Assignment 3
This Blog is written as Part of the Assignments Given At the Department of English, MKBU
Name: Ghanshyam Katariya
Paper 103: Literature of the Romantics
Subject Code: 22394
Topic Name: P. B. Shelley As Revolutionary Poet
Batch: M.A. Sem-1 (2022-24)
Roll No: 8
Enrolment No: 4069206420220017
Email Address: gkatariya67@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
Introduction
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, near Horsham,
Sussex. The elder son of Timothy Shelley, a Member of Parliament representing
Shoreham, and Elizabeth Pilford.Shelley was educated at Sion House Academy in Isleworth (1802–04), Eton College (1804–10), and University College, Oxford (1810–11).
Lets see some important events of his life
In 1810, while still at Eton, he published his first novel, Zastrozzi, a gothic romance, followed in that same year by his first collection of verse, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, written with his sister Elizabeth and later withdrawn.
He entered Oxford University in October 1810 and befriended Thomas Jefferson Hogg. The two collaborated on the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson (1810)
another collaboration with Hogg, a pamphlet entitled ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ (1811), which led to their expulsion from Oxford.
In the summer of 1811, he married Harriet Westbrook after eloping with her to Edinburgh.
During the next several years, Shelley and his wife travelled throughout Great Britain. Shelley published many broadsides and pamphlets during this period, such as ‘An Address to the Irish People’ (1812), and also met William Godwin.
In 1813, Shelley published his first major poem, ‘Queen Mab’
In 1814, Harriet left him, and he went to France Percy Shelley (1792–1822) t with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (with whom he had been corresponding and periodically meeting for two years) and her step-sister Claire Clairmont.
Early in 1815, Shelley’s financial position improved after the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, from whose estate he received an annual income of £1000.
Toward the end of 1816, Shelley learned that Harriet, who was pregnant at the time, had drowned herself in the Serpentine, the lake in London’s Hyde Park.
Shortly afterward, he married Mary Godwin, who in 1817 gave birth to a daughter, Clara.
By 1818, Shelley had become troubled by creditors, ill health, and social disapproval. He and his family left England permanently and settled in Naples, Italy.
Travelling throughout Italy, he worked on a translation of ‘the Symposium’ and published ‘Rosalind and Helen' in 1819. In that same year, Shelley wrote ‘julian and Maddalo’, ‘Prometheus Unbound’, ‘the verse tragedy The Cenci’, “The Mask of Anarchy,” the satirical Peter Bell the Third, A Philosophical View of Reform, and the poems “Ode to the West Wind” and “Sonnet: England in 1819.”
After the deaths of both Clara in 1818 and William in 1819, and the birth in November 1819 of another son, Percy Florence, the Shelleys moved to Pisa in 1820. In that year, Shelley wrote “The Sensitive Plant,” “Ode to Liberty,” and “To a Sky-Lark.”
While in Pisa, Shelley met Emilia Viviani, with whom he became infatuated and who inspired him to write his autobiographical poem, ‘Epipsychidion’, published anonymously in 1821.
Also in that year, Shelley produced ‘A Defence of Poetry’, ‘Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats’, and ‘Hellas’, a verse drama based in the form of Aeschylus's ‘The Persians’. The following year, Shelley and Mary moved to San Terenzo with Edward and Jane Williams.
On July 12, 1822, on his way back from meeting Leigh Hunt at Leghorn, Shelley, along with Edward Williams, died when a storm suddenly overturned his boat in the Bay of Spezia.
Romanticism and Shelley
Shelley was an English Romantic poet and philosopher. His passionate search for personal love and social justice is shown in his poems – which are some of the greatest in the English language. Most of his poetry shows his personal beliefs:
Human love,
Human reason,
A belief that mankind is basically good and capable of getting better.
His lyric poems are superb in their beauty, grandeur, and mastery of language. As well as one of England’s most lyrical poets, he is also valued for his wit, his satirical works, and his ideas as a social and political thinker.
Shelley said “A poet is a nightingale, which sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own loneliness with sweet sounds. His listeners are hearing the melody of an unseen musician. They know they feel moved, and their hearts are softened – but they do not know what is causing this or why they feel that way.”
Shelley as Revolutionary Poet
The mood of his Poetry
The poetry of Shelley, like the man himself, divides itself into two distinct moods. In one he is the violent reformer, seeking the overthrow of conventional institutions and the establishment of universal happiness. From this mood comes many of his longer poems and lyrical dramas, “Queen Mab” (1813), “Revolt of Islam” (1818), “The Cenci” (1819) “The Masque of Anarchy”, “Hellas” (1812), and the most important of all, “Prometheus Unbound'' (1819). These poems are often violent attacks against governments, priests, marriage, religion, even God as the Church portrays Him. All these works indicate Shelley’s hope for a better world. In the second distinct mood, Shelley is forever searching, following a vague, beautiful vision, forever sad and forever unsatisfied, always pursuing an ideal, hoping for something better that is to come. He sees in Nature something inspiring and spiritual; flowers, trees, the sea, mountains and clouds are “real” and a part of the poet himself. This mood gives special meaning and beauty to his poems on nature. “Ode to the West Wind” (1819), “To a Skylark” (1820) and “The Cloud” are regarded as three of the most beautiful nature poems in the English language.
In all his writing, Shelley believes that he can pave the way for a better society. Even in his shorter pieces the social ideal is the central one. Shelley is one of the greatest English nature poets, but he is also one of the greatest political writers. For example, “Ode to the West Wind '' is, on the surface, a poem of nature, but in fact, it sings of the revolution that is to come. It prophesied the destruction of the old world and the coming of a new world.
Shelley as Revolutionary Poet
Revolution is a dominant spirit in almost all the romantic poets. Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Romantic poet, is also called a rebel for his idea of revolution in his poetry. As The French Revolution dominated all politics in those years, unlike Wordsworth or Coleridge, Shelley never abandoned the ideals of the revolution, though he was appalled by the dictatorship of Napoleon. Shelley only experienced the revolution second hand through the books of various writers and was influenced by Rousseau, William Godwin etc.
The French Revolution was one of the most influential events in the late 18th century. Though P.B Shelley did see the French revolution but he wasin$uenced because he was deeply influenced by William Godwin and Rousseau. He was rebellious in nature. He was a free thinker and struggled for the freedom, rights of people and free thinking. He was an individualist and idealist who rejected the institutions of family, church, marriage and the Christian faith and rebelled against all forms of tyranny.
‘Ode to The West Wind’
Shelley begins his poem by addressing the Wild West Wind. He quickly introduces the theme of death and compares the dead leaves to ghosts. The imagery of "Pestilence-stricken multitudes" makes the reader aware that Shelley is addressing more than a pile of leaves. His claustrophobic mood becomes evident when he talks of the wintry bed and The wind blows through the jungle and produces music out to the dead leaves. Shelley requests it to create music out of his heart and to inspire him to write great poetry, which may create a revolution in the hearts of men. He wants the Wind to scatter his revolutionary message in the world, just as it scatters cries and sparks from a burning fire. His thoughts may not be as fiery as they once were, but they still have the power to inspire men. He tells the Wind to take a message to the sleeping world, that if winter comes, spring cannot be far behind.
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
In the "Ode to The West Wind" Shelley is seen as a rebel and he wants revolution. He desires a social change and the West Wind is his symbol of change. This poem, written in iambic pentameter, begins with three stanzas describing the wind's effects upon earth, air and ocean. The last two stanzas are Shelley speaking directly to the wind, asking for its power, to lift him like a leaf, or a cloud and make him his companion in its wanderings. He asks the wind to take his thoughts and spread them all over the world so that the youth are awoken with his ideas.
“Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,”
“Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth.”
‘Ozymandias’
It begins with the famous line ‘I met a traveller from an antique land’ and goes on to relate how this speaker discovers the shattered remains of the statue of the great Egyptian pharaoh Ozymandias. It is significant to note that Napoleon Bonaparte had conducted an unsuccessful campaign in Egypt and Shelley may have this in mind as he explores the emptiness and vanity which lies behind autocratic rule. The statue of the pharaoh may have been destroyed and its parts dispersed throughout the desert but the plinth on which it stood remains. Shelley draws our attention to the inscription on the massive statue’s base:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
The irony is obvious: while Ozymandias intends to observe the great city built around his statue, it is clear that all that remains is sand and broken stone. With this in mind, it is possible to interpret the despair of tyrants at the inevitability of their downfall. Once again, Shelley takes a traditional form and invests it with a unique vision. The language is vivid, precise, and evocative; the narrative tendency is very strong and conveys Shelley’s ideas in a manner which appears immediate and accessible. Shelley is often – with some justification – criticised for being too abstract. This poem is a singular instance of the poet using concrete imagery and situations to convey his revolutionary message.
Shelley’s response to specific political events during his own lifetime is nowhere more evident than in his poem, The Mask of Anarchy. In 1819 the tensions in England had reached a crisis point. At a mass demonstration by working men and women in Manchester, troops were deployed to break up the crowd, many of whom were killed and injured. The events of that day have gone down in British history as the Peterloo Massacre. Shelley heard of the atrocity while in exile in Italy and immediately responded to it in verse. While he deliberately adopts a style and tone that would appear familiar and accessible to the working class audience he is aiming at, the poem progresses with the logic of a nightmare. Shelley frames the poem as a dream or vision, one in which he meets a succession of the major politicians of the day which he held culpable for the massacre. He indicts the ruling order of kings, priests and lawyers and suggests that the only way in which the masses can earn their freedom is by their own efforts. It is important to notice that Shelly does not at this point put forward any sort of armed uprising; rather, he encourages the downtrodden workers to:
"Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war”
This appeal to passive resistance is typical of Shelley. He understands that violence is not the answer as it will only elicit a violent response. By withholding their labour, the workers will render impossible the system by which they are held as prisoners. He sees the masses rising ‘like lions after slumber’ and taking responsibility for their own destiny. ‘Ye are many’, he concludes, while ‘they are few’.
Conclusion
Shelley is truly one of the greatest poets of English Literature and undoubtedly the best of all the Romantic poets.Shelley’s poetry has two different moods. In one he is the revolutionary reformer, wanting to change the old order and to find universal happiness. In the second he is a great Nature lover, almost merging himself in the beauty of the world around him, and the author of some poems that are regarded the most beautiful nature poems in English language.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold, editor. Percy Shelley. Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009.
Dupta, Ashish, and Lord Byron. “REVIEW ARTICLE.” International Journal of Current Research, 27 February 2016, https://www.journalcra.com/sites/default/files/issue-pdf/12519.pdf. Accessed 6 November 2022.
Raees, Muhammad. “Shelley as a revolutionary poet.” ResearchGate, August 2020, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343682326_Shelley_as_a_revolutionary_poet.
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