Percy Shelly context & biography

• Percy Bysshe Shelley - An influential English Romantic poet known for his radical themes and innovative use of language; notable works include 'Ozymandias' and 'Prometheus Unbound'.

• Born on August 4, 1792, in Sussex, England, he was expelled from Oxford University for his atheistic writings.

• Shelley was an advocate for social change, championing women's rights and the abolition of social injustice throughout his life. He married Harriet Westbrook in 1811 but later left her for Mary Godwin, who would become his second wife and a prominent figure in her own right as the author of 'Frankenstein'.

• Most of his poems us both rhyming couplets and alternating rhyme - they have internal rhyme.

• His poems are quite melancholic and depressing - but in a relatable/ understandable manner and feature themes like; unrequited love, grief, natural world, heaven, etc.

• This provides insight to Shelly's life, by suggesting how he felt about life - being lonely and rejected and unrequited by those within his life and others

The Cold Earth Slept Below - Nov 1815

Stanzas Written in Dejection - Dec 1818

Ode to the West Wind - Oct 25th 1819

The Question - 1821

Biography

Born 1792, backdrop of French Revolution & subversive pamphleteering, Born at Field Place.

Attended Oxford 1810 - 1811 (traditional royalist stronghold) and was kicked out for publishing a pamphlet declaring himself an atheist

• Percy Bysshe Shelley - An influential English Romantic poet known for his radical themes and innovative use of language; notable works include 'Ozymandias' and 'Prometheus Unbound'.

• Born on August 4, 1792, in Sussex, England, he was expelled from Oxford University for his atheistic writings.

• Shelley was an advocate for social change, championing women's rights and the abolition of social injustice throughout his life. He married Harriet Westbrook in 1811 but later left her for Mary Godwin, who would become his second wife and a prominent figure in her own right as the author of 'Frankenstein'. He faced many personal and financial struggles throughout his life, which influenced his work and themes of loss and longing in poetry.

Key dates

• 1816 - Harriet Westbrook commits suicide and drowns in the Serpentine

• 1816 - Marries Mary Shelley (nee,. Godwin), hoping it would gain stability for him to gain custody of his 2 children with Harriet (doesn't gain custody)

• Sep, 1818 - Clara died (Shelley's godchild) on route with Mary Shelley to join Percy in Venice with Claire (Mary's half-sister) and Byron

• Dec 1818 - Birth of his ‘Neopolitan Charge’ (Elena) and later, following her death, Paolo Foggi blackmails him & he develops semi-suicidal depression (Stanzas written in Dejection)

• June 1819, His son, William, dies (4 years old)

Politics

Interested in Political and Philosophical ideas, versus solely aestheic ideas - views himself as a political radical. He was interested in social reform instead of the fashionable ‘sickly sensibility’. He asserted his interest in philosophy when he attempted to initiate a friendship with William Godwin (Mary Shelley's Father, looked at re-establishing the rights of man) - as part of Godwin's philosophy he believed all sentiments are considered and expressed as impersonal and objective facts, according to the universal principles of reason; persued by Shelley pursues this notion in theory, but not really accomplished in fact.

At this time

Religion

Historical Background

Battle of Peterloo, 16th August 1819 - 60,000 men and women attacked and