1

Lecture Notes by Ananya Bose

Paper CC3
For Students of B.A English (Semester 2)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

Take this note as an outline or a guide to how a student may study about Shelley.

 P.B. Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets.

 He is counted among the finest lyric poets in the canon of English literature.
 A radical poet.
 A key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord
Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and his second wife, Mary Shelley,
the author of Frankenstein.
 Gather some biographical details on the poet and see if you can build an idea
about his temperament and influences.
 He wrote a pamphlet named The Necessity of Atheism which caused conflict with
the school authorities, leading him to get expelled from the university. His father
tried to intervene and negotiated a deal wherein he would be brought back to
school only if he disowned his arguments in the pamphlet. Shelley chose not to
budge and was finally expelled.
 A Brief Study of his Major works:
o Ozymandias
o Ode to the West Wind
o To a Skylark
o Music, when Soft Voices Die
o The Cloud
o The Masque of Anarchy
o The Cenci, A Tragedy, In Five Acts – a verse drama in five acts
o Shelley also composed some long, visionary poems that are idealistic,
utopian and imaginative. These are Queen Mab (later reworked as The
Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonais,
Prometheus Unbound, Hellas: A Lyrical Drama and The Triumph of
Life (unfinished).
o Zastrozzi – a Gothic novel (1810) where he once again expressed his
atheistic worldview.
o Queen Mab (1813) – Set in a utopian fairyland, with a protagonist
named after his daughter Ianthe, the poem is an allegory for Shelley’s
 2

political ideals. He believed that that society was capable of perfecting,

or at least, improving itself. Once again, the poet talks of atheism and
also stresses upon the importance of revolution.
o Epipsychidion – It is a poem celebrating Platonic love. Advocating the
concept of free love, Shelley writes:
“I was never attached to that great sect
Whose doctrine is that each one should select
Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion; though it is in the code
Of modern morals . . . “
o Shelley as a poet seems to have two recognizable moods – one, as a violent
reformer (as in poems like Queen Mab, The Revolt of Islam, Hellas and
The Witch of Atlas. These poems are often violent attacks against the
government, priests, and the institutions of marriage and religion.) and
two, as a forever sad and unsatisfied wanderer in pursuit of something
vague and beautiful (as can be seen in poems like Alastor and Adonais).
W.J. Long writes about Shelley:

“ . . . visionary, enthusiast, radical, anarchist, revolutionary . .

. sees a vision and straightaway begins to tear down all human
institutions, which have been built up by the slow toil of
centuries, simply because they seem to stand in the way of his
dream.”

o In The Revolt of Islam, Shelley mentions that he left school “to war
among mankind.” Byron calls Shelley, “The most gentle, the most
amiable, and the least worldly-minded person I ever met!”

o Prometheus Unbound (1818-20) – It is a lyrical drama where Shelley

develops the Greek myth in his own way. The hero, Prometheus
represents the just and noble mankind. Prometheus is chained and
tortured by Jove who ensured that an eagle ate his liver everyday as he
was bound to a rock. Jove here is a personification of human institutions.
In due time, Demogorgon (Shelley’s name for Necessity) overthrows the
tyrannous Jove and releases Prometheus. Shelley depicts Prometheus as
someone who is patient under torture and sees help and hope beyond his
suffering. In the Preface to this work, Shelley writes the purpose of this
poem :
“ . . . simply to familiarize the highly refined
imagination of the more select classes of
poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of
moral excellence; aware that until the mind
 3

can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and

endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct
are seeds cast upon the highway of life which
the unconscious passenger tramples into dust,
although they would bear the harvest of his
happiness. . . “

o The Masque of Anarchy – This poem is based on the massacre of Peterloo

(16 th August, 1819). It reflects Shelley’s political views, and is very severe
on Lord Castlereagh. Shelley writes:

“I met Murder on the way-

He had a mask like Castlereagh-
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him:”

o Adonais – It is a threnody/elegy on the death of John Keats. This poem

features a sense of the unreal, and summons several shadowy allegorical
figures like Sad Spring, Weeping Hours, Gloom, Splendors and
Destinies. All these figures are seen to be uniting in mourning the loss of
a loved one.
o Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude (1816) – This is a long poem in blank
verse about “a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led
forth by an imagination inflamed and purified by familiarity with all that
is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe.” The
poem is about a poet who pursues the most obscure part of nature in
search of ‘strange truths in undiscovered lands’, travelling to the
Caucasus Mountains, Persia, “Arabie”, Cashmire, and "the wild
Carmanian waste". The hero in the poem rejects an Arab maiden because
his pursuit is not for the ordinary, but for the ideal woman. He dreams of
a ‘veiled maid’ who opens to him the world of the supernatural. As the
man attempts to unite with the spirit, the darkness of the night swallows
the vision and leaves him stranded, destroying his link to the
supernatural. The desperate man ponders upon the possibility of death as
a means of reconciliation, but he is disappointed, shattered and dies an
untimely death.

o His lyrics – To a Skylark, The Cloud, O World! O Life! O Time!

 Characteristics of a Shelleyan hero: smart, well-educated, upper

class, wealthy, arrogant, highly ambitious, male, irresponsible, charismatic,
appreciates nature, cynical, a rebel against tyranny and a leader in the struggle
which is to usher in the ultimate happiness of mankind.
 4

 Major themes in Shelley’s poetry:

 The Power of Nature: Shelley wrote about both, the visible as well as the
invisible aspects of nature. Since he had the worldview of an atheist, he,
defending the godless universe, turned to the sheer power of nature and
the majestic world he lived in. Examples of poems that reflect, address
and praise the power of nature are Ode to the West Wind, Adonais,
Ozymandias and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.
 Atheism
 Oppression/ Injustice/ Tyranny/ Power: Shelley observed that the
majority was being ruled by a tyrannical minority and he tried to inspire
the oppressed or subjugated classes to speak up and rebel against
oppressive institutions. Some such poems that express this theme are,
The Masque of Anarchy, Song to the Men of England and England in
1819.
 Revolution/ Change/ Rebellion – Shelley was not satisfied with just
discussing the issues of tyranny. He urged his readers to act upon his
ideas and confront the oppressors. Two such poems where he encourages
change are Mutability and Mont Blanc.
 Shelley as a Romantic Poet:

 S.A. Brooke writes :

“Pursuit of the unknown, the invisible and the infinite,
impels all the romantic poetry of the world. It is out
of the hunger for the unknown, out of the desire not
for the limited happiness but for the illimitable in joy
and in loveliness, that Romanticism sprang into
being.”
From what you have read so far about Shelley, do you
see any relevance of the above remark in the context of his temperament
and poetry?
 Shelley was a poet who stood for revolutionary idealism, emancipation
and freedom. To him, freedom was the only way of growth and
development. Explore the themes of poems like Queen Mab, Hellas
(which sings of the victory of freedom), Prometheus Unbound (which
sings of the liberation of mankind) and The Revolt of Islam to understand
this point better.
 Shelley’s poetry had a prophetic note. Carlos Baker calls Shelley’s
poetry “the fabric of a vision”. Shelley’s vision was of a beautiful,
idealistic (almost utopian) world free of all kinds of shackles –
institutional, psychological or otherwise, and his poetry seems to reach
out to that regenerated world. In Prometheus Unbound, he sings of the
 5

victory of man over evil, and in Ode to the West Wind, he is optimistic
that a better, happier, refurbished world is sure to come, as he writes:
“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
 Shelley as a poet of nature: Shelley was not carried away just by the
external beauty of nature, therefore his depiction of nature is not just
sensuous. He saw nature as the embodiment of the ultimate power,
strength and beauty. Like Wordsworth, Shelley too believed that nature
is one spirit that works through all things. Shelley writes in Adonais:
“. . . the one Spirit’s plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world”
Shelley believed that this spirit is that of love which binds and thus brings
closer, all the objects of nature. This idea is expressed in his lyrical poem,
Love’s Philosophy. Read the poem (only two stanzas long) to learn how
the objects of nature are involved in a mixing, mingling affair as they are
ruled by a ‘law divine’.
Another remarkable aspect of Shelley’s nature poetry is that he seems to
identify himself with nature. His personality seems to be inspired fro m
and nurtured by the various aspects of nature. (Study his depiction of the
Skylark or the West Wind to understand this point.)
 Shelley’s lyric poetry finds no match in its emotional intensity, its sheer
poetic energy and power, subjectivity and music.
 Shelley’s Poetic Style: Romantic, reflective, energetic, passionate about
his subject, enchantingly musical and replete with imagery.

***