PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

BIOGRAPHY

• Lived 1792-1822

• Eldest child in his family and in line to inherit a

considerable estate and a seat in Parliament

• Had one younger brother and four sisters

• Family was very religious.

• In 1804 he began attending Eton College

• In 1810 he published Zastrozzi

• He later went to Oxford and was expelled in 1811

VALUES OF PERCY SHELLEY

• He had many unorthodox views and

ideas for his time

• He was an activist for: atheism, free love

and vegetarianism.

• He often would have his works printed in

limited quantities to avoid the backlash of

the general public.

ZASTROZZI

Verezzi attempted to rush through the open door, but Bernardo opposed himself to it. A long

and violent contest ensued, and Bernardo's superior strength was on the point of overcoming

Verezzi, when the latter, by a dexterous blow, precipitated him down the steep and narrow

staircase.

Not waiting to see the event of his victory, he rushed through the opposite door, and meeting

with no opposition, ran swiftly across the heath.

The moon, in tranquil majesty, hung high in air, and showed the immense extent of the plain

before him. He continued rapidly advancing, and the cottage was soon out of sight. He thought

that he heard 's voice in every gale. Turning round, he thought Zastrozzi's eye glanced

THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM

• Goal of the text:

• As a love of truth is the only motive which actuates the Author of this little tract, he earnestly

entreats that those of his readers who may discover any deficiency in his reasoning, or may

be in possession of proofs which his mind could never obtain, would offer them, together with

their objections to the Public, as briefly, as methodically, as plainly as he has taken the liberty

of doing

• Excerpts:

• the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God

• There Is No God. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The

hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken

QUEEN MAB

• Stanza 1:

How wonderful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!

One, pale as yonder waning moon

With lips of lurid blue;

The other, rosy as the morn

When throned on ocean's wave

It blushes o'er the world:

Yet both so passing wonderful!

• Stanza 5

Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!

Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;

Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,

And stop obedient to the reins of light:

These the Queen of spells drew in,

She spread a charm around the spot,

And leaning graceful from the etherial car,

Long did she gaze, and silently,

Upon the slumbering maid.

LAON AND CYTHNA

• Published in 1818

• Also known as Revolt of Islam

• The Revolution of the Golden City: a

Vision of the Nineteenth Century

• 12 cantos

• Centers around Laon and Cythna who

begin a revolution against tyrannical ruler

of Argolis.

LAON AND CYNTHA

Stanza 3

Hark! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps

Earth and the ocean. See! the lightnings yawn

Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps

Glitter and boil beneath: it rages on,

One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown,

Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by.

There is a pause — the sea-birds, that were gone

Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy

What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky.

• Stanza 16

There was a Woman, beautiful as morning,

Sitting beneath the rocks, upon the sand

Of the waste sea — fair as one flower adorning

An icy wilderness — each delicate hand

Lay crossed upon her bosom, and the band

Of her dark hair had fall'n, and so she sate

Looking upon the waves; on the bare strand

Upon the sea-mark a small boat did wait,

Fair as herself, like Love by Hope left desolate.

SHELLEY’S TAKE

• The Poem was produced by a series of thoughts which filled my mind with unbounded

and sustained enthusiasm. I felt the precariousness of my life, and I engaged in this

task, resolved to leave some record of myself. Much of what the volume contains was

written with the same feeling, as real, though not so prophetic, as the communications of

a dying man. I never presumed indeed to consider it anything approaching to faultless;

but when I consider contemporary productions of the same apparent pretensions, I own I

was filled with confidence. I felt that it was in many respects a genuine picture of my own

mind. I felt that the sentiments were true, not assumed. And in this have I long believed

that my power consists; in sympathy and that part of the imagination which relates to

sentiment and contemplation

MONT BLANC

• A tribute to Coleridge, Wordsworth, and

Byron.

• All discuss the awesome effect of the

Alps

• His relationship with nature is riddled with

skepticism

• The only meaning that can be drawn from

nature is from one’s imagination

MONT BLANC

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,

The still and solemn power of many sights,

And many sounds, and much of life and death.

In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,

In the lone glare of day, the snows descend

Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,

Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,

Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend

Silently there, and heap the snow with breath

Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home

The voiceless lightning in these solitudes

Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods

Over the snow. The secret Strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

• Written in 1818-1819

• Considered to be Percy’s masterpiece

• Prometheus is the ideal hero for Shelley

• He is rebellious for the good of the people

• He is a forethinker or prophet

• 4 Act lyrical drama.

• Preface:

• the imagery which I have employed will

be found ... to have been drawn from the

operations of the human mind

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Prometheus

Disdain! Ah no! I pity thee. What ruin

Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven!

How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,

Gape like a hell within! I speak in grief,

Not exultation, for I hate no more,

As then ere misery made me wise. The curse

Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains,

Whose many-voicèd Echoes, through the mist

Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell!

Lines 53-64

DEFENCE OF POETRY

• Written in 1820

• Was written in a response to The Four Ages of Poetry

• Which critiqued as being in a decline and at its lowest point in history.

• Shelley defines poetry as any art form that bring goodness and beauty into the world.

• He argues that poetry forwards the moral goodness and science discovery.

DEFENCE OF POETRY

• Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be “the expression of the imagination”:

and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of

external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing

wind over an Æolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But

there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which

acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an

internal adjustment of the sounds or motions thus excited to the impressions which

excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which

strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can

accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre.

OZYMANDIAS

• Published in 1818

• One of his most famous short poems.

• Sonnet

• Central theme is contrasting the

inevitable decline of all leaders and

empires with the lasting power of art.

• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/

guide/238972#poem

OZYMANDIAS

• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/238972#poem

LEGACY

• Most famous works:

• Zastrozzi (1810)

St. Irvyne (1811)

The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

An Address, to the Irish People (1812)

Queen Mab (1813)

Alastor (1814)

The Revolt of Islam (1818)

Ozymandias (1818)

The Masque of Anarchy (1819)

Men of England (1819)

Rosalind and Helen (1819)

Prometheus Unbound (1820)

Adonais (1821)

Epipsychidion (1821)

Hellas: A Lyrical Drama (1822)

• Percy Shelley drowned untimely in 1822

when he was only 29 on the coast of Italy.

• He was reluctant to publish many of his

poems, because he feared harsh

criticism.

• Difficult to know exactly how many poems

he wrote.

• There are 300+ poems

• 10+ essays

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/percy-bysshe-shelley

• http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/

• http://www.poemhunter.com/percy-bysshe-shelley/biography/

• http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179

• http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/shelley/devil/CPPBS.html#1.1

• http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?textsid=35869