Percy Bysshe Shelley Essay Research Paper PERCY

Percy Bysshe Shelley Essay, Research Paper

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1792 1822

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar, quoted Percy Bysshe Shelley in A Defence to Poetry. Of the poets from the English Romantic Period ( a period of love and admiration for the aesthetic portion of nature and the bond between nature and humanity ), Percy Bysshe Shelley ranked as one of the greatest. Although his life spanned but thirty years, he established himself through his works, and partly through his unique lifestyle, as both a great writer and poet. During his thirty years, he expressed himself as an atheist, satirist, radical, optimist, vegetarian, idealist, essayist, dramatist, translator, novelist, and a supporter of free love. Percy Bysshe Shelley possessed a desire for social and political reform and portrayed this in campaigns and writing pamphlets. He stressed for perfection of humanity and attempts at perfection and reason. He viewed man as good and society bad ( almost Marxist ) and thought it necessary to suppress institutions to make earth a paradise. His works included pamphlets, poetry, lyrics, and elegy.

The first of seven children, Shelley was born August 4, 1792 in Field Place, Sussex into an aristocratic family. His father, Timothy Shelley, was a prosperous country squire who became a baronet in 1815. Percy Bysshe Shelley attended, from 1802 to 1804, Syon Academy and Eton Academy. He then enrolled, in 1810, Oxford University where he was expelled a year later for publishing and neither claiming nor denying authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. Written along with friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg, The Necessity of Atheism challenged theological proofs for the existence of God (NCLC 304). During his year at Oxford however, Shelley began reading the works of William Godwin, which eventually led to the study of empiricists and modern skeptics. After his expulsion from Oxford, and disapproval from his father, Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook (bore two of his children, Ianthe and Charles), the sixteen year-old daughter of a London tavern owner. The two of them spent two years in England and Ireland where they spoke against political injustice and stressed social reform through distribution of pamphlets. While in Lynmouth in Devon, Shelley tried to set up a team of radicals but found out spies were watching him and consequently, moved to Wales. In 1813 in Ireland, while campaigning for political reform, Shelley privately published his first important poem, Queen Mab. This poem set forth a radical system of curing social ills by advocating the destruction of various established institutions (Horsham 1). During 1814, Shelley met his hero, William Godwin (1756 1836), author of Political Injustice, philosopher, anarchist, radical, and idealist, and immediately fell in love with his daughter Mary Wollstonecraft (1797 1851). Mary Wollstonecraft was the author of the famous Frankenstein (1818). Because of Shelley s love for Mary, his marriage with Harriet failed. Shelley and Mary then eloped to Switzerland along with Mary s sister Claire (Jane Clairemont). During their journey abroad, in 1814, Shelley wrote an unfinished novel titled The Assassins, which combined as a journal Six Weeks Tour reworked by Mary Shelley in 1817. Also during their journey abroad, the three kin experienced financial strains. Their financial problems, however, where extinguished in 1815, when Shelley inherited a large amount of money after the death of his grandfather. That same year, Harriet (Shelley s first wife) gave birth to his first son Charles (Shelley was living with Mary). In 1816, supposedly pregnant by another man, Harriet drowned herself in the Serpentine River. After hearing this, Shelley officially married Mary. That same year, Mary gave birth to Shelley s favorite son William, who would die a few years later in Rome. Shelley spent the summer of 1816 with Lord Byron at Lake Geneva. There, Lord Byron had an affair with Claire (Mary s sister), supposedly impregnating her. During his stay at Lake Geneva, Shelley composed, Lord Byron had an affair with Claire (Mary s sister), supposedly impregnating her. During his stay at Lake Geneva, Shelley composed Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and Mont Blanc. Mary, at the same time, began writing Frankenstein. Shelley also composed Alastor and The Spirit of Solitude in 1816. In 1817, Shelley wrote Laon and Cynthna, which was withdrawn because of it s controversial content, and republished a revised edition titled The Revolt of Islam in 1818. Also in 1817, Harriet s parents obtained a decree from the Lord Chancellor stating that Shelley was unfit to have custody of Charles (first son by Harriet). They convinced the court by citing Queen Mab where Shelley was in favor of free love and atheism and put down society. As a result, in 1818, Mary and Shelley left England for Italy.

During the Shelley s time in Italy, Mary gave birth to daughter Clara and son Percy Florence. Claire also gave birth to her daughter Allegra, who s father was Lord Byron (also resided in Italy). In Rome in 1819, two of Shelley s children, William and Clara (infant) died. Consequently, in 1820, the Shelley s moved from Rome to Pisa. Lord Byron and Shelley then gathered a circle of friends. In this group, Shelley was the peace-maker. Lord Byron was quoted as saying, everyone else knew that I was a bea