P. B. Shelley Introduction

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

P. B. Shelley Introduction

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P. B.

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

 The Heroic, Visionary Role of the Poet

 Shelley uses nature as his primary source of poetic

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

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

 Drowned during storm at 29

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