Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography, work || English Romantic poet & philosopher
Introduction:-
The poet's life
Percy Bysshe Shelley was won at field place, warnham, near Horsham ,in Sussex, on August 4, 1792. His father was Timothy Shelly.
At twelve, Shelley was admitted to Eton, the most famous of England public school. He was, as one of his school fellows describes him, a boy of studios and meditative habits, averse to all games and sports, and a great reader of novels and romances. At school he was interested in Chemistry by other Physical sciences, in which pursuits he was encouraged by Dr. Lind. However, he showed a literary bent and wrote two romantic novels besides a romantic poem called 'The wandering Jew'.
After he went up to Oxford in the autumn of 1810, his life become an adventurous one. He was expelled from Oxford for writing a pamphlet and entitled. "The Necessity of Atheism" in March 1811. Within six months of his is expulsion from Oxford he developed a romantic attachment for a girl called Harriet Westbrook. They were soon married at Gretna Green. Harriet was an extremely beautiful girl, pleasant in manners and amiable and disposition, and things went on well for a while. Shelley and his young bride lived successively at Edinburgh, York and Keswick . At the latter place he made acquaintance of Southey.
In February 1811, Shelley I moved to Ireland with a view to redressing the wrongs of that country. But he found the Roman catholic leaders intractable to his views, and he returned to Great Britain in April, and busied himself with circulating incendiary addresses, and with raising money to save and an embankment. His philanthropic activities, however, produced no appreciable results.
A daughter was born to the Shelley in June 1813, and she was named lanthe. In the same year Shelly met Godwin, the writer of 'Political Justice'. He become attached to the latter's daughter, Mary Godwin as soon as he saw her. In Mary he found and intellectual companion which Harriet could never hope to be. They eloped and went over to the continent poor Harriet being left to her fate. The unfortunate girl was driven to despair and finally committed suicided. Shelley and Mary were married in the early part of 1816.
In March 1818, Shelley and Mary left England again and chose Italy for their home. His stay in Italy was the most productive period of his career. His best lyrics and plays, Prometheus Unbound, Cenci, etc were composed under the inspiration of the Italian climate, scenery and art. After spending the spring of 1818 at Como and Milan and the summer at the Baths of Lucca, he proceeded in the autumn to Venice, where he stayed at Byron's villa. In November he set out for Rome passing through many other places of interest. On the death of his little boy William in 1819, Shelley shifted his residence to Florence, and spent the last three years of his life at Pisa and at Casa Marni on the Bay of Spezzia. The open sea, a wild romantic shore, a swift boat the company of a simple uncivilized people, music, moonlight, Spanish drama made life a heaven for him. But this blessed life of peace and tranquility soom came to our tragic end. In June 1822, Shelley heard of the arrival of Leigh Hunt at Leghorn. Shelley and Williams were drowned in the Gulf of Spezzia in a sudden storm on July 8, 1822. Thus, only at the age of thirty, Shelley's promising career came to abrupt end.
Shelley's Works
The earliest of Shelley's important work was Queen Mab which come out in 1813. This was followed by Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude in 1816, The Revolt of Islam in 1817 and Rosalind and Helen in 1818. His next venture was a more ambitious sort of tragedy, called the Cenci 1819 and then come the best of his creations, lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound. In 1821, he wrote Epipsychidion and Adonais, an elegy on the death of Keats. His only important prose- writing A Defence of Poetry had been published in 1821.
But Shelley's poetic fame really rests on his wonderful short lyrics. Some of the most well- known of these are Sensitive Plant, Ode to the West Wind, The Cloud, To a Skylark, stanzas written in Dejection and Ine word is too often profaned.
Nature in Shelley poetry
Like all major romantic poets Shelley was a great lover of Nature. In the early stage of his poetic career Shelley tried to commune with nature and equal terms. But he soon realised that nature was in finally more important than human beings is the shifted from himself to nature. Thus in 'The cloud' the cloud is independent of human contacts; it has its transcendent serenities and it holds some secret of everlasting life. Similarly the Skylark created by Shelley seems to possess an insight and rapture denied to men. Nature, therefore is greater than man. She commands wider spaces and her vitality is much less affected by March of time
Shelley has expressed his attitude to nature many of his lyrics. I these short poems his impassioned treatment of Nature varies according to his moods. Sometimes he has seen Nature as one indivisible, spiritual being who remains essentially the same thought all her forms; while at other times he has looked on Nature, not as one being, but as many beings, in which every natural object or phenomenon has its own life, and acts and thinks and plays like a man or a child. In such a mood Shelley seems Nature as the men of the mythical times saw her.
Another characteristics feature of Shelley attitude to Nature is his preference for the dynamic objects and phenomenon. Unlike Wordsworth he is not much interested in the quiet repose of mountains, valleys, flowers of the field or the trees of the forest. Rather he feels a passion and fascination for the violent and wavy sea, the raging storm, the ever flitting clouds. It is the changing, moving, shifting and transforming objects of Nature that absolutely absorbed his mind.
0 Comments