Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 — 1822 Childhood

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 - 1822

Childhood and Adolescence • Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in 1792 in a village just outside of West Sussex. His parents were Timothy Shelley, a squire and member of Parliament, and Elizabeth Pilfold. • As the oldest of their seven children, Shelley left home at age of 10 to study at a school 10 miles west of central London. After two years, he enrolled at Eton College. • While there, he was severely bullied, both physical and mentally, by his classmates.

Eton College • While at Eton Shelley began writing poems, some of which were published in 1810 • When Shelley went up to University College, Oxford, in 1810 he was already a published and reviewed writer

• Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg co-authored a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism. The pamphlet centred upon “the nature of belief, ” a position Shelley derived from the skeptical philosophies of John Locke and David Hume 1711 - 1766 John Locke (1632 – 1704)

Oxford years • The Oxford authorities acted swiftly and decisively, expelling both Shelley and Hogg in March 1811. • The result was a complete break between Shelley and his father, which entailed financial distress for Shelley. Timothy Shelley (Percy’s father)

His women • Shelley’s parents were so exasperated by their son’s actions that they demanded he forsake his beliefs, including vegetarianism, political radicalism and sexual freedom. In August of 1811, Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook, a 16 -year-old woman his parents had explicitly forbidden him to see. • They eloped, but Shelley was soon Harriet Westbrook annoyed with her and became interested in a woman named Elizabeth Hitchener, a schoolteacher.

Harriet and Mary Although Shelley’s relationship with Harriet remained troubled, the young couple had two children together. Before their second child was born, Shelley abandoned his wife and immediately took up with another young woman, Mary Shelley. Mary was the daughter of William Godwin, an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist, and Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer, philosopher and a famous feminist William Godwin Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft

In Paris (about 1816) Rue de la Paix • Shelley and Mary fled to Paris. When they finally returned home, Mary was pregnant. So was Shelley’s wife, Harriet. • Harriet requested a divorce and sued Shelley for alimony and full custody of their children.

Friendship with Lord Byron • In 1816, Mary’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont, invited Shelley and Mary to join her on a trip to Switzerland. Claire had begun dating the Romantic poet Lord Byron and wished to show him off to her sister. • The three stayed in Switzerland all summer. Shelley rented a house on Lake Geneva very near Lord Bryon’s Villa Diodati and the two men became close friends. Villa Diodati, near Lake Geneva Lord Byron

Harriet’s Death and Shelley’s Second Marriage Serpentine River in Hyde Park, London • After their return to England, Shelley and Mary were faced with the disasters of two suicides: Fanny Imlay, Mary’s half sister, and Harriet, Shelley’s wife. Both women had been in love with Shelley. Harriet was found drowned in the Serpentine River in Hyde Park, London.

Shelley and Keats • In 1817 Percy and Mary moved to Marlow, a small village in Buckinghamshire. There, Shelley befriended John Keats and Leigh Hunt, both talented poets and writers. John Keats Leigh Hunt

Life in Italy • In 1818, for reasons of health and finances the Shelleys and their children set out for Italy. • During the four Italian years, Shelley and Mary moved from city to city. • The change of climate proved fruitful, for Shelley was to write some of his greatest poetry. Joseph Severn : “Posthumous Portrait of Shelley Writing Prometheus Unbound” (1845)

Tragic ending While in Italy, the couple lost two children Casa Magni, near Lerici In 1822 the Shelleys left Pisa in order to rent Casa Magni on the Bay of San Terenzo, near Lerici. Here Shelley and his friend Williams would be able to spend the summer sailing the Don Juan, their new boat, in the Gulf of Spezia.

Death • On 8 July, sailing back from Livorno to Lerici, a sudden storm overcame the boat. • Shelley’s and Williams’s bodies were discovered washed ashore on 18 July. • Italian quarantine laws required that bodies washed ashore be burned, so Shelley was cremated on the beach. The Funeral of Shelley by Louis Édouard Fournier (1889); pictured in the centre are, from left, Trelawny, Hunt and Byron. In fact, Hunt did not observe the cremation, and Byron left early.

Death Mary Shelley, as was the custom for women during the time, did not attend her husband’s funeral. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ashes were interred in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. More than a century later, he was memorialized in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. Mary Shelley’s tombstone in Rome Shelley’s Corner in Westminster Abbey

Ozymandias (P. B. Shelley)

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. ”

Text analysis • The poem is a sad meditation on power and memory and a protest against tyranny. • Ozymandias is the Greek name for the Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt (13 th century B. C. ) whose huge tomb had the shape of a sphinx. • The speaker states that he met a traveller who had been to “an antique land” (line 1). The traveller told him that he had seen a vast but ruined statue, where only the legs remained standing. The face was sunk in the sand, frowning and sneering. • The sculptor interpreted his subject well.

Text analysis • There was also a pedestal at the statue, where the traveller read that the statue was of “Ozymandias, King of Kings. ” (line 10) • Although the inscription in the pedestal reported the king’s declaration of power and stated that everyone should look out at the King’s works and thus despair at his greatness, the whole area was just covered with flat sand. All that was left was the wrecked statue.

Text analysis • The traveler describes the great work of the sculptor, who was able to capture the king’s “passions” (line 6) and give meaningful expression to the stone, an otherwise “lifeless thing” (line 7) • The “mocking hand” in line 8 is that of the sculptor, who had the artistic ability to “mock” (that is, both imitate and deride) the passions of the king. • The final five lines mock the inscription hammered into the pedestal of the statue. The idea was that he was too powerful for even the common king to relate to him; even a mighty king should despair at matching his power.

Text analysis • The statue and surrounding desert constitute a metaphor for invented power in the face of natural power. By Shelley’s time, nothing remains but “trunkless legs” (line 2) and a “shattered visage, ” (line 4) and surrounded with nothing but “level sands” that “stretch far away” (line 14). • Shelley thus points out human mortality and the fate of artificial things.

Text analysis • The lesson is important in Europe: France’s hegemony has ended, and England’s will end sooner or later. Everything about the king’s “exploits” is now gone, and all that remains of the dominating civilization are shattered “stones” alone in the desert. Note the use of alliteration to emphasize the point: “boundless and bare” (l. 13); “lone and level (l. 14). ”

Metric form • "Ozymandias" is a fourteen-line, iambic pentameter sonnet. It is not a traditional one, however. Although it is neither a Petrarchan sonnet nor a Shakespearean sonnet, the rhyming scheme and style resemble a Petrarchan sonnet more, particularly with its 8 -6 structure rather than 4 -4 -4 -2.

Keys aspects in Shelley’ s poetry • Liberty > In many poems, including Ozymandias, Shelley expressed his radical positions, which often seemed a call for a revolution • Platonic love > He lamented the transience of human affections and postulated a platonic world of ideal perfection.

Main Titles (from 1811 to 1821) • • • The Necessity of Atheism Queen Mab The Revolt of Islam Ode to the West Wind To a Skylark The Cenci Prometheus Unbound Adonais Epypsychidion Defence of Poetry pamphlet poem verse tragedy lyrical drama poem essay