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    P. B. Shelley Introduction

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    Rafaqat Ali
    P.B. Shelley was a British Romantic poet born in 1792 who was expelled from Oxford for publishing an atheist work. Though he lived a brief life, he was a revolutionary who believed in an ideal world of love and brotherhood. His poetry expressed themes of political and social change through figures like the poet and nature. Some of his most famous works involved representing the poet as a Christ-like figure who spreads visions through their imagination. Shelley drowned in a storm in 1822 at the age of 29, with his death announced ironically in newspapers questioning whether he still doubted the existence of God.

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    P. B. Shelley Introduction

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    Rafaqat Ali
    581 views13 pages
    P.B. Shelley was a British Romantic poet born in 1792 who was expelled from Oxford for publishing an atheist work. Though he lived a brief life, he was a revolutionary who believed in an ideal world of love and brotherhood. His poetry expressed themes of political and social change through figures like the poet and nature. Some of his most famous works involved representing the poet as a Christ-like figure who spreads visions through their imagination. Shelley drowned in a storm in 1822 at the age of 29, with his death announced ironically in newspapers questioning whether he still doubted the existence of God.

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    7. P. B. Shelley Introduction

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    P.B. Shelley was a British Romantic poet born in 1792 who was expelled from Oxford for publishing an atheist work. Though he lived a brief life, he was a revolutionary who believed in an ideal world of love and brotherhood. His poetry expressed themes of political and social change through figures like the poet and nature. Some of his most famous works involved representing the poet as a Christ-like figure who spreads visions through their imagination. Shelley drowned in a storm in 1822 at the age of 29, with his death announced ironically in newspapers questioning whether he still doubted the existence of God.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    581 views13 pages

    P. B. Shelley Introduction

    Uploaded by

    Rafaqat Ali
    P.B. Shelley was a British Romantic poet born in 1792 who was expelled from Oxford for publishing an atheist work. Though he lived a brief life, he was a revolutionary who believed in an ideal world of love and brotherhood. His poetry expressed themes of political and social change through figures like the poet and nature. Some of his most famous works involved representing the poet as a Christ-like figure who spreads visions through their imagination. Shelley drowned in a storm in 1822 at the age of 29, with his death announced ironically in newspapers questioning whether he still doubted the existence of God.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 13

    P. B.

    Shelley
    Romantic & Victorian Poetry
    Ms. Zenab Jehangir
    Introduction
     The eldest son of a wealthy country squire, Shelley was
    born in 1792. From his childhood, he possessed a fierce
    independence of spirit and bitterly hated all forms of
    tyranny.
     At Eton, he read widely, including political theory and
    romantic tales.
     At Oxford, he and Thomas Hogg published The Necessity
    of Atheism and defiantly refused to answer questions
    about this work put to them by university authorities, so
    they were expelled.
     Though he lived a brief life, he had a stormy emotional
    history.
    Cont…
     He was a revolutionary and an idealist, a dedicated seeker
    of an ideal world where love and the brotherhood of man
    would prevail. His poetry expresses his spirit of rebellion.
    He used the objects of nature, which he worshiped, as
    images of his internal state.

     What makes Shelley a great poet is the sheer music and


    matchless spontaneity of his verse. His poetic world stirs
    up sensations which bring each reader to the mystery of
    life, the attempt to find something beyond the present
    and tangible.
    “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar
    objects be as if they were not familiar.”
    Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Shelley’s Writing Style
     The central thematic concerns of Shelley’s poetry are
    largely the same themes that defined Romanticism,
    especially among the younger English poets of Shelley’s
    era
     Beauty, the passions, nature, political liberty, creativity,
    and the sanctity of the imagination.
     Shelley passionately believed in the possibility of an ideal
    human world and his moments of despair almost always
    stem from his disappointment at seeing that ideal
    sacrificed to human weakness.
    Themes of Shelley’s poetry

     The Heroic, Visionary Role of the Poet


     The Power of the Human Mind
     Autumn
     Christ
     Idealism
     Revolution
    1. The Heroic, Visionary Role of the
    Poet
     In Shelley’s poetry, the figure of the poet (and, to some
    extent, the figure of Shelley himself) is not simply a
    talented entertainer or even a moralist but a grand, tragic,
    prophetic hero.
     He has the power to translate truths, through the use of
    his imagination, into poetry, but only a kind of poetry that
    the public can understand.
     A poet has the ability to change the world for the better
    and to bring about political, social, and spiritual change.
     Shelley’s poet is a near-divine savior, comparable to
    Prometheus, who stole divine fire and gave it to humans in
    Greek mythology, and to Christ.
    2. The Power of the Human Mind

     Shelley uses nature as his primary source of poetic


    inspiration. Shelley suggests that the natural world holds a
    sublime power over his imagination.
     The power of the human mind becomes equal to the
    power of nature, and the experience of beauty in the
    natural world becomes a kind of collaboration between
    the perceiver and the perceived.
    3. Autumn

     Shelley sets many of his poems in autumn. Fall is a time of


    beauty and death, and so it shows both the creative and
    destructive powers of nature. As a time of change,
    autumn is a fitting backdrop for Shelley’s vision of
    political and social revolution
    5. Christ

     In his poetry, he often represents the poet as a Christ-like


    figure and thus sets the poet up as a secular replacement
    for Christ.
     Martyred by society and conventional values, the Christ
    figure is resurrected by the power of nature and his own
    imagination and spreads his prophetic visions over the
    earth.
     For Shelley, Christ and Cain are both outcasts and rebels,
    like romantic poets and like himself.
    Shelley’s Death in 1822

     Drowned during storm at 29


     Possibly assassinated
     Body washed ashore
     Wife kept Shelley’s heart
     Shelley cremated on beach
     Ashes buried in Rome
    An Ironic Headline of A Newspaper
    on Death of P.B. Shelley
     A London paper took great delight in announcing Shelley’s
    death, writing: "Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry,
    has been drowned, now he knows whether there is a God
    or not.“
    Thank You

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