175- ] English Literature
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy
Bysshe Shelley (/bɪʃ/ ⓘ BISH; born Aug. 4, 1792, Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex,
Eng.—died July 8, 1822, at sea off Livorno, Tuscany [Italy]) was a British
writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets , whose
passionate search for personal love and social justice was gradually channeled
from overt actions into poems that rank with the greatest in the English
language . A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social
views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his
achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an
important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert
Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American
literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric
poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects
ever to write a poem."
Shelley's
reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but in recent decades he has
achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic
imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of
sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work.[6][7] Among his
best-known works are "Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West
Wind" (1819), "To a Skylark" (1820), "Adonais" (1821),
the philosophical essay "The Necessity of Atheism" (1811), which his
friend T. J. Hogg may have co-authored, and the political ballad "The Mask
of Anarchy" (1819). His other major works include the verse drama The
Cenci (1819) and long poems such as Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1815),
Julian and Maddalo (1819), Adonais (1821), Prometheus Unbound (1820)—widely
considered his masterpiece—Hellas (1822), and his final, unfinished work, The
Triumph of Life (1822).
Shelley
also wrote prose fiction and a quantity of essays on political, social, and
philosophical issues. Much of this poetry and prose was not published in his
lifetime, or only published in expurgated form, due to the risk of prosecution
for political and religious libel. From the 1820s, his poems and political and
ethical writings became popular in Owenist, Chartist, and radical political
circles, and later drew admirers as diverse as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, and
George Bernard Shaw.
Shelley's
life was marked by family crises, ill health, and a backlash against his
atheism, political views, and defiance of social conventions. He went into
permanent self-exile in Italy in 1818 and over the next four years produced
what Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill call "some of the finest poetry of
the Romantic period". His second wife, Mary Shelley, was the author of
Frankenstein. He died in a boating accident in 1822 at age 29.
Life
Early life and education
Shelley
was born on 4 August 1792 at Field Place, Warnham, West Sussex, England . He
was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley (1753–1844), a Whig Member of Parliament
for Horsham from 1790 to 1792 and for Shoreham between 1806 and 1812, and his
wife, Elizabeth Pilfold (1763–1846), the daughter of a successful butcher. He
had four younger sisters and one much younger brother.
Shelley
was the heir to rich estates acquired by his grandfather, Bysshe (pronounced
“Bish”) 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), where he resisted physical and mental bullying by indulging in
imaginative escapism and literary pranks.
Shelley's
early childhood was sheltered and mostly happy. He was particularly close to
his sisters and his mother, who encouraged him to hunt, fish and ride. At age
six, he was sent to a day school run by the vicar of Warnham church, where he
displayed an impressive memory and gift for languages.
In
1802 he entered the Syon House Academy of Brentford, Middlesex, where his
cousin Thomas Medwin was a pupil. Shelley was bullied and unhappy at the school
and sometimes responded with violent rage. He also began suffering from the
nightmares, hallucinations and sleep walking that were to periodically affect
him throughout his life. Shelley developed an interest in science which
supplemented his voracious reading of tales of mystery, romance and the
supernatural. During his holidays at Field Place, his sisters were often
terrified at being subjected to his experiments with gunpowder, acids and
electricity. Back at school he blew up a paling fence with gunpowder.
In
1804, Shelley entered Eton College, a period which he later recalled with
loathing. He was subjected to particularly severe mob bullying which the
perpetrators called "Shelley-baits". A number of biographers and
contemporaries have attributed the bullying to Shelley's aloofness,
nonconformity and refusal to take part in fagging. His peculiarities and
violent rages earned him the nickname "Mad Shelley". His interest in
the occult and science continued, and contemporaries describe him giving an
electric shock to a master, blowing up a tree stump with gunpowder and
attempting to raise spirits with occult rituals. In his senior years, Shelley
came under the influence of a part-time teacher, Dr James Lind, who encouraged
his interest in the occult and introduced him to liberal and radical authors.
Shelley also developed an interest in Plato and idealist philosophy which he
pursued in later years through self-study. According to Richard Holmes,
Shelley, by his leaving year, had gained a reputation as a classical scholar
and a tolerated eccentric. Between the spring of 1810 and that of 1811, he
published two Gothic novels and two volumes of juvenile verse. In the fall of
1810 Shelley entered University College, Oxford, where he enlisted his fellow
student Thomas Jefferson Hogg as a disciple. But in March 1811, University
College expelled both Shelley and Hogg for refusing to admit Shelley’s
authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. Hogg submitted to his family, but
Shelley refused to apologize.
In
his last term at Eton, his first novel Zastrozzi appeared and he had
established a following among his fellow pupils. Prior to enrolling for
University College, Oxford, in October 1810, Shelley completed Original Poetry
by Victor and Cazire (written with his sister Elizabeth), the verse melodrama
The Wandering Jew and the gothic novel St. Irvine; or, The Rosicrucian: A
Romance (published 1811).
At
Oxford Shelley attended few lectures, instead spending long hours reading and
conducting scientific experiments in the laboratory he set up in his room. He
met a fellow student, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who became his closest friend.
Shelley became increasingly politicised under Hogg's influence, developing
strong radical and anti-Christian views. Such views were dangerous in the
reactionary political climate prevailing during Britain's war with Napoleonic
France, and Shelley's father warned him against Hogg's influence.
In
the winter of 1810–1811, Shelley published a series of anonymous political
poems and tracts: Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, The Necessity of
Atheism (written in collaboration with Hogg) and A Poetical Essay on the
Existing State of Things. Shelley mailed The Necessity of Atheism to all the
bishops and heads of colleges at Oxford, and he was called to appear before the
college's fellows, including the Dean, George Rowley. His refusal to answer
questions put by college authorities regarding whether or not he authored the
pamphlet resulted in his expulsion from Oxford on 25 March 1811, along with
Hogg. Hearing of his son's expulsion, Shelley's father threatened to cut all
contact with Shelley unless he agreed to return home and study under tutors
appointed by him. Shelley's refusal to do so led to a falling-out with his
father.
Marriage
to Harriet Westbrook
In
late December 1810, Shelley had met Harriet Westbrook, a pupil at the same
boarding school as Shelley's sisters. They corresponded frequently that winter
and also after Shelley had been expelled from Oxford. Shelley expounded his
radical ideas on politics, religion and marriage to Harriet, and they gradually
convinced each other that she was oppressed by her father and at school.
Shelley's infatuation with Harriet developed in the months following his
expulsion, when he was under severe emotional strain due to the conflict with
his family, his bitterness over the breakdown of his romance with his cousin
Harriet Grove, and his unfounded belief that he might have a fatal illness. At
the same time, Harriet Westbrook's elder sister Eliza, to whom Harriet was very
close, encouraged the young girl's romance with Shelley. Shelley's
correspondence with Harriet intensified in July, while he was holidaying in
Wales, and in response to her urgent pleas for his protection, he returned to
London in early August.
Late
in August 1811, Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook, the younger daughter of
a London tavern owner; by marrying her. Putting aside his philosophical
objections to matrimony, he left with the sixteen-year-old Harriet for
Edinburgh on 25 August 1811, and they were married there on the 28th.He
betrayed the acquisitive plans of his grandfather and father, who tried to
starve him into submission but only drove the strong-willed youth to rebel
against the established order. Early in 1812, Shelley, Harriet, and her older
sister Eliza Westbrook went to Dublin, where Shelley circulated pamphlets
advocating political rights for Roman Catholics, autonomy for Ireland, and
freethinking ideals. The couple traveled to Lynmouth, Devon, where Shelley
issued more political pamphlets, and then to North Wales, where they spent
almost six months in 1812–13.
Hearing
of the elopement, Harriet's father, John Westbrook, and Shelley's father,
Timothy, cut off the allowances of the bride and groom. (Shelley's father
believed his son had married beneath him, as Harriet's father had earned his
fortune in trade and was the owner of a tavern and coffee house.)
Surviving
on borrowed money, Shelley and Harriet stayed in Edinburgh for a month, with
Hogg living under the same roof. The trio left for York in October, and Shelley
went on to Sussex to settle matters with his father, leaving Harriet behind
with Hogg. Shelley returned from his unsuccessful excursion to find that Eliza
had moved in with Harriet and Hogg. Harriet confessed that Hogg had tried to
seduce her while Shelley had been away. Shelley, Harriet and Eliza soon left
for Keswick in the Lake District, leaving Hogg in York. In June 1813 Harriet Shelley gave birth to their daughter
Ianthe, but a year later Shelley fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,
daughter of William Godwin and his first wife, née Mary Wollstonecraft. Against
Godwin’s objections, Shelley and Mary Godwin eloped to France on July 27, 1814,
taking with them Mary’s stepsister Jane (later “Claire”) Clairmont. Following
travels through France, Switzerland, and Germany, they returned to London,
where they were shunned by the Godwins and most other friends. Shelley dodged
creditors until the birth of his son Charles (born to Harriet, November 30,
1814), his grandfather’s death (January 1815), and provisions of Sir Bysshe’s
will forced Sir Timothy to pay Shelley’s debts and grant him an annual income.
At
this time Shelley was also involved in an intense platonic relationship with
Elizabeth Hitchener, a 28-year-old unmarried schoolteacher of advanced views,
with whom he had been corresponding. Hitchener, whom Shelley called the
"sister of my soul" and "my second self", became his
confidante and intellectual companion as he developed his views on politics,
religion, ethics and personal relationships. Shelley proposed that she join him, Harriet
and Eliza in a communal household where all property would be shared.
The
Shelleys and Eliza spent December and January in Keswick where Shelley visited
Robert Southey whose poetry he admired. Southey was taken with Shelley, even
though there was a wide gulf between them politically, and predicted great
things for him as a poet. Southey also informed Shelley that William Godwin,
author of Political Justice, which had greatly influenced him in his youth, and
which Shelley also admired, was still alive. Shelley wrote to Godwin, offering
himself as his devoted disciple. Godwin, who had modified many of his earlier
radical views, advised Shelley to reconcile with his father, become a scholar
before he published anything else, and give up his avowed plans for political
agitation in Ireland.
Meanwhile,
Shelley had met his father's patron, Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, who
helped secure the reinstatement of Shelley's allowance. With Harriet's
allowance also restored, Shelley now had the funds for his Irish venture. Their
departure for Ireland was precipitated by increasing hostility towards the
Shelley household from their landlord and neighbours who were alarmed by
Shelley's scientific experiments, pistol shooting and radical political views.
As tension mounted, Shelley claimed he had been attacked in his home by
ruffians, an event which might have been real or a delusional episode triggered
by stress. This was the first of a series of episodes in subsequent years where
Shelley claimed to have been attacked by strangers during periods of personal
crisis.
Early
in 1812, Shelley wrote, published and personally distributed in Dublin three
political tracts: An Address, to the Irish People; Proposals for an Association
of Philanthropists; and Declaration of Rights. He also delivered a speech at a
meeting of O'Connell's Catholic Committee in which he called for Catholic
emancipation, repeal of the Acts of Union and an end to the oppression of the
Irish poor. Reports of Shelley's subversive activities were sent to the Home
Secretary.
Returning
from Ireland, the Shelley household travelled to Wales, then Devon, where they
again came under government surveillance for distributing subversive
literature. Elizabeth Hitchener joined the household in Devon, but several
months later had a falling out with the Shelleys and left.
The
Shelley household had settled in Tremadog, Wales, in September 1812, where
Shelley worked on Queen Mab, a utopian allegory with extensive notes preaching
atheism, free love, republicanism and vegetarianism. The poem was published the
following year in a private edition of 250 copies, although few were initially
distributed because of the risk of prosecution for seditious and religious
libel.
In
February 1813, Shelley claimed he was attacked in his home at night. The
incident might have been real, a hallucination brought on by stress, or a hoax
staged by Shelley in order to escape government surveillance, creditors and his
entanglements in local politics. The Shelleys and Eliza fled to Ireland, then
London.
Back
in England, Shelley's debts mounted as he tried unsuccessfully to reach a
financial settlement with his father. On 23 June Harriet gave birth to a girl,
Eliza Ianthe Shelley (known as Ianthe), and in the following months the
relationship between Shelley and his wife deteriorated. Shelley resented the
influence Harriet's sister had over her while Harriet was alienated from
Shelley by his close friendship with an attractive widow, Mrs. Harriet de
Boinville. Mrs. Boinville had married a French revolutionary émigré and hosted
a salon where Shelley was able to discuss politics, philosophy and
vegetarianism. Mrs. Boinville became a confidante of Shelley during his marital
crisis. During a breakdown, Shelley moved into Mrs. Boinville’s home outside
London. In February and March 1814, he became infatuated with her married
daughter, Cornelia Turner, age eighteen, and wrote erotic poetry about her in
his notebook.
Following
Ianthe's birth, the Shelleys moved frequently across London, Wales, the Lake
District, Scotland and Berkshire to escape creditors and search for a home. 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".
Elopement
with Mary Godwin
In
May 1814, Shelley began visiting his mentor Godwin almost daily, and soon fell
in love with Mary, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Godwin and the late
feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley and Mary declared their love for
each other during a visit to her mother's grave in the churchyard of St Pancras
Old Church on 26 June. When Shelley told Godwin that he intended to leave
Harriet and live with Mary, his mentor banished him from the house and forbade
Mary from seeing him. Shelley and Mary eloped to Europe on 28 July, taking
Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont with them. Before leaving, Shelley had
secured a loan of £3,000 but had left most of the funds at the disposal of
Godwin and Harriet, who was again pregnant. The financial arrangement with
Godwin led to rumours that he had sold his daughters to Shelley.
Shelley,
Mary and Claire made their way across war-ravaged France where Shelley wrote to
Harriet, asking her to meet them in Switzerland with the money he had left for
her. Hearing nothing from Harriet in Switzerland, and unable to secure
sufficient funds or suitable accommodation, the three travelled to Germany and
Holland before returning to England on 13 September.
Shelley
spent the next few months trying to raise loans and avoid bailiffs. Mary was
pregnant, lonely, depressed and ill. Her mood was not improved when she heard
that, on 30 November, Harriet had given birth to Charles Bysshe Shelley, heir
to the Shelley fortune and baronetcy. This was followed, in early January 1815,
by news that Shelley's grandfather, Sir Bysshe, had died leaving an estate
worth £220,000. The settlement of the estate, and a financial settlement
between Shelley and his father (now Sir Timothy), however, was not concluded
until April the following year.
In
February 1815, Mary gave premature birth to a baby girl who died ten days
later, deepening her depression. In the following weeks, Mary became close to
Hogg who temporarily moved into the household. Shelley was almost certainly
having a sexual relationship with Claire at this time, and it is possible that
Mary, with Shelley's encouragement, was also having a sexual relationship with
Hogg. In May Claire left the household, at Mary's insistence, to reside in
Lynmouth.
In
August Shelley and Mary moved to Bishopsgate where Shelley worked on Alastor, a
long poem in blank verse based on the myth of Narcissus and Echo. Alastor was
published in an edition of 250 in early 1816 to poor sales and largely
unfavourable reviews from the conservative press.
On
24 January 1816, Mary gave birth to William Shelley. Shelley was delighted to
have another son, but was suffering from the strain of prolonged financial
negotiations with his father, Harriet and William Godwin. Shelley showed signs
of delusional behaviour and was contemplating an escape to the continent.
Byron
Claire
initiated a sexual relationship with Lord Byron in April 1816, just before his
self-exile on the continent, and then arranged for Byron to meet Shelley, Mary,
and her in Geneva. Shelley admired Byron's poetry and had sent him Queen Mab
and other poems. Shelley's party arrived in Geneva in May and rented a house
close to Villa Diodati, on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Byron was staying.
There Shelley, Byron and the others engaged in discussions about literature,
science and "various philosophical doctrines". One night, while Byron
was reciting Coleridge's Christabel, Shelley suffered a severe panic attack
with hallucinations. The previous night Mary had had a more productive vision
or nightmare which inspired her novel Frankenstein.
Shelley
and Byron then took a boating tour around Lake Geneva, which inspired Shelley
to write his "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty", his first substantial
poem since Alastor. A tour of Chamonix in the French Alps inspired "Mont
Blanc", which has been described as an atheistic response to Coleridge's "Hymn
before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamoni". During this tour, Shelley often
signed guest books with a declaration that he was an atheist. These
declarations were seen by other British tourists, including Southey, which
hardened attitudes against Shelley back home.
Relations
between Byron and Shelley's party became strained when Byron was told that
Claire was pregnant with his child. Shelley, Mary, and Claire left Switzerland
in late August, with arrangements for the expected baby still unclear, although
Shelley made provision for Claire and the baby in his will. In January 1817
Claire gave birth to a daughter by Byron who she named Alba, but later renamed
Allegra in accordance with Byron's wishes.
Marriage
to Mary Godwin
Shelley
and Mary returned to England in September 1816, and in early October they heard
that Mary's half-sister Fanny Imlay had killed herself. Godwin believed that
Fanny had been in love with Shelley, and Shelley himself suffered depression
and guilt over her death, writing: "Friend had I known thy secret grief /
Should we have parted so." Further tragedy followed in December when
Shelley's estranged wife Harriet drowned herself in the Serpentine. Harriet,
pregnant and living alone at the time, believed that she had been abandoned by
her new lover. In her suicide letter she asked Shelley to take custody of their
son Charles but to leave their daughter in her sister Eliza's care.
Shelley
married Mary Godwin on 30 December, despite his philosophical objections to the
institution. The marriage was intended to help secure Shelley's custody of his
children by Harriet and to placate Godwin who had refused to see Shelley and
Mary because of their previous adulterous relationship . After a prolonged legal battle, the Court of
Chancery eventually awarded custody of Shelley and Harriet's children to foster
parents, on the grounds that Shelley had abandoned his first wife for Mary
without cause and was an atheist.
In
March 1817 the Shelleys moved to the village of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, where
Shelley's friend Thomas Love Peacock lived. The Shelley household included
Claire and her baby Allegra, both of whose presence Mary resented. Shelley's
generosity with money and increasing debts also led to financial and marital
stress, as did Godwin's frequent requests for financial help.
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 stepsister. Shelley was arrested for two days in London over money he owed,
and attorneys visited Mary in Marlowe over Shelley's debts.
Shelley
took part in the literary and political circle that surrounded Leigh Hunt, and
during this period he met William Hazlitt and John Keats. Shelley's major work
during this time was Laon and Cythna, a long narrative poem featuring incest
and attacks on religion. It was hastily withdrawn after publication due to
fears of prosecution for religious libel, and was re-edited and reissued as The
Revolt of Islam in January 1818. Shelley also published two political tracts
under a pseudonym: A Proposal for putting Reform to the Vote throughout the
Kingdom (March 1817) and An Address to the People on the Death of Princess
Charlotte (November 1817). In December he wrote "Ozymandias", which
is considered to be one of his finest sonnets, as part of a competition with
friend and fellow poet Horace Smith.
Italy
On
12 March 1818 the Shelleys and Claire left England to escape its "tyranny
civil and religious". A doctor had also recommended that Shelley go to
Italy for his chronic lung complaint, and Shelley had arranged to take Claire's
daughter, Allegra, to her father Byron who was now in Venice.
After
travelling some months through France and Italy, Shelley left Mary and baby
Clara at Bagni di Lucca (in today's Tuscany) while he travelled with Claire to
Venice to see Byron and make arrangements for visiting Allegra. Byron invited
the Shelleys to stay at his summer residence at Este, and Shelley urged Mary to
meet him there. Clara became seriously ill on the journey and died on 24
September in Venice. Following Clara's death, Mary fell into a long period of
depression and emotional estrangement from Shelley.
The
Shelleys moved to Naples on 1 December, where they stayed for three months.
During this period Shelley was ill, depressed and almost suicidal: a state of
mind reflected in his poem "Stanzas written in Dejection – December 1818,
Near Naples".
While
in Naples, Shelley registered the birth and baptism of a baby girl, Elena
Adelaide Shelley (born 27 December), naming himself as the father and falsely
naming Mary as the mother. The parentage of Elena has never been conclusively
established. Biographers have variously speculated that she was adopted by
Shelley to console Mary for the loss of Clara, that she was Shelley's child by
Claire, that she was his child by his servant Elise Foggi, or that she was the
child of a "mysterious lady" who had followed Shelley to the
continent. Shelley registered the birth and baptism on 27 February 1819, and
the household left Naples for Rome the following day, leaving Elena with
carers. Elena was to die in a poor suburb of Naples on 9 June 1820.
In
Rome, Shelley was in poor health, probably having developed nephritis and
tuberculosis which later was in remission. Nevertheless, he made significant
progress on three major works: Julian and Maddalo, Prometheus Unbound and The
Cenci. Julian and Maddalo is an autobiographical poem which explores the
relationship between Shelley and Byron and analyses Shelley's personal crises
of 1818 and 1819. The poem was completed in the summer of 1819, but was not
published in Shelley's lifetime. Prometheus Unbound is a long dramatic poem
inspired by Aeschylus's retelling of the Prometheus myth. It was completed in
late 1819 and published in 1820. The Cenci is a verse drama of rape, murder and
incest based on the story of the Renaissance Count Cenci of Rome and his
daughter Beatrice. Shelley completed the play in September and the first
edition was published that year. It was to become one of his most popular works
and the only one to have two authorised editions in his lifetime.
Shelley's
three-year-old son William died in June, probably of malaria. The new tragedy
caused a further decline in Shelley's health and deepened Mary's depression. On
4 August she wrote: "We have now lived five years together; and if all the
events of the five years were blotted out, I might be happy".
The
Shelleys were now living in Livorno where, in September, Shelley heard of the
Peterloo Massacre of peaceful protesters in Manchester. Within two weeks he had
completed one of his most famous political poems, The Mask of Anarchy, and
despatched it to Leigh Hunt for publication. Hunt, however, decided not to
publish it for fear of prosecution for seditious libel. The poem was only
officially published in 1832.
The
Shelleys moved to Florence in October, where Shelley read a scathing review of
the Revolt of Islam (and its earlier version Laon and Cythna) in the
conservative Quarterly Review. Shelley was angered by the personal attack on
him in the article which he erroneously believed had been written by Southey.
His bitterness over the review lasted for the rest of his life.
On
12 November, Mary gave birth to a boy, Percy Florence Shelley.[108][109] Around
the time of Percy's birth, the Shelleys met Sophia Stacey, who was a ward of
one of Shelley's uncles and was staying at the same pension as the Shelleys.
Sophia, a talented harpist and singer, formed a friendship with Shelley while
Mary was preoccupied with her newborn son. Shelley wrote at least five love
poems and fragments for Sophia including "Song written for an Indian
Air".
The
Shelleys moved to Pisa in January 1820, ostensibly to consult a doctor who had
been recommended to them. There they became friends with the Irish republican
Margaret Mason (Lady Margaret Mountcashell) and her common-law husband George
William Tighe. Mrs Mason became the inspiration for Shelley's poem "The
Sensitive Plant", and Shelley's discussions with Mason and Tighe
influenced his political thought and his critical interest in the population
theories of Thomas Malthus.
In
March, Shelley wrote to friends that Mary was depressed, suicidal and hostile
towards him. Shelley was also beset by financial worries, as creditors from
England pressed him for payment and he was obliged to make secret payments in
connection with his "Neapolitan charge" Elena.
Meanwhile,
Shelley was writing A Philosophical View of Reform, a political essay which he
had begun in Rome. The unfinished essay, which remained unpublished in
Shelley's lifetime, has been called "one of the most advanced and
sophisticated documents of political philosophy in the nineteenth
century".
Another
crisis erupted in June when Shelley claimed that he had been assaulted in the
Pisan post office by a man accusing him of foul crimes. Shelley's biographer
James Bieri suggests that this incident was possibly a delusional episode
brought on by extreme stress, as Shelley was being blackmailed by a former
servant, Paolo Foggi, over baby Elena. It is likely that the blackmail was
connected with a story spread by another former servant, Elise Foggi, that
Shelley had fathered a child to Claire in Naples and had sent it to a foundling
home. Shelley, Claire and Mary denied this story, and Elise later recanted.
In
July, hearing that John Keats was seriously ill in England, Shelley wrote to
the poet inviting him to stay with him at Pisa. Keats replied with hopes of
seeing him, but instead, arrangements were made for Keats to travel to Rome.
Following the death of Keats in 1821, Shelley wrote Adonais, which Harold Bloom
considers one of the major pastoral elegies. The poem was published in Pisa in
July 1821, but sold few copies.
In
early July 1820, Shelley heard that baby Elena had died on 9 June. In the months
following the post office incident and Elena's death, relations between Mary
and Claire deteriorated and Claire spent most of the next two years living
separately from the Shelleys, mainly in Florence.
That
December Shelley met Teresa (Emilia) Viviani, who was the 19-year-old daughter
of the Governor of Pisa and was living in a convent awaiting a suitable
marriage. Shelley visited her several times over the next few months and they
started a passionate correspondence which dwindled after her marriage the
following September. Emilia was the inspiration for Shelley's major poem
Epipsychidion.
In
March 1821 Shelley completed "A Defence of Poetry", a response to
Peacock's article "The Four Ages of Poetry". Shelley's essay, with
its famous conclusion "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the
world", remained unpublished in his lifetime.
Shelley
went alone to Ravenna in early August to see Byron, making a detour to Livorno
for a rendezvous with Claire. Shelley stayed with Byron for two weeks and
invited the older poet to spend the winter in Pisa. After Shelley had heard
Byron recite his newly completed fifth canto of Don Juan he wrote to Mary:
"I despair of rivalling Byron."
In
November Byron moved into Villa Lanfranchi in Pisa, just across the river from
the Shelleys. Byron became the centre of the "Pisan circle" which was
to include Shelley, Thomas Medwin, Edward Williams and Edward Trelawny.
In
the early months of 1822 Shelley became increasingly close to Jane Williams,
who was living with her partner Edward Williams in the same building as the
Shelleys. Shelley wrote a number of love poems for Jane, including "The
Serpent is shut out of Paradise" and "With a Guitar, to Jane".
Shelley's obvious affection for Jane was to cause increasing tension among
Shelley, Edward Williams and Mary.
Claire
arrived in Pisa in April at Shelley's invitation, and soon after they heard
that her daughter Allegra had died of typhus in Ravenna. The Shelleys and
Claire then moved to Villa Magni, near Lerici on the shores of the Gulf of La
Spezia . Shelley acted as mediator between Claire and Byron over arrangements
for the burial of their daughter, and the added strain led to Shelley having a
series of hallucinations.
Mary
almost died from a miscarriage on 16 June, her life only being saved by
Shelley's effective first aid. Two days later Shelley wrote to a friend that
there was no sympathy between Mary and him and if the past and future could be
obliterated he would be content in his boat with Jane and her guitar. That same
day he also wrote to Trelawny asking for prussic acid. The following week,
Shelley woke the household with his screaming over a nightmare or hallucination
in which he saw Edward and Jane Williams as walking corpses and himself
strangling Mary.
During
this time, Shelley was writing his final major poem, the unfinished The Triumph
of Life, which Harold Bloom has called "the most despairing poem he
wrote".
English
poet
Settling
near Windsor Great Park in 1815, Shelley read the classics with Hogg and
another friend, Thomas Love Peacock. He also wrote Alastor; or The Spirit of
Solitude, a blank-verse poem, published with shorter poems in 1816, that warns
idealists (like Shelley himself) not to abandon “sweet human love” and social
improvement for the vain pursuit of evanescent dreams. By mid-May 1816,
Shelley, Mary, and Claire Clairmont hurried to Geneva to intercept Lord Byron,
with whom Claire had begun an affair. During this memorable summer, Shelley
composed the poems “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and “Mont Blanc,” and Mary
began her novel Frankenstein. Shelley’s party returned to England in September,
settling in Bath. Late in the year, Harriet Shelley drowned herself in London,
and on December 30, 1816, Shelley and Mary were married with the Godwins’
blessing. But a Chancery Court decision declared Shelley unfit to raise Ianthe
and Charles (his children by Harriet), who were placed in foster care at his
expense.
In
March 1817 the Shelleys settled near Peacock at Marlow, where Shelley wrote his
twelve-canto romance-epic Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden
City and Mary Shelley finished Frankenstein. They compiled History of a Six
Weeks’ Tour jointly from the letters and journals of their trips to
Switzerland, concluding with “Mont Blanc.” In November, Laon and Cythna was
suppressed by its printer and publisher, who feared that Shelley’s idealized
tale of a peaceful national revolution, bloodily suppressed by a league of king
and priests, violated the laws against blasphemous libel. After revisions, it
was reissued in 1818 as The Revolt of Islam.
Because
Shelley’s health suffered from the climate and his financial obligations outran
his resources, the Shelleys and Claire Clairmont went to Italy, where Byron was
residing. They reached Milan in April 1818 and proceeded to Pisa and Leghorn
(Livorno). That summer, at Bagni di Lucca, Shelley translated Plato’s Symposium
and wrote his own essay “On Love.” He also completed a modest poem entitled
Rosalind and Helen, in which he imagines his destiny in the poet-reformer
“Lionel,” who—imprisoned for radical activity—dies young after his release.
Thus
far, Shelley’s literary career had been politically oriented. Queen Mab, the
early poems first published in 1964 as The Esdaile Notebook, Laon and Cythna,
and most of his prose works were devoted to reforming society; and even
Alastor, Rosalind and Helen, and the personal lyrics voiced the concerns of an
idealistic reformer who is disappointed or persecuted by an unreceptive
society. But in Italy, far from the daily irritations of British politics,
Shelley deepened his understanding of art and literature and, unable to reshape
the world to conform to his vision, he concentrated on embodying his ideals
within his poems. His aim became, as he wrote in “Ode to the West Wind,” to
make his words “Ashes and sparks” as from “an unextinguished hearth,” thereby
transforming subsequent generations and, through them, the world. Later, as he
became estranged from Mary Shelley, he portrayed even love in terms of
aspiration, rather than fulfillment: “The desire of the moth for the star,/ Of
the night for the morrow,/ The devotion to something afar/ From the sphere of
our sorrow.”
In
August 1818, Shelley and Byron again met in Venice; the Shelleys remained there
or at Este through October 1818. During their stay, little Clara Shelley (b.
1817) became ill and died. In “Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills”
(published with Rosalind and Helen), Shelley writes how visions arising from
the beautiful landscape seen from a hill near Este had revived him from despair
to hopes for the political regeneration of Italy, thus transforming the scene
into “a green isle. . . / In the deep wide sea of Misery.” He also began Julian
and Maddalo—in which Byron (“Maddalo”) and Shelley debate human nature and
destiny—and drafted Act I of Prometheus Unbound. In November 1818 the Shelleys
traveled through Rome to Naples, where they remained until the end of February
1819.
Settling next at Rome, Shelley continued
Prometheus Unbound and outlined The Cenci, a tragedy on the Elizabethan model
based on a case of incestuous rape and patricide in sixteenth-century Rome. 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.” Memorable characters,
classic five-act structure, powerful and evocative language, and moral
ambiguities still make The Cenci theatrically effective. Even so, it is a less
notable achievement than Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama, which Shelley
completed at Florence in the autumn of 1819, near the birth of Percy Florence
Shelley, Mary Shelley’s only surviving child. Both plays appeared about 1820.
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. In Act I, Prometheus, tortured on Jupiter’s orders for having given
mankind the gift of moral freedom, recalls his earlier curse of Jupiter and
forgives him (“I wish no living thing to suffer pain”). By eschewing revenge,
Prometheus, who embodies the moral will, can be reunited with his beloved Asia,
a spiritual ideal transcending humanity; her love prevents him from becoming
another tyrant when Jupiter is overthrown by the mysterious power known as
Demogorgon. Act II traces Asia’s awakening and journey toward Prometheus,
beginning with her descent into the depths of nature to confront and question
Demogorgon. Act III depicts the overthrow of Jupiter and the union of Asia and
Prometheus, who—leaving Jupiter’s throne vacant—retreat to a cave from which
they influence the world through ideals embodied in the creative arts. The end
of the act describes the renovation of both human society and the natural
world. Act IV opens with joyful lyrics by spirits who describe the benevolent
transformation of the human consciousness that has occurred. Next, other
spirits hymn the beatitude of humanity and nature in this new millennial age;
and finally, Demogorgon returns to tell all creatures that, should the fragile
state of grace be lost, they can restore their moral freedom through these
“spells”:
To
suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ;
To
forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;
To
defy Power which seems Omnipotent ;
To
love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates
From
its own wreck the thing it contemplates. . .
Prometheus
Unbound, which was the keystone of Shelley’s poetic achievement, was written
after he had been chastened by “sad reality” but before he began to fear that
he had failed to reach an audience. Published with it were some of the poet’s
finest and most hopeful shorter poems, including “Ode to Liberty,” “Ode to the
West Wind,” “The Cloud,” and “To a Sky-Lark.”
While
completing Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, Shelley reacted to news of the
Peterloo Massacre (August 1819) in England by writing The Masque of Anarchy and
several radical songs that he hoped would rouse the British people to active
but nonviolent political protest. Later in 1819 he sent to England Peter Bell
the Third, which joins literary satire of William Wordsworth’s Peter Bell to
attacks on corruptions in British society, and he drafted A Philosophical View
of Reform, his longest (though incomplete) prose work, urging moderate reform
to prevent a bloody revolution that might lead to new tyranny. Too radical to
be published during Shelley’s lifetime, The Masque of Anarchy appeared after
the reformist elections of 1832, Peter Bell the Third and the political ballads
in 1839–40, and A Philosophical View of Reform not until 1920.
After
moving to Pisa in 1820, Shelley was stung by hostile reviews into expressing
his hopes more guardedly. His “Letter to Maria Gisborne” in heroic couplets and
“The Witch of Atlas” in ottava rima (both 1820; published 1824) combine the
mythopoeic mode of Prometheus Unbound with the urbane self-irony that had
emerged in Peter Bell the Third, showing Shelley’s awareness that his ideals
might seem naive to others. Late that year, Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the
Tyrant, his satirical drama on the trial for adultery of Caroline (estranged
wife of King George IV), appeared anonymously but was quickly suppressed. In
1821, however, Shelley reasserted his uncompromising idealism. Epipsychidion
(in couplets) mythologizes his infatuation with Teresa (“Emilia”) Viviani, a
convent-bound young admirer, into a Dantesque fable of how human desire can be
fulfilled through art. His essay A Defence of Poetry (published 1840)
eloquently declares that the poet creates humane values and imagines the forms
that shape the social order: thus each mind recreates its own private universe,
and “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” Adonais, a
pastoral elegy in Spenserian stanzas, commemorates the death of John Keats by
declaring that, while we “decay/ Like corpses in a charnel,” the creative
spirit of Adonais, despite his physical death, “has outsoared the shadow of our
night.”
The
One remains, the many change
And
pass;
Heaven’s
light forever shines, Earth’s
Shadows
fly;
Life,
like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains
the white radiance of Eternity,
Until
Death tramples it to fragments .
The
verse drama Hellas (published 1822) celebrates the Greek revolution against
Turkish rule and reiterates the political message of Laon and Cythna— that the
struggle for human liberty can be neither totally defeated nor fully realized,
since the ideal is greater than its earthly embodiments.
After
Byron’s arrival in Pisa late in 1821, Shelley, inhibited by his presence,
completed only a series of urbane, yet longing lyrics—most addressed to Jane
Williams—during the early months of 1822. He began the drama “Charles the
First,” but soon abandoned it. After the Shelleys and Edward and Jane Williams
moved to Lerici, Shelley began “The Triumph of Life,” a dark fragment on which
he was at work until he sailed to Leghorn to welcome his friend Leigh Hunt, who
had arrived to edit a periodical called The Liberal. Shelley and Edward
Williams drowned on July 8, 1822, when their boat sank during the stormy return
voyage to Lerici.
Mary
Shelley faithfully collected her late husband’s unpublished writings, and by
1840, aided by Hunt and others, she had disseminated his fame and most of his
writings. The careful study of Shelley’s publications and manuscripts has since
elucidated his deep learning, clear thought, and subtle artistry. Shelley was a
passionate idealist and consummate artist who, while developing rational themes
within traditional poetic forms, stretched language to its limits in
articulating both personal desire and social altruism.
Death
On
1 July 1822, Shelley and Edward Williams sailed in Shelley's new boat the Don
Juan to Livorno where Shelley met Leigh Hunt and Byron in order to make
arrangements for a new journal, The Liberal. After the meeting, on 8 July,
Shelley, Williams, and their boat boy sailed out of Livorno for Lerici. A few
hours later, the Don Juan and its inexperienced crew were lost in a storm. The
vessel, an open boat, had been custom-built in Genoa for Shelley. Mary Shelley
declared in her "Note on Poems of 1822" (1839) that the design had a
defect and that the boat was never seaworthy. The sinking, however, was
probably due to the severe storm and poor seamanship of the three men on board.
Shelley's
badly decomposed body washed ashore at Viareggio ten days later and was
identified by Trelawny from the clothing and a copy of Keats's Lamia in a
jacket pocket. On 16 August, his body was cremated on a beach near Viareggio
and the ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome.
The
day after the news of his death reached England, the Tory London newspaper The
Courier printed: "Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been
drowned; now he knows whether there is God or no."
Shelley's
ashes were reburied in a different plot at the cemetery in 1823. His grave
bears the Latin inscription Cor Cordium (Heart of Hearts), and a few lines of
"Ariel's Song" from Shakespeare's The Tempest:
Nothing
of him that doth fade
But
doth suffer a sea change
Into
something rich and strange.
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