Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
395-401
Shelley is described as a bit of a hippy. He advocated for love, vegetarianism, and anarchism. He
also advocated for atheism and Irish nationalism. A strange combination if you ask me.
“… He has emerged as a self-serving egoist who destroy the lives of women he loved; and for some
– admirers and critics alike Dash he appears as the abstract and philosophical poet-aristocrat who
crafted beautiful and dreamy poetic recollections of humans with their world. “ (395)
He came from a wealthy aristocratic family. They were English. His father along as a member in
Parliament, who had very high standards of what was acceptable and his household. Respect and
image for everything.
Shelley in 1811, he was at oxford university for five months before he published a pamphlet titled
“the necessity of atheism quote and then “...sent to all of the professors and heads of colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge and all of the bishops of the Church of England.” (395). He was expelled for
his actions. And his father through him out.
His first serious love was Harriet Westbrook and they eloped during his banishment from his father's
graces. (395)
His next love was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later to be known as Mary Shelley, author of
Frankenstein.
I pity Harriet because of her abandonment. Shelley is a fickle man. With not a lot of backing to his
claims. Such as his claims “... to have been the victim of an assassination attempt, though some
have a ledge that he was just trying to avoid mounting debts. “(395)
Shelley attempted suicide when he was separated from Mary before they ran off together. Furthering
my beliefs that he is unstable.
In his Poem “England in 1819” a line reads “Rulers Who neither see nor feel nor no, but leech like to
their fainting country cling, till they drop, blind and blood, without a blow.” - oppressing their own
people and shedding innocent blood to feed themselves like leeches. (399)
Stanzas written in Dejection- December 1818, near Naples
“Till death like sleep might steal on me, and I might feel in the warm air my cheek grow cold, and
hear the sea.” (398)
It’s kind of eerie… He seems to predict his own death. That was apparently accidental. Was it?
Fun Fact (Not in this book): His heart was stolen from his body by a crazy fan when his body was
found. The police recovered it but it went missing again. It was only found again after Mary died, his
heart was found in her bedside table wrapped in poems he had written and silk. She stole it back
from the police, because it always belonged to her. (Found in a biography at the beginning of the
2015 print of Frankenstein).
Conclusion, Mary was cooler than he was. Just saying.
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