Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley and his education

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, "a superb
craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical
intellects ever to write a poem.". Shelley was the heir to rich estates acquired by his
grandfather, Bysshe Shelley. Timothy Shelley, the poet’s father, was a weak, conventional
man who was caught between an overbearing father and a rebellious son.
The young Shelley was educated at Syon House Academy (1802–04) and then at Eton
(1804–10)
Marriage
● First Marriage
In late December 1810, Shelley had met Harriet Westbrook, a pupil at the same boarding school as Shelley's
sisters. Harriet Westbrook's elder sister Eliza, to whom Harriet was very close, encouraged the young girl's
romance with Shelley. He left with the sixteen-year-old Harriet for Edinburgh on 25 August 1811, and they were
married there on the 28th. In March 1814, Shelley remarried Harriet in London to settle any doubts about the
legality of their Edinburgh wedding and secure the rights of their child. Nevertheless, the Shelleys lived apart for
most of the following months, and Shelley reflected bitterly on: "my rash & heartless union with Harriet".

● Second Marriage
Shelley married Mary Godwin on 30 December 1816, despite his philosophical objections to the institution. On 2
September Mary gave birth to a daughter, Clara Everina Shelley. Soon after, Shelley left for London with Claire,
which increased Mary's resentment towards her step-sister.
Italy
On 12 March 1818 the Shelleys and Claire left England to escape its "tyranny civil and religious". They moved to
Italy. At first to Venice and then to Rome. Settling Rome, Shelley continued Prometheus Unbound and outlined
The Cenci. He completed this drama during the summer of 1819 near Leghorn, where the Shelleys fled in June after
their other child, William Shelley (b. 1816), died from malaria. Shelley himself terms The Cenci “a sad reality,”
contrasting it with earlier “visions . . . of the beautiful and just.” In Prometheus Shelley inverts the plot of a lost
play by Aeschylus in a poetic masterpiece that combines supple blank verse with a variety of complex lyric
measures.
Works
Poetry, fiction and verse drama
● (1810) Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (collaboration with Elizabeth Shelley)
● (1813) Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem
● (1816) Mont Blanc
● (1817) Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (text)
● (1818) Ozymandias (text)
● (1819) The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts
● (1820) Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama, in Four Acts

Essays
● The Necessity of Atheism (with T. J. Hogg) (1811)
● Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things (1811)
● Declaration of Rights (1812)
● A Letter to Lord Ellenborough (1812)
● Speculations on Metaphysics (1814)