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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) - Coggle Diagram
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792-1822)
LIFE
born in Sussex in 1792
rebellious against his background (his father was a conservative Member of Parliament), he was expelled from Oxford University because of a pamphlet
At the age of 19 he married the 16-yo Harriet Westbrook and they had 2 children
In Ireland, he made revolutionary propaganda against Catholicism and English Rule
In a time of conservatism and nationalism after the French Revolution, he rebelled against religions, laws and customs becoming a REPUBLICAN, a vegetarian and an advocate of free love
he was interested in the occult sciences and in scientific experiments
Back in England, he separated from his wife and eloped with
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
, daughter of the radical philosopher William Godwin
In Switzerland, they met Byron and in 1816
Mary wrote her novel
Frankenstein
1818 he went in voluntary exile in Italy
WORKS
The Necessity of atheism
(1811)
he challenged the existence of God
Queen Mab
(1813)
poem about his philosophy of life
The Revolt of Islam
(1816)
epic revolutionary poem about how love could deliver men from any social claims
Ode to the West Wind
(1819)
To a Skylark
(1820)
The Cenci
(1819)
a verse tragedy
Prometheus unbound
(1820)
lyrical drama about intellectual rebellion, desire for spiritual liberty and evil overcome by love
Adonais
(1821)
elegy in honour of John Keats
A defence of poetry
(1821)
unfinished essay about the importance of poetry as
expression of imagination
that should be understood as
revolutionary creativity
capable of changing the reality
NATURE
a veil hiding the eternal truth of the divine spirit
a shelter from the injustice of the ordinary world
THE POET'S TASK
a
prophet and a titan
challenging the cosmos
Task: to help mankind to reach an ideal world where
love replaces tyranny
STYLE
wide range of metric and stanzaic forms
blank verse
Dante's
terza rima
the 1st and 3rd line of each stanza rhyme, while the 2nd line provides the rhyme for the following stanza
couplet
political ballad
elegy
short lyric poetry
TEXT
Ode to the West Wind
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being/
thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead/
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing...
The ode identifies Shelley with his heroic titan Prometheus. Shelley hopes that his fire (a liberal philosophy) will enlighten humanity and liberate it from moral imprisonment
The Ode describes the effect of west wind on nature, similar to the radical change that poets and poetry can bring to the world
images to foretell the change in nature and in the political climate.
The wind
preserves the seeds and destroys the dead leaves
has renovating effects in the sky and on the sea
is compared to the poetic voice of the author, who asks the wind to drive him as it does with leaves, clouds and waves to renovate the world
Last line: winter is followed by spring, a symbol of renewal