Percy Bysshe Shelley
(Born Four August 1792 – Died Eight July 1822)
Percy Bysshe Shelley is
one of the most popular English Romantic poets, a great writer, an unrivaled
lyricist, and perhaps the most advanced skeptical intellectual person to write
poetry in English language. His poetry reflects passion, emotion, imagination,
beauty, love, creativity, political liberty and nature. Being terribly sensitive and possessing distinctive
qualities of hope, love, joy and imagination, Shelley powerfully believed in
realization of human happiness. He was born on the fourth of August 1792 in
England. Shelly harbored extremely radical social, political opinions setting
him against the present social norms. Therefore, he failed to become well-liked
throughout his period. However, the poetry of Shelley gained higher recognition
following his death.
The message of
equality-friendship-independence of the French Revolution had a profound effect
on the youth of contemporary Europe. Showing hatred towards any social
injustice became the natural reaction of the people of that time. Shelley, who
had a childish rebellious mentality, was influenced by the communism of the
French Revolution from a young age. He became vocal against social injustice,
class discrimination, subjugation etc. through his poetry. Standing in a time
of despair, Shelley repeatedly told people the message of hope. Although the
influence of the age is evident in his writings, Shelley was the supporter of
social justice for the masses He
had sturdy feelings for the lower categories. He additionally saw however
animals were misunderstood and slaughtered. Therefore, he became a fighter and
advocate for all those living creatures abused or treated unjustly. Throughout
his life, most journals and publishers turned down his requests to publish his
work thanks to concern of being inactive for rebellious activities. As a social reformer, Shelley is
recognized as the "poet of hopes in despair" for his writings.
From an early age,
Shelley's temperament was characterized by fascination and restlessness. Mad
Shelley and Eton Atheist were awarded the title for this eccentric nature,
first at Syon House Academy
and later at Eton.
Her first poem ‘Queen Mab’
was published while still a student. He then composed one poem after another
and several poetic plays. Although he lived only 30 years, his poems and poetic
plays have immortalized him even today. In Shelley's next poem, ‘Alastair or the
Spirit of Solitude’, he speaks of an innocent young poet who is
lonely but immersed in worldly thoughts. Shelley's romantic thoughts are
expressed in this poem. ‘Alastair’ is a Greek word, meaning ‘ferocious monster’.
Shelley may have compared despair to a monster here. Shelley's other poem is The ‘Revolt of
Islam’. This is often one of the foremost disputable poems. In this poem,
he has created a three-dimensional story of unnatural-anti-social love,
philanthropy, and freedom of brothers and sisters.
During this time, Shelley
published two more poems, ‘Rosalind and Helen’ and ‘Julian and Maddalo’ In the
first of these two poems, Shelley Rosalin and Helen tell the story of two
widowed widows. And the second is allegorical
poetry. Julian is Shelley himself and Madolo is Byron, another European poet of the Romantic era.
Shelley wrote a famous
poem called ‘Epipsychidion’
in praise of love. This poem was written for an Italian woman named Emilia
Viviani. This Emilia became Shelley's heartthrob for a while. The word ‘Epipsychidion’
means 'union of souls'. The poem reveals many of Shelley's romantic thoughts.
It was during this time
that Shelley wrote a poem about his girlfriend, Jane Williams, entitled Jane: "The
Invitation" and "The
Recollection" Shelley's other two poems written at the time
were ‘The
Indian Serenade’ and ‘One Wood Is To open Profound’.
Another of Shelley's most
important works is ‘Adonais.’ Shelley wrote this poem on the untimely death of her friend
Keats. Greek Mythology (Adonais)
- Shelley is written by Adonais
in mythology, Adonais was
a favorite of Venus. Shelley Venus is replaced by Euronia. Keats
is imagined as Adonais by
Shelley according to the rules of pastoral elegy.
Adonais was a shepherd
and a wonderful flutist. He was a devotee of Euron
and very dear. But he died prematurely in the attack of cruel critics. Shelley
compares Keats' death to that. He died before he could finish his last poem The
Tree of Life.
In addition to these
poems, Shelley wrote several poetic plays and numerous lyric poems. The most
notable of Shelley's plays is ‘Prometheus Unbound.’
The material for this lyrical poem is taken by Shelley from the ancient Greek
playwright Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound.
Even after writing so,
Shelley's talent has developed the most in her lyric poems. Shelley seemed to
be able to express herself properly through lyric poetry. Shelley wrote
numerous lyric poems, most notably: 'Ozymandias’, ‘Near Naples','
To Night ',' Rarely Rarely ',' Comest Dow
',' Lines Return Among Eugenian Hill
',' To a Skylark ',' Ode to the West Wind ',' O Word and Life! O Time! ’,‘ The Cloud ’,‘ The Sensitive Planet ’and so on. In these lyric poems, Shelley speaks of despair as well as
hope. Perhaps this is why he is called: ‘The poets of hopes in despairs’.
Shelley composed a lot of essays on the subject of vegetarianism; two of the foremost common works among “On
the Vegetable System of Diet” and “A Vindication of Natural Diet”.
His short prose works embrace, “The Elysian Fields: A Lucianic Fragment”, “The bowl, A Fragment”
and “Una
Favola (A Fable)”. Shelley
has written his initial Romantic Gothic novel named, “Zastorri” in 1810 AD and a second romantic novel “St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian”
in 1811 A.
Uncompromising idealism and also the unconventional lifetime of Shelley combined together with his powerful unfavorable voice created him a disparaged and authoritative figure in his time period. He became a model for later generations of writers and poets that embrace Victorian poets and poets of the Pre-Raphaelite cluster just like the nice Lord Alfred Tennyson, Lord Byron, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Robert Browning, Dante Gabriel Dante Gabriel Rossetti, W. B Yeats, Edna Saint Vincent poetess and Henry David author. Shelley conjointly became a supply of inspiration for the poets of alternative languages. Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, Karl Marx, Russell, and the author conjointly got inspiration from him.
Shelley lived only thirty
years and did not practice poetry for very long. But this English poet of the
romantic era of Europe still gets a place of respect in world literature for
the various features of his poetry.
Characteristic of his poem is
Shelley himself was an
atheist. Naturally, atheism is mentioned again and again in his poems.
Shelley's atheism was the result of her innate romantic motivation.
He was first influenced
by Plato's philosophy and later by Adunian doctrine. But he also had his own
philosophy about life. Naturally, these three have influenced his poetry.
Like all other poets of
the Romantic era, Shelley was a philanthropist.
Shelley was optimistic enough about people's beautiful thoughts. But sadly,
Shelley could not tell how hope would come true.
Although he was a poet of
the Romantic era, he was different from the poets of that time. Shelley's
romance was a purely idealistic romance.
Poets of the Romantic era
were purely nature lovers and aestheticists. Shelley is a poet of the Romantic
era, so his writings have repeatedly spoken of love of nature and beauty.
He was a very emotional
person. So most of his poems are emotionally driven compositions. He often
failed to strike a balance between his feelings. That is why Shelley is
criticized for saying that the heart is more important than the brain in his
poems.
Whatever the criticism,
everyone acknowledges that Shelley was a talented poet. Many of his
contemporary European poets were influenced by him. He later influenced many
poets of world literature.