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Percy Bysshe Shelley: the Neglected Genius

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Percy Bysshe Shelley: the Neglected Genius REVIEW PAPER 821.111.09-1 ШЕЛИ П. Б. DOI:10.5937/ZRFFP49-21447 NATAŠA M. BAKIĆ-MIRIĆ1 MIRJANA N. LONČAR-VUJNOVIĆ2 UNIVERSITY OF PRIŠTINA IN KOSOVSKA MITROVICA FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: THE NEGLECTED GENIUS ABSTRACT. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) is considered one of the most prolific poets and, at the same time, the most tragic icon of the Romantic Move- ment in England. His life and poetry certainly support such argument because Shelley’s joy, his love of mankind, intense feelings, imagination, love, freedom, and a profound belief in the perfection of man are unique among all Romantics. This paper gives an outlook of his life, times, critical reception, and his most famous works, which are recognized as leading expressions of his incredible, and, oftentimes, neglected poetic genius. KEYWORDS: Percy Bysshe Shelley; poetry; love; imagination; freedom. INTRODUCTION Percy Bysshe Shelley belonged to the younger generation of the English Romantic poets whose sensitive aestheticism, intense pas- sions, political radicalism, and tragically short lives rose them to fame. In fact, Shelley’s life and work unquestionably support such a 1 [email protected] 2 [email protected] The paper is the result of research conducted as a part of the project no. OI 178019 Translation in the System of Comparative Studies of National and Foreign Literature and Culture, funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. This paper was submitted on April 24th, 2019 and accepted for publication at the meeting of the Editorial Board held on September 16th, 2019. 129 COLLECTION OF PAPERS OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY XLIX (3)/2019 perception. His joy, faith in humanity, imagination, intense feel- ings, love and perfection of man are unique among his peers. Shel- ley’s poetic genius is deeply rooted in his profound understanding of and a distinctively philosophical relationship with each of these thematic concerns mostly because of his firm belief that the power of poetry could change the world. Nevertheless, there was an apparent dark side to him as well and those moments of darkness and despair oftentimes stem from his deep disappointment at see- ing that this ideal vision of man, poetry and the world is uncondi- tionally surrendering to human weakness. To understand the complexity of Shelley’s poetry, one must first understand that the poet’s role in Shelley’s poetic philosophy is not that of an entertainer, but that of a magnificent and tragic figure who has a deep understanding and appreciation of nature (as in the short poem To Wordsworth (1816)) which gives him access to subtle cosmic truths (as in Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude (1816)). That is why his poetry is some sort of prophecy where the poet acquires the ability to change the world for the better and to bring about changes in every single aspect of life: political, social, and spiritual. Therefore, Shelley’s poet becomes a savior (like Prometheus and/or Christ), who is oftentimes sentenced to abominable suffering caused by many external factors such as critics, a tyrannical gov- ernment, conventional religion, and middle-class hypocritical val- ues. Despite these hardships, the poet almost always triumphs because his art is immortal and it outlasts the tyranny of govern- ment, religion, and society, and he lives on to inspire new genera- tions. UNDERSTANDING SHELLEY THE MAN To understand Shelley’s poetry, one needs to understand Percy Shelley the man. He was born in Horsham, educated at Oxford but his college years did not last long. In 1811, he was expelled from Oxford together with Thomas Jefferson Hogg (who was most cer- tainly his lover at the time) over a radical pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism in which the two fellow students questioned the existence of God. This event further alienated him from his family and left him without any financial means but it did not stop him to elope with Harriet Westbrook – a 19-year old intelligent, mannerly and beautiful young woman – who was willing to sacrifice everything 130 NATAŠA M. BAKIĆ-MIRIĆ, MIRJANA N. LONČAR-VUJNOVIĆ PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: THE NEGLECTED GENIUS for him. From 1811 until 1814, Shelley and Harriet actively partici- pated in political and social reforms in Ireland and Wales, and Shel- ley wrote many radical pamphlets in which he manifested his views on liberty, equality and justice. Although he was a radical propo- nent of free love, who did not believe in marriage, Shelley married Harriet in 1814 only to legally secure their children. Nevertheless, he fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin a few weeks later. Even though, Harriet refused to join their union as “a sister”, he continued to support her and their two children. In the fall of 1816, two years after Shelley had abandoned her, Harriet committed sui- cide by drowning. His desire to respect the memory of Harriet was shattered when he was forced to marry Mary, who threatened him with suicide if he did not. During this period, he also lost custody of his children with Harriet. By citing Shelley’s poem Queen Mab in which he openly rejected social norms and religion in favor of free love and atheism, the Westbrooks convinced the court that the children would be unsafe in his custody and so Shelley lost yet another battle against the government and legislation (Bakić-Mirić, 2011, p. 10). In 1818, the Shelleys relocated to Italy in fear of losing custody of their own two children and motivated by Shelley’s deteriorating health and financial worries. There, he rekindled his friendship with Byron (the friendship that actually began through Claire Claremont, Mary’s stepsister and Byron’s lover who gave birth to one of his children). They famously spent the summer of 1816 at Byron’s house on Lake Geneva where Mary conceived the idea for her critically acclaimed short novel “Frankenstein”. Incidentally, Shelley’s life in Italy and his frequent attendance of the Italian opera had also left a mark in his ‘Italian’ poetic period and his mas- terpiece Prometheus Unbound, respectively. The Shelleys lived in Italy until Percy’s untimely death in a boat- ing accident near Lerici in 1822 that was largely caused by his vola- tile nature. Perhaps there was no more appropriate ending for such an erratic persona consumed by the search for perfection and social acceptance. Shelley’s body was cremated on the beach in Lerici. The legend says that his heart was left intact in the funeral pyre (interpreted by many as a symbol of eternal love), and given to Mary to keep it safe wrapped in the manuscript of Adonais – one of Shelley’s most beautiful pastoral elegies written in honor of his fel- low poet John Keats after his untimely death (Bakić-Mirić, 2011, pp. 13-21). NATAŠA M. BAKIĆ-MIRIĆ, MIRJANA N. LONČAR-VUJNOVIĆ 131 COLLECTION OF PAPERS OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY XLIX (3)/2019 SHELLEY’S POETIC GENIUS RECONSIDERED In 1810, before the age of twenty Shelley had already published two Gothic novels, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne and two collections of poems, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire and Posthumous Fragments of Mar- garet Nicholson co-authored with Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Between 1812 and 1821, Shelley wrote An Address to the Irish People (1812) arguing for religious emancipation; A Letter to Lord Ellenborough (1812) his most significant early literary work about the freedom of speech and judicial corruption; a pamphlet on the death penalty On the Punishment of Death (1815) where Shelley envisions the punish- ment of death as the usurpation of a poetic design; A Proposal for Putting Reform to the Vote Throughout the Kingdom (1817), a fragment where he discusses reforms in England; and tragedy The Cenci (1818), an intensely tragic gothic melodrama about incest and pat- ricide set in Italy and based on a true story about Count Cenci. The year 1818 also generated a weak poem Rosalind and Helen in which Shelley shows the plight of women under the traditional and conventional laws and customs of marriage, Julian and Maddalo a very strong philosophical poem, and Ozymandias (1818), a short poem in which Shelley represents the liaison between an extremely tyrannical rule and derogated environment. In 1819, Shelley wrote an anti-capitalist pamphlet Philosophical View of Reform in which he openly stated that political and economic reforms were crucial for the reformation of the whole society and called for upheaval and necessity to install democracy. In the same year, Shelley wrote a somewhat bizarre satire Peter Bell the Third about William Wordsworth, who in his later years became an open supporter of the British monarchy, and Oedipus Tyrannus or, Swellfoot the Tyrant (1820) a mock tragedy on the British royal family (Bakić-Mirić, 2011, pp. 22-36). The Witch of Atlas (written in 1820) is a long poem about wander- ing imagination, incredible sense of beauty and perfection of nature, that is often considered one of Shelley’s best longer poems though at moments quite uninteresting. Shelley’s last unfinished poem The Triumph of Life (1821) shows a grim quest for love, beauty, freedom and the meaning of life in which he worships intellectual beauty and celebrates surreal love of life that triumphs over everything (Hogson 1975, pp. 595-622). 132 NATAŠA M. BAKIĆ-MIRIĆ, MIRJANA N. LONČAR-VUJNOVIĆ PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: THE NEGLECTED GENIUS His masterpiece essay A Defence of Poetry, written in 1821, postu- lates that poetry initiates good morals and elicits imagination as the source of sympathy, compassion, and love. This brings human- ity closer to the ideal of Intellectual Beauty, which is a symbol that epitomizes the power of poetic imagination.
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