Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography

• (1810) Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (collaboration with Elizabeth Shelley)
• (1812) The Devil’s Walk
• (1813) Queen Mab
• (1815) Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (published 1816)
• (1816) Mont Blanc (published 1817)
• (1816) Mutability
• (1817) The Revolt of Islam (published 1818)
• (1818) Ozymandias
• (1818) Rosalind and Helen (published 1819)
• (1819) England in 1819 (published 1839)
• (1819) Love’s Philosophy
• (1819) Ode to the West Wind (published 1820)
• (1819) Julian and Maddalo (published 1824)
• (1820) Letter to Maria Gisborne (published 1824)
• (1820) To a Skylark
• (1820) The Cloud
• (1820) The Sensitive Plant
• (1820) The Witch of Atlas (published 1824)
• (1821) Adonais
• (1821) Epipsychidion
• (1822) One Word is Too Often Profaned (published 1824)
• (1824) Posthumous Poems
• (1820) Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant
• (1822) Charles the First (unfinished)
• On Frankenstein (1818; published in 1832)
• On Life (1819)
• A Philosophical View of Reform (1819–20, first published 1920)
• A Defence of Poetry (1821, published 1840)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. 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 since the 1960s 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. 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 dramas The Cenci (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820) and Hellas (1822), and the long narrative poems Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1815), Julian and      Maddalo (1819), Adonais (1821), and 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.

Shelley was born on 4 August 1792 at Field Place, Warnham, Sussex, England. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, 2nd Baronet of Castle Goring (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’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, 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.

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.

Shelley was a political radical influenced by thinkers such as Rousseau, Paine, Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Leigh Hunt. He advocated Catholic Emancipation, republicanism, parliamentary reform, the extension of the franchise, freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, an end to aristocratic and clerical privilege, and a more equal distribution of income and wealth.The views he expressed in his published works were often more moderate than those he advocated privately because of the risk of prosecution for seditious libel and his desire not to alienate more moderate friends and political allies. Nevertheless, his political writings and activism brought him to the attention of the Home Office and he came under government surveillance at various periods.

Shelley’s most influential political work in the years immediately following his death was the poem Queen Mab, which included extensive notes on political themes. The work went through 14 official and pirated editions by 1845, and became popular in Owenist and Chartist circles. His longest political essay, A Philosophical View of Reform, was written in 1820, but not published until 1920.

Shelley was an avowed atheist, who was influenced by the materialist arguments in Holbach‘s Le Système de la nature. His atheism was an important element of his political radicalism as he saw organised religion as inextricably linked to social oppression. The overt and implied atheism in many of his works raised a serious risk of prosecution for religious libel. His early pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism was withdrawn from sale soon after publication following a complaint from a priest. His poem Queen Mab, which includes sustained attacks on the priesthood, Christianity and religion in general, was twice prosecuted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1821. A number of his other works were edited before publication to reduce the risk of prosecution.

REFERENCE:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley