PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

1792–1822
 Percy Bysshe Shelly is a renowned English romantic
poet, who was born on August 4, 1792, and died on July
8, 1822, at a tender age of 29 by drowning in the sea off
Livorno, Tuscany.
PB SHELLEY’S MARRIAGE AND PERSONAL
LIFE

 Shelley first got married to a 16-year-old school girl

Harriet Westbrook and had a child, Lanthe Shelley. They
later got separated.
 He then fell in love with the utilitarian philosopher
William Godwin’s daughter Mary Godwin and went on a
tour of Europe with her.
 Shelley’s personal life was full of tragic events. His first
wife committed suicide in 1816, and in 1818 and 1819,
his young son and daughter both died in infancy.
 Percy Bysshe Shelley was a close friend of two great
romantic poets -- John Keats and Lord Byron.
 The young Shelley was educated at Syon House
Academy and then at Eton where he revolted against
physical and mental bullying by indulging in imaginative
escapism and literary pranks.
 His unhappy life in school institutions caused him to
withdraw into reading and made him even more single-
mindedly independent.
SHELLEY’S LITERARY JOURNEY
 Shelly got influence from William Godwine’s Political
Justice. He saw that all the established institutions. Ings
& Priests were diverse form of evil & obstacle to
happiness & progress.
 So he began to imagine the new world which would
come into existence when all these forms of error &
hatred disappeared.
SHELLEY’S LITERARY JOURNEY
 In his first long poem Queen Mob, which he wrote when
he was only 18, he condemns kings, govt, church,
marriage & Christianity.
SHELLEY’S LITERARY JOURNEY

 In 1810, Shelley went to University College, Oxford.

Shelley preferred reading his own selection of books. It
was at Oxford that he published his first poetry
compilation and novel Zastrozzi’ (1810).
 The next year, he wrote a pamphlet The Necessity of
Atheism.
 (A Poem in Twelve Cantos)

 In this pamphlet, Shelley questioned the existence of

God and the role of Christianity.
  It was originally published under the title Laon and
Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision
of the Nineteenth Century.
 The publishers, Charles and James Ollier, however,
refused to print the work because of its theme of incest
and its statements on religion. Only a few copies were
issued. They demanded changes to the text. Shelley
made alterations and revisions. The work was
republished in 1818 under the title The Revolt of Islam.
 Shelley also questioned the supremacy of the Church of
England as the religion of the UK. At the time, this
criticism of Church and God was considered
unacceptable. After refusing to reject the pamphlet,
Shelly was expelled from Oxford in March 1811.
 In Alastor (1816) in which he describehis pursuit of an
unattainable ideal of beauty.

 The Cenci, a poetic drama which deals with the terrible

story of Beatrice who, the victim of father’s lust , takes
his life in revenge.
 Adonais, the best known of Shelly’s poems, which is an
elegy dedicated to Keats & hold its place with Milton’s
Lycidas & Tenntsons In Memoriam as one of the three
greatest elegies in English Language.
 Shelly’s reputation as a poet lies mainly in his lyrical
power. Heis infact the great lyrical poet of England. In
all the above mentioned poems, it is their lyrical rapture
which is unique.
 As a poet of nature Shelly was inspired by yhr spirit of
love which was not limited to mankind but to every
living creature- to animals, to flowers & to the whole
universe.
 Plays: The Cenci (1819) Hella (1822)
 Fiction: Zastrozzi (1810) St. Irvyne (1811)

 Non-fiction The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

 Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things (1811)

 A Letter to Lord Ellen borough (1812)

 A Vindication of Natural Diet (1813)

 History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817)

 On Frankenstein (1832)

 A Philosophical View of Reform (1920)

 "A Defence of Poetry (published posthumously, 1840)

SHORT POEMS
 "The Devil's Walk" (1812)
 "Mutability" (1816)

 "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (1817)

 "Ozymandias" (1818)

 "Love's Philosophy" (1819)

 "Ode to the West Wind" (1820)

 "To a Skylark" (1820)

 "The Cloud" (1820)

 "One Word is Too Often Profaned" (1822)

 "Music, When Soft Voices Die" (1824)

 "A Dirge" (1824)

 "England in 1819" (1834)

LONG POEMS
 Queen Mab (1813)
 Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1816)

 Mont Blanc (1817)

 The Revolt of Islam (1818)

 Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1819)

 Prometheus Unbound (1820)

 Epipsychidion (1821)

 Adonaïs (1821)

 Julian and Maddalo (1824)

 The Witch of Atlas (1824)

 The Triumph of Life (1824)

 The Masque of Anarchy (1832)