substantial part in Shelley’s writing. For example, she argues that Shelley’s poem A Lament is a manifestation of the sublime and death. She points out how the idea of the sublime not only affected the writing of poets, but how its ideals spread throughout literature and were implemented in other fields such as medicine.
The Politics of Medusa: Shelley's Physiognomy of Revolution
In Judson’s article, the author seeks to explain how the metaphorical image of Medusa played a pivotal role not only in Shelley’s life but also in his literature. She discusses some of Shelley’s work that includes Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci. In her article Judson, tries to evoke the passion in which Shelley wrote those two pieces of literature. However, Judson lets the reader know that although the image of the gorgon Medusa was present in Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, the imagery of Medusa is more of the representation of Shelley’s political beliefs and ideals. Those two pieces of literature were Shelley’s way of saying ‘don’t judge a book, by its cover’ because no one ever knows what goes on behind closed doors (in the case of the Cenci’s). She argues that the image of Medusa was Shelley’s way of expressing a desire for a just society and the starting gun for political change through writing, which is the purest form of civil disobedience.
Websites:
For more extensive information on Percy Bysshe Shelley, I found the following websites to be of tremendous use, since they provide substantial information in regards to the poet.http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~djb/shelley/home.html
http://shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/home-page
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/shelley_percy_bysshe.shtml
Literary Works
Major works:
Short prose works
Essays
Collaborations with Mary Shelley
Drama:
Letters and Other Works, and Works Posthumously Released:
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Chronology of Life and Family:=
August 4th, 1792
-Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, near Horsham in West Sussex, into an aristocratic family, the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley and his wife Elizabeth Shelley.
1804 - Enrolls at Eton College, a boarding school for boys. It is well know that while he attended Eton he was bullied by his peers for his delicate countenance and capricious behavior.
1810 -Enrolls Oxford University College, it is well known that he didn’t attend class while at Oxford.
-While at Oxford instead of going to class, he instead wrote and published his first novel Zastrozzi.
-Also while at Oxford he published Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson with his school mate Thomas Jefferson Hogg.
1811 -Shelley was expelled from Oxford for publishing The Necessity Of Atheism, together with Thomas Jefferson Hogg
- Shelley and his father have a row due to the publication of The Necessity of Atheism. His father cuts off all economic support.
-This same year Shelley elopes with Harriet Westbrook to Scotland to get married.
1812 - Shelley visit Ireland and writes An Address, to the Irish People
- This same year Shelley writes Proposals for An Association of those Philanthropists
1813 -Shelley publishes his first and most celebrated poem, Queen Mab.
-Daughter Ianthe Shelley is born on June 23rd.
1814 - Shelley begins his association with William Godwin
-Meets and falls in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, while his wife Harriet is pregnant with son Charles.
-Shelley and Mary eloped to Europe, accompanied by Mary’s half-sister Claire Clairmont, lover of Lord Byron.
-Shelley writes an unfinished novella, The Assassins
-Shelley also writes A Refutation of Deism: in a Dialogue
-Shelley, a pregnant Mary and Claire, return to London. Mary and Shelley live apart due to the fact that Shelley went into hiding to avoid paying his debts.
-During his isolation writes Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude.
-Shelley’s second child by Harriet, a boy name Charles Shelley is born on November 30th.
1815 -Mary Shelley gives birth to Shelley and Mary’s first child on February 22nd, a premature daughter named Clara, who dies only two weeks after her birth.
1816 -Mary Shelley gives birth to second child by Shelley, a boy named William Shelley on January 24th.
-Shelley’s poem Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude; and Other Poems is published.
-Also this year Mary’s half-sister Fanny Imlay Godwin dies by an overdose.
-Also this same year Shelley’s first wife Harriet Westbrook commits suicide by drowning herself in the Serpentine River while pregnant with his third child.
-Weeks after Harriet’s death, Shelley and an pregnant Mary proceed to get married at St. Mildred's Church in London to secure the custody of his children with Harriet, but custody was denied due the fact that Shelley was an atheist.
-The Shelleys move to the village of Marlow in southeast England.
-This the year when Shelley meets and becomes friends with John Keats.
1817 -The Shelleys collaboration the journal History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland is published.
-Mary Shelley gives birth to their third child on May 14th, a daughter named Clara Everina.
-Shelley writes Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century a poem that due to the themes of incest only a few copies were published.
- Shelley also publishes A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote Throughout the Kingdom, under the pen name of The Hermit of Marlow.
1818 -The Shelleys make their move to Italy.
-Mary Shelley publishes her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
-Percy Shelley publishes The Revolt Of Islam and Ozymandias.
-On September 24th the Shelley’s daughter Clara Everina dies of dysentery.
-While in Naples, Shelley registers a daughter as Elena Adelaide Shelley, who dies soon after. It’s not known whether the baby girl was Shelley’s daughter with another woman or if he adopted her to please Mary who was suffering from depression.
1819 -During a brief stay in Rome the Shelley’s son William, dies of malaria on June 7th, while Mary is pregnant with their fourth child.
-Shelley publishes Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems
-The Shelleys move to Florence, where Mary Shelley gives birth to their last and only surviving offspring Percy Florence Shelley on November 12th, he was named after his father and the city in which he was born.
- Shelley writes The Masque of Anarchy and Men of England.
1820 - The Shelley’s moved to Pisa.
-Shelley publishes Prometheus Unbound. A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems as well as Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant. A Tragedy, In Two Acts.
1821 -Shelley publishes Epipsychidion.
-Shelley writes and publishes Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats after the death of his friend John Keats, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.
1822 -The Shelleys make the moved to the Bay of Lerici.
-Also the Hellas: A Lyrical Drama is published.
July 8th, 1822
-Percy Bysshe Shelley dies by drowning in the Gulf of Spezia while sailing to Leghorn to meet his friend Leigh Hunt. On his return trip to Lerici, his small schooner sank due to the bad weather, Shelley along with Edward Williams and Charles Vivien died that same night. When the bodies washed ashore in the presence of Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, they were burned on the spot, while Edward Trelawney took Shelley’s heart and later gave it to Mary Shelley, who has his body cremated and kept the heart until the day she died. (However, there’s a belief that there was foul play involve due to Shelley’s radical beliefs.)
1824 - Mary Shelley publishes Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley which were also edited by
her.
-However, Timothy Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley father, threatens to cut off all support to Mary Shelley and her son Percy Florence Shelley if she continues to publish and edit her late husband’s work. A poor Mary Shelley agrees.
1839 -With the approval of Timothy Shelley, Mary Shelley publishes The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Four volumes, edited by her, and later also publishes essays written by her husband.
Father: Timothy Shelley (Member of Parliament, b. 1753, d. 1844)
Mother: Elizabeth Pilfold
Wife: Harriet Westbrook (m. 18-Aug-1811, d. 9-Nov-1816 suicide)
Daughter: Ianthe Eliza Shlley (b. 1813, d. 1876)
Son: Charles Shelley (b. 30-Nov-1814, d. 1826)
Wife: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin a.k.a. Mary Shelley (m. 30-Dec-1816, until his death)
Daughter: Elizabeth Ianthe Shelley (b. 14-Jan-1816, d. 7-Jun-1818)
Son: William Shelley (b. 14-Jan-1816, d. 7-Jun-1818, with Mary)
Daughter: Clara Everina Shelley (b. 2-Sep-1817, d. 24-Sep-1817, with Mary)
Son: Percy Florence Shelley (Baronet, b. 12-Nov-1818, d. 6-Dec-1889, with Mary)
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Study Questions:=
Study Questions on Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude
What are the main themes that Shelley uses throughout the poem, and explain how they’re significant?
What role does the image of the mythical Alastor, played in the poem? How is it important?
What’s the significance of the visions, Alastor suffers throughout the poem?
What’s the importance of the supernatural in the poem?
What’s the role of the Arab maiden in the poem?
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Works Cited:=
Austin, Linda M. “ The Lament and The Rhetoric of the Sublime.” Nineteeth-Century Literature. Vole 53. No. 3 (1998): 279-306. Web. 09 May 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2903041>.
Hutchinson, Thomas. “The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelly Oxford Edition.” eBooks@Adelaide. University of Adelaide, 12 Jan 2011. Web. 10 May 2011. <http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/shelley/percy_bysshe/s54cp/> .
Judson Barbara. “The Politics of Medusa: Shelley’s Physiognomy of Revolution.” ELH. Vol 68. No.1 (2001). 01 May 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30031961>.
Lee, Monika H. “ Nature’s Silent Eloquence’: Disembodied Organic Language in Shelley’s Queen Mab.” Nineteeth-Century Literature. Vol 48. No. 2. (1993): 169-193. Web. 28 April 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2933889>.
Morton, Timothy. The Cambridge Companion to Shelley. 1st ed. 1 vol. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 1-10. Print
“Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Poets. Org from the Academy of American Poets. Academy of American poets, n.d. Web. 05 May 2011. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179>.
"Percy Bysshe Shelley." New World Encyclopedia, 10 Sep 2008. Web. 12 May 2011. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley?oldid=804008>.
"Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Advameg Inc, 10 Sep 2008. Web. 25 April 2011. <http://www.notablebiographies.com/Sc-St/Shelley-Percy.html>.
"Percy Bysshe Shelley." NNBD Tracking the Entire World. Soylent Communications, 2011. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.nndb.com/people/854/000024782/>.
Reiman, Donald H, and Neil Fraistat. The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1st ed. 1 vol. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 2000. 19-37. Print.
Rossetti, William Michel. "Percy Bysshe Shelley." 1902 Encyclopedia. Soylent Communications, 2005-2011. Web. 05 May 2011. <http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/S/SHE/percy-bysshe-shelley.html>.
“The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Bartleby.com Great Books Online. Bartleby Bookstore, n.d. Web. 29 April 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/139/>.
“Timeline.” About Percy Bysshe Shelley. Cyber Studios Inc., 2011. Web. 12 May 2011. <http://percybyssheshelley.classicuthors.net/>.