PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-

1822)

 (  /ˈpɜrsi ˈbɪʃ ˈʃɛli/ ) Was an English poet, considered by many to be among the greatest, and one of the most influential leaders of the romantic movement. Throughout his life, Shelley lived by a radically nonconformist moral code. His beliefs concerning love, marriage, revolution, and politics caused him to be considered a dangerous immoralist by some.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

He was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex,

He was the son of Timothy Shelley and his mother, a Sussex landowner, he was the eldest of the six children. . He received his early education at home, tutored by Reverend Evan Edwards .

He was educated at Eton College but On 10 April 1810, he matriculated at University College, Oxford. until his expulsion at the end of one year

With another student, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Shelley had written and circulated a pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism (1811), of which the university authorities disapproved. He had also published a pamphlet of burlesque verse, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson (1810).

Four months after being expelled, the 19-year-old Shelley married his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, and moved to the Lake District of England to study and write. Two years later, he published his first long serious work, Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem (1813). The poem was one result of Shelley's friendship with the British philosopher William Godwin.

expressing Godwin's freethinking Socialist philosophy. Another result of their friendship was Shelley's relationship with Godwin's daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1814, after separating from his wife, Shelley briefly toured Europe with Mary.

Returning to England, he produced the verse allegory Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1816), which anticipated his later important work. During another brief visit to the Continent in the summer of 1816, Shelley and Mary met the British poet Lord Byron. At this time, Shelley wrote two short poems, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and “Mont Blanc.” In December 1816, three weeks after the body of his wife, an apparent suicide, was recovered from a lake in a London park, Shelley and Mary were married.

In 1817, Shelley produced Laon and Cythna, a long narrative poem that tells a symbolic tale of revolution. It was later reissued as The Revolt of Islam (1818). At this time, he also wrote revolutionary political tracts signed “The Hermit of Marlow.” Then, early in 1818, he and his new wife left England for the last time.

During the remaining four years of his life, Shelley produced all his major works. Traveling and living in various Italian cities, the Shelleys were friendly with the British poet Leigh Hunt and his family as well as with Byron. Shortly before his 30th birthday, Shelley was drowned (July 8, 1822) in a storm while attempting to sail from Livorno to Le Spezia, Italy. Ten days later, his body was washed ashore.

On 8 July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, Shelley drowned in a sudden storm while sailing back from Livorno to Lerici

death

Famous Works

He is most famous for such classic anthology verse works as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masqueof Anarchy, which are “To a Skylark” (1820), “To the West Wind” (1819), and “The Cloud” (1820). Also greatly admired are the shorter love lyrics, including “I arise from dreams of thee” and “To Constantia singing”; the sonnet “Ozymandias” (1818); and “Adonais” (1821).

Percy Bysshe Shelley completed the poem "To a Skylark" in late June, 1820, and forwarded it to London to be included among the verse accompanying Prometheus Unbound published by Charles and James Collier in London.

It was inspired by an evening walk in the country near Livorno, Italy, with Mary Shelley, and describes the appearance and song of a skylark they come upon. Mary Shelley described the event that inspired Shelley to write "To a Skylark": "In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn. ... It was on a beautiful summer evening while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark.

." The poem uses a unique five line stanza with a three beat line except for the fifth line, which doubles the number beats of the other lines, and it has a rhyme scheme that is consistently 'ababb.'

 

One of percy poem’s is “To The Skylark”

A skylark is addressed by the poet, who calls it a "blithe Spirit" rather than a bird, because its song emanates from Heaven.

analysis

The poet stated that no one knows what the skylark is, for it is unique: even "rainbow clouds" do not rain as brightly as the shower of melody that pours from the skylark. The bird is "like a poet hidden / In the light of thought", able to make the world experience "sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not".

Whig- supporter of Revolution against British.Hail- to praise or approve a person, action, or

accomplishment with.Profuse- expressed at length, many times, and

in many words.Blithe- cheerful and carefree.Bare- not covered by clothing. Dew- moisture from the air that has condensed

as tiny drops on outdoor objects and surfaces.

Hue-a color or shade of a color.

vocabulary

Vernal- appearing or happening in the season of spring.

Vaunt-to boast or act boastfully about something such as achievements or possessions.

Scorn- strong feeling of contemptSatiety- a state in which somebody has

had enough or too much.Fraught- full of or accompanied by

problems, dangers, or difficulties.