Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822

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Percy Bysshe Shelley1792-1822
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• Born into an aristocratic family
• 1810 Accepted into Oxford College
• 1811 Expelled for publishing The Necessity of
  Atheism
• 1813 Published an atheistic poem, Queen Mab

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• Eloped with 16-year old Harriet Westbrook
• 1814 Met Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and
  traveled abroad with her and her stepsister,
  Claire Clairmont
• 1816 Harriet drowned herself, Shelley married
  Mary, and their son William was born (busy year).
  Byron, a friend, had an affair with Claire.
  Later, Shelley himself supposedly did as well.

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• July 8, 1822 Shelleys small boat, the Ariel,
  sank, killing him. According to legend, his body
  was burned but his heart remained intact.
• Mary, his wife, published his posthumous works.

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Themes

• Mont Blanc The Transience of Life, the Power
  of Nature

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The glaciers creep/ Like snakes that watch their
prey, from their far fountains/ Slow rolling on
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Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the
Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
(1757) The Sublime definition p. 39
"Astonishment ...is the effect of the sublime in
its highest degree the inferior effects are
admiration, reverence and respect." Sources of
the Sublime Terror Obscurity Power Privation
Vacuity, Darkness, Solitude Silence Vastness
Infinity (Succession and Uniformity the
"artificial infinite" as well as natural
infinity) Difficulty Magnificence Light Color
Suddenness Feeling Pain
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Ode to the West Wind
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is