<<

MINISTRY OF HIGER AND SECONDARY SPECIALIZED EDUCATION OF UZBEKISTAN

NUKUS STATE PEDAGOGICAL INSTITUTE NAMED AFTER AJINIYAZ

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

DEPARTMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

THEME: PERCY BYSSHY SHELLEY

PREPARED: Masharipova D.

RECEIVED:

1

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...... 3 CHAPTER I. PERCY BYSSHY SHELLEY'S LIFE AND WORKS ...... 6 1.1 Early Life and Education ...... 6 1.2. Death and his great heritage ...... 10 1.3. Romanticism in his life and works ...... 16 CHAPTER II. THE USE OF CREATION OF MYTHS IN MAJOR WORKS OF P. B. SHELLEY ...... 21 2.1. The Use of Mythical Themes and Characters...... 21 2.2. The Use of Mythical Images and Creation of Myths...... 25 CONCLUSION ...... 28 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 30

2

INTRODUCTION Every nation has its huge heritage such as financial and spiritual. Spiritual wealth including literature, art, customs, books , and so on. These enormous blessings and valuable riches were not created by themselves, they were composed by people. They took shapes, developed and increased during many centuries. Every member of every nation proud of their" heroes" which tried to improve the circumstances of the people, and always keep them in their souls. One of these great, ancient heritages is literature. Literature is the school of the art. Although it encountered different difficulties, literature don't lose its position now. It is known from the past that English literature also underwent different periods such as: Victorian period, Elithabethan period, Jacobean period, Romanticism and so on. In these periods many poets, writers, statements lived. For example: Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas More, John Skelton, Shakespeare, John Donne, John Ford, John Milton, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Percy Bysshy Shellyand many others. One of the most beautiful, amazing and sensible genre of literature is considered poetry. Delivering ideas with emotions at the same time in rhyme is not easy as you think. We know one of the famous poets of the Romantic period is Percy Bysshy Shelley and in this course work I try to illuminate Percy B. Shelley's life and works in deeply. Percy Bysshy Shelley ( 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poet, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as well as epic, poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included ; ; ; and his own second wife, , the author of Frankenstein. Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as , , , Music, 3

When Soft Voices Die, and The Masque of Anarchy . His other major works include a groundbreaking verse drama (1819) and long, visionary poems such as ""(later reworked as The Daemon of the World ), " Alastor" , "The Revolt of Islam", "", "Prometheus Unbound" (1820)—widely considered to be his masterpiece,— :" A Lyrical Drama"(1821), and his final, unfinished work, "" (1822). The aim of the course work: -To illuminate the life and works of Percy Bysshy Shelley; -To develop the students knowledge and outlook ; -To pay attention to the poets, writers and scholars; -To develop students qualification and experience; - To strengthen the students data about the great people in the past; The practical value of the course work: during the English literature subject learn widely more about poets, writers, and also their works which are caused them famous. To understand and be aware of English literature; The course work consists of 2 chapters, conclusion and bibliography. The first chapter is devoted to the life and works of the poet. In this chapter I tried to bring information about his early life, education, his works and their importance of his time. And I would like to say that it is very important to mention that the themes of his poems is the main purpose of this work. We know that Percy Bysshy Shelley was the poet of Romantic period. So that in his works he sang about freedom and sympathies with his contemporaries. The second chapter is dedicated the use of creation of myths in major works of Percy B. Shelley. In this chapter is given the legendary images, themes, characters, and their creation of the works of the poet. Shelley's rich imagination, his power of rhythmical expression, his passion for liberty make his poetry unexcelled. He brought the melody of verse to a degree of perfection unknown in before him. To Shelley poetry was a device for making immortal all that is good and beautiful in the world. He had the key to the hidden mysteries of the heart, of life itself. 4

Shelley's close circle of friends included some of the most important progressive thinkers of the day, including his father-in-law, the philosopher and Leigh Hunt. Though Shelley's poetry and prose output remained steady throughout his life, most publishers and journals declined to publish his work for fear of being arrested for either blasphemy or sedition. Shelley's poetry sometimes had only an underground readership during his day, but his poetic achievements are widely recognized today, and his advanced political and social thought impacted the Chartist and other movements in England, and reach down to the present day. Shelley's theories of economics and morality, for example, had a profound influence on Karl Marx; his early—perhaps first— writings on influenced both and Mahatma Gandi.

5

CHAPTER I. PERCY BYSSHY SHELLEY'S LIFE AND WORKS

Percy Bysshe Shelley "Poets are the trumpets which sing to battle: poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." - Percy Bysshy Shelley [12;213] 1.1. Early Life and Education Shelley was born 4 August 1792 at Field Place, Broadbridge Heath, near Horsham, West Sussex, England. He was the eldest legitimate son of Sir , a Whig Member of Parliament for Horsham from 1790–92 and for Shoreham between 1806–12, and his wife, Elizabeth Pilford, a Sussex landowner. He had four younger sisters and one much younger brother. He received his early education at home, tutored by the Reverend Evan Edwards of nearby Warnham. His cousin and lifelong friend , who lived nearby, recounted his early childhood in his The Life of Percy Bysshy Shelley . It

6

was a happy and contented childhood spent largely in country pursuits such as fishing and hunting. [11;11,12] Like Byron, he came from an aristocratic family, and broke away from his class. His father was a baronet, and a narrow-minded man. The boy felt ill at ease in his family, and at Eton College where he was sent to in 1804. He was a shy, gentle, kind and sensitive boy by nature, but he had his own notions of justice, independence and freedom. While Shelley’s childhood was decidedly happy and rustic, his atheism and radical politics led to his expulsion from college and estrangement from family at an early age. His personal life was considered rather radical and controversial for his time, especially given his pronounced leftist political ideals and the abandonment of his first wife in favor of a woman named Mary Goodwin, who would become his second wife. Though he began composing and publishing poetry at a young age, Shelley’s career as poet did not truly get underway until he met the English poet Lord Byron in 1816. This meeting resulted in a life-long friendship between the two that served to inspire and influence some of Shelley’s finest poetry, including his great poems “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and “.” Shelley was also a friend of the poet , for whom he wrote the elegy poem “Adonis.” [28;1] . In 1802, he entered the Syon House Academy of Brentford, Middlesex. In 1804, Shelley entered Eton College, where he fared poorly, and was subjected to an almost daily mob torment at around noon by older boys, who aptly called these incidents "Shelley-baits". Surrounded, the young Shelley would have his books torn from his hands and his clothes pulled at and torn until he cried out madly in his high-pitched "cracked soprano" of a voice. [6;97] This daily misery could be attributed to Shelley's refusal to take part in fagging and his indifference towards games and other youthful activities. Because of these peculiarities he acquired the nickname "Mad Shelley". [2;86] Shelley possessed a keen interest in science at Eton, which he would often apply to cause a surprising amount of mischief for a boy considered to be so sensible. Shelley would often use a frictional electric machine to charge the door handle of his room, much to the amusement of his friends. His friends were 7

particularly amused when his gentlemanly tutor, Mr Bethell, in attempting to enter his room, was alarmed at the noise of the electric shocks, despite Shelley's dutiful protestations. [3;14,15] His mischievous side was again demonstrated by "his last bit of naughtiness at school", [2;86] which was to blow up a tree on Eton's South Meadow with gunpowder. Despite these jocular incidents, a contemporary of Shelley, W.H. Merie, recalls that Shelley made no friends at Eton, although he did seek a kindred spirit without success. On 10 April 1810, he matriculated at University College, Oxford. Legend has it that Shelley attended only one lecture while at Oxford, but frequently read sixteen hours a day. His first publication was a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810), in which he vented his early atheistic worldview through the villain Zastrozzi; this was followed at the end of the year by St. Irvyne: or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (dated 1811) [13;33]. In the same year, Shelley, together with his sister Elizabeth, published Original poetry by Victor and Cazire and, while at Oxford, he issued a collection of verses (ostensibly burlesque but quite subversive), Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson , with . In 1811, Shelley anonymously published a pamphlet called which was brought to the attention of the university administration and he was called to appear before the College's fellows, including the Dean, George Rowley. His refusal to repudiate the authorship of the pamphlet resulted in his expulsion from Oxford on 25 March 1811, along with Hogg. The rediscovery in mid-2006 of Shelley's long-lost Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things— a long, strident anti-monarchical and anti-war poem printed in 1811 in London by Crosby and Company as "by a gentleman of the University of Oxford" and dedicated to Harriet Westbrook — gives a new dimension to the expulsion, reinforcing Hogg's implication of political motives ("an affair of party"). [8] Shelley was given the choice to be reinstated after his father intervened, on the condition that he would have to recant his avowed views. His refusal to do so led to a falling- out with his father.

8

Four months after being expelled from Oxford, on 28 August 1811, the 19- year-old Shelley eloped to Scotland with the 16-year-old Harriet Westbrook, a pupil at the same boarding school as Shelley's sisters, whom his father had forbidden him to see. Harriet Westbrook had been writing Shelley passionate letters threatening to kill herself because of her unhappiness at the school and at home. Shelley, heartbroken after the failure of his romance with his cousin, Harriet Grove, cut off from his mother and sisters, and convinced he had not long to live, impulsively decided to rescue Harriet Westbrook and make her his beneficiary. Harriet Westbrook's 28-year-old sister Eliza, to whom Harriet was very close, appears to have encouraged the young girl's infatuation with the future baronet. The Westbrooks pretended to disapprove but secretly encouraged the elopement. Sir Timothy Shelley, however, outraged that his son had married beneath him (Harriet's father, though prosperous, had kept a tavern) revoked Shelley's allowance and refused ever to receive the couple at Field Place. Shelley invited his friend Hogg to share his ménage but asked him to leave when Hogg made advances to Harriet. Harriet also insisted that her sister Eliza, whom Shelley detested, live with them. Shelley was also at this time increasingly involved in an intense platonic relationship with Elizabeth Hitchener, a 28-year-old unmarried schoolteacher of advanced views, with whom he had been corresponding. Hitchener, whom Shelley called the "sister of my soul" and "my second self", [9;73] became his muse and confidante in the writing of his philosophical poem Queen Mab, a Utopian allegory.. Shelley was increasingly unhappy in his marriage to Harriet and particularly resented the influence of her older sister Eliza, who discouraged Harriet from breastfeeding their baby daughter (Elizabeth Ianthe Shelley [1813– 76]). Shelley accused Harriet of having married him for his money. Craving more intellectual female companionship, he began spending more time away from home, among other things, studying Italian with Cornelia Turner and visiting the home and bookshop of William Godwin. Eliza and Harriet moved back with their parents. 9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RothwellMaryShelley.jpg Richard Rothwell's portrait of Mary Shelley in later life was shown at the Royal Academy in 1840, accompanied by lines from Percy Shelley's poem The Revolt of Islam calling her a "child of love and light".

Joseph Severn, 1845, Posthumous Portrait of Shelley Writing Prometheus Unbound in Italy. 1.2.Death and his great heritage On 8 July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, Shelley drowned in a sudden storm on the Gulf of Spezia while returning from Leghorn (Livorno) to Lerici in his sailing boat, the Don Juan. He was returning from having set up The Liberal with the newly arrived Leigh Hunt. The name Don Juan , a compliment to Byron, was chosen by Edward John Trelawney, a member of the Shelley-Byron Pisan circle. However, according to Mary Shelley's testimony, Shelley changed it to Ariel, which annoyed Byron, who forced the painting of the 10

words "Don Juan" on the mainsail. The vessel, an open boat, was custom-built in Genoa for Shelley. It did not capsize but sank; Mary Shelley declared in her "Note on Poems of 1822" (1839) that the design had a defect and that the boat was never seaworthy. In fact the Don Juan was seaworthy; the sinking was due to a severe storm and poor seamanship of the three men on board. [21;154] Some believed his death was not accidental, that Shelley was depressed and wanted to die; others suggest he simply did not know how to navigate. More fantastical theories, including the possibility of pirates mistaking the boat for Byron's, also circulated. [21;136,154][16;25] There is a small amount of material, though scattered and contradictory, suggesting that Shelley may have been murdered for political reasons: previously, at Plas Tan-Yr-Allt, the Regency house he rented at Tremadog, near Porthmadog, north-west Wales, from 1812 to 1813, he had allegedly been surprised and attacked during the night by a man who may have been, according to some later writers, an intelligence agent. [15;6] Shelley, who was in financial difficulty, left forthwith leaving rent unpaid and without contributing to the fund to support the house owner, William Madocks; this may provide another, more plausible explanation for this story.

The Funeral of Shelley by Louis Eduardo Fournier(1889); pictured in the centre are, from left, Trelawney, Hunt and Byron. In fact, Hunt did not observe the cremation, and Byron left early. Two other Englishmen were with Shelley on the boat. One was a retired naval officer, Edward Ellerker Williams; the other was a boatboy, Charles Vivien. [16;24] The boat was found ten miles (16 km) offshore, and it was suggested that one side of the boat had been rammed and stayed in by a much stronger vessel.

11

However, the life raft was unused and still attached to the boat. The bodies were found completely clothed, including boots. In his Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, Trelawney noted that the shirt in which William's body was clad was "partly drawn over the head, as if the wearer had been in the act of taking it off and [he was missing] one boot, indicating also that he had attempted to strip." Trelawney also relates a supposed deathbed confession by an Italian fisherman who claimed to have rammed Shelley's boat to rob him, a plan confounded by the rapid sinking of the vessel

. Edward Onslow Ford's sculpture in the at University College Oxford. Shelley's body was washed ashore and later, in keeping with quarantine regulations, was cremated on the beach near Viareggio. In Shelley's pocket was a small book of Keats' poetry, upon hearing this, Byron (never one to give compliments) said of Shelley "I never met a man who wasn't a beast in comparison to him" . The day after the news of his death reached England, the Tory newspaper The Courier gloated: "Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned, now he knows whether there is God or no." [5;31] A reclining statue of Shelley's body, depicted as washed up on the shore, created by sculptor Edward Onslow Ford at the behest of Shelley's daughter-in-law, Jane, Lady Shelley, is the centerpiece of the Shelley Memorial at University College, Oxford. An 1889 painting by Louis Eduardo Fournier, The Funeral of Shelley (also known as The Cremation of Shelley ), contains inaccuracies. In pre-Victorian times it was English custom that women would not attend funerals for health reasons. Mary Shelley did not attend but was featured in the painting, kneeling at the left- hand side. Leigh Hunt stayed in the carriage during the ceremony but is also 12

pictured. Also, Trelawney, in his account of the recovery of Shelley's body, records that "the face and hands, and parts of the body not protected by the dress, were fleshless," and by the time that the party returned to the beach for the cremation, the body was even further decomposed. In his graphic account of the cremation, he writes of Byron being unable to face the scene, and withdrawing to the beach. [19;137]

Shelley's grave in Rome Shelley's ashes were interred in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome, near an ancient pyramid in the city walls. His grave bears the Latin inscription, Cor Cordium ("Heart of Hearts"), and, in reference to his death at sea, a few lines of "Ariel's Song" from Shakespeare's The Tempest: "Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange."

Keats-Shelley Memorial House, Spanish Steps, Rome Shelley's mainstream following did not develop until a generation after his death, unlike Lord Byron, who was popular among all classes during his lifetime despite his radical views. For decades after his death, Shelley was mainly appreciated by only the major Victorian poets, the pre-Raphaelites, the socialists 13

and the labour movement. One reason for this was the extreme discomfort with Shelley's political radicalism which led popular anthologists to confine Shelley's reputation to the relatively sanitised "magazine" pieces such as "Ozymandias" or "Lines to an Indian Air". He was admired by C. S. Lewis, [14;42] Karl Marx, Robert Browning, , Gregory Corso, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Isadora Duncan, [6;96] Utopian Sinclair, [22;31] Gabriele de Annunzio, Aleister Crowley and W. B. Yeats. [25;45] Samuel Barber, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Roger Quilter, Horward Skempton, John Wanderslice and Ralph Vaughan Williams composed music based on his poems. Critics such as Matthew Arnold endeavoured to rewrite Shelley's legacy to make him seem a lyricist and a dilettante who had no serious intellectual position and whose longer poems were not worth study. Matthew Arnold famously described Shelley as a "beautiful and ineffectual angel". This position contrasted strongly with the judgment of the previous generation who knew Shelley as a skeptic and radical. Many of Shelley's works remained unpublished or little known after his death, with longer pieces such as" A Philosophical View of Reform" existing only in manuscript till the 1920s. This contributed to the Victorian idea of him as a minor lyricist. With the inception of formal literary studies in the early twentieth century and the slow rediscovery and re-evaluation of his oeuvre by scholars such as Kenneth Neill Cameron, Donald H. Reiman and Harold Bloom, the modern idea of Shelley could not be more different. Paul Foot, in his Red Shelley, has documented the pivotal role Shelley's works – especially Queen Mab — have played in the genesis of British radicalism. Although Shelley's works were banned from respectable Victorian households, his political writings were pirated by men such as Richard Carlile who regularly went to jail for printing "seditious and blasphemous libel" (i.e. material proscribed by the government), and these cheap pirate editions reached hundreds of activists and workers throughout the nineteenth century. 14

In other countries such as India, Shelley's works both in the original and in translation have influenced poets such as Rabindranath Tagore [20;9] and Jibanananda Das. A pirated copy of Prometheus Unbound dated 1835 is said to have been seized in that year by customs at Bombay. Paul Johnson, in his book Intellectuals, [7;56,57] describes Shelley in a chapter titled "Shelley or the Heartlessness of Ideas ". In the book Johnson describes Shelley as an amoral person, who by borrowing money which he did not intend to return, and by seducing young innocent women who fell for him, destroyed the lives of everybody with whom he had interacted, including his own.In 2005 the University of Delaware Press published an extensive two-volume biography by James Bier. In 2008 the Johns Hopkins University Press published Bier's 856-page one-volume biography, : A Biography . The rediscovery in mid-2006 of Shelley's long-lost Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things , as noted above, was slow to be followed up until the only known surviving copy was acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford as its 12 millionth book in November 2015 and made available online. [17;58] An analysis of the poem by the only person known to have examined the whole work at the time of the original discovery appeared in the Times Literary Supplement: H. R. Woudhuysen, "Shelley's Fantastic Prank", 12 July 2006. [23;29] In 2007, John Lauritsen published" The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein", in which he argued that Percy Bysshe Shelley's contributions to the novel were much more extensive than had previously been assumed. [10;53] It has been known and not disputed that Shelley wrote the Preface – although uncredited – and that he contributed at least 4,000– 5,000 words to the novel. Lauritsen sought to show that Shelley was the primary author of the novel.In 2008, Percy Bysshe Shelley was credited as the co-author of Frankenstein by Charles E. Robinson in a new edition of the novel entitled The Original Frankenstein published by the Bodleian Library in Oxford and by Random House in the US. [1;6] Robinson determined that Percy Bysshe Shelley was the co-author of the novel: "He made very significant changes in words, themes

15

and style. The book should now be credited as 'by Mary Shelley with Percy Shelley'." [18;8] 1.3. Romanticism in his life and works The life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley exemplify Romanticism in both its extremes of joyous ecstasy and brooding despair. The major themes are there in Shelley's dramatic if short life and in his works, enigmatic, inspiring, and lasting: the restlessness and brooding, the rebellion against authority, the interchange with nature, the power of the visionary imagination and of poetry, the pursuit of ideal love, and the untamed spirit ever in search of freedom-all of these Shelley exemplified in the way he lived his life and live on in the substantial body of work that he left the world after his legendary death by drowning at age twenty-nine. While Shelley shares many basic themes and symbols with his great contemporaries, he has left his peculiar stamp on Romanticism: the creation of powerful symbols in his visionary pursuit of the ideal, at the same time tempered by a deep skepticism. His thought is characterized by an insistence on taking the controversial side of issues, even at the risk of being unpopular and ridiculed. From the very beginning of his career as a published writer at the precocious age of seventeen, throughout his life, and even to the present day the very name of Shelley has evoked either the strongest vehemence or the warmest praise, bordering on worship. More than any other English Romantic writer, with the possible exception of his friend George Gordon, Lord Byron, Shelley's life and reputation have had a history and life of their own apart from the reputation of his various works. [28;1] A great lover of man and freedom, a foe of despotism, Shelley voices his sympathy with those who fought the oppressor and boldly faced death. "The Cenci" ranks among those works of the poet which burn with the fire of his genius. Like Byron, he combines in his poetry the romantic elements typical of the period with a revolutionary protest against the growing power of capitalism. Shelley describes the gloomy reaction of the time: Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 16

...... A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field , Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; ...... ("") Revolt against all existing laws and customs; revolt against all forms of religion; courage and readiness to act upon what he considered the right principles; extreme generosity; all-embracing love for mankind-these are the characteristic features of the poet, and they are reflected in his works. Shelley foretold a happy future for humanity. He believed that the day would come when the people of this world would be free from their dark slavery. He was the first poet in English literature to portray the common people as the only force capable of changing the existing order of life, and to them, 'Men of England, heirs of Glory, Heroes of unwritten story,' the poet addresses his passionate appeal to overthrow their oppressors: 'Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you- Ye are many - they are few.' [25;37,38] For his revolutionary ideas and firm belief in the happy future of humanity Fredrick Engels called Shelley a prophet, and Karl Marx spoke of him as of "a socialist from top to toe". In 1813 Shelley published his firs great poem, "Queen Mab", containing sharp criticism of human society, past and present, and expressing his ideals as to the happy future of mankind, to be brought about by peaceful means. [12;213] Best known for his extended visionary poems, such as" Queen Mab" and the "Triumph of Life", and his short verse poems (including “Ozymandias” and “Ode to the West Wind”), Shelley is also famous for his once controversial and radical political ideals and his often-proclaimed social idealism. And also he is considered 17

the author of "The Necessity". [28;1] A through study of social and political conditions helped Shelley to realize the inconsistency of violence as the only means of abolishing tyranny. "The Cenci" (1819) is the first of the poet's works where this idea is clearly expressed. Shelley's considerable dramatic power is manifested in this tragedy, based on an Italian murder story of the 16th century. [12;215] Shelley was also the author of many lyrical poems of rare beauty and emotional power. Though some of his verses are rather sad, the motif of "world sorrow" is alien to him. Shelley was an optimist. He regarded the world and nature as ever in development. The poet was inspired by love: a love not limited to mankind, but extending to every living creature, to animals and flowers, to the whole of nature; his very being is fused and blended in nature. He becomes one with the lark ("To a Skylark"), with the cloud ("The Cloud"), and the west wind ("Ode to the West Wind"). Shelley's rich imagination, his power of rhythmical expression, his passion for liberty make his poetry unexcelled. He brought the melody of verse to a degree of perfection unknown in English poetry before him. To Shelley poetry was a device for making immortal all that is good and beautiful in the world. He had the key to the hidden mysteries of the heart, of life itself. [12;219,220] "The Necessity of Atheism" The Necessity of Atheism was published by Shelley in 1811. In 1813 he printed a revised and expanded version of it as one of the notes to his poem Queen Mab. The revised and expanded version is the one here reprinted. The sequence of his thought on the Subject may be clearly traced in several of his essays. In "The Necessity of Atheism," the tract which led to his expulsion from Oxford University, we see Shelley in his youthful mood of open denial and defiance. It has been suggested that the pamphlet was originally intended by its author to be a hoax; but such an explanation entirely misapprehends not only the facts of the case, but the character of Shelley himself. This was long ago pointed 18

out by De guincey: "He affronted the armies of Christendom. Had it been possible for him to be jesting, it would not have been noble; but here, even in the most monstrous of his undertakings -- here, as always, he was perfectly sincere and single-minded." That this is true may be seen not only from the internal evidence of "The Necessity" itself, but from the fact that the conclusion which, Shelley meant to be drawn, from the dialogue "A Refutation of Deism," published in 1814, was that there is no middle course between accepting revealed religion and disbelieving in the existence of a deity -- another way of stating the necessity of atheism. Lord Bacon says that atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and everything that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men: hence atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, since he sees nothing beyond the boundaries of the present life. -- Bacon's Moral Essays. In conclusion, it may be said that Shelley's prose, if, not great in itself, is the prose of a great poet, for which reason it possesses an interest that is not likely to fail. It is the key to the right understanding of his. intellect, as his poetry is the highest expression of his genius. [26;3,5] "Prometheus Unbound" One of Shelley's best works is his lyrical drama "Prometheus Unbound" (1820). The plot is a variation on the theme of "Prometheus Bound", a tragedy by Aeschylus. According to Greek myths, Prometheus stole the gods' fire from Olympus, and brought it down to mankind. For this Jove, father of the gods, chained Prometheus to a rock over a precipice, and subjected him to everlasting torture. In Shelley's drama Prometheus symbolizes the human mind and will. His captivity means that both the mind of man and man himself are enslaved. Shelley's hero does not seek a reconciliation with Jove. He suffers terrible tortures but does not submit: No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure. 19

I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt? I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm, Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below, Have its deaf waves not heard my agony? Ah! alas, pain ever, forever! Prometheus is helped by the innumerable forces of nature. The Spirit of the Earth, Demogorgon-the symbol of revolution, and the other good spirits cast Jove out of Olympus into oblivion. Prometheus is unbound, the human mind is free, the world of men passes from chaos to unlimited progress. The forces of nature symbolize the common people, who overthrow all forms of tyranny and become free and happy. The poet was a revolutionary both in his political outlook and political style. [ 12;219]

20

Chapter II. The Use and Creation of Myths in Major Works of P. B. Shelley Right from the beginning of philosophical thinking, some intellectuals as well as some artists start thinking on the role of emotions in human life. However, there was a period of ignoring the emotions and focusing on the reason. Church looks upon the classic myths as a source of paganism. Thus, it uses the classic myths to lead people to the right way. However, these artists and intellectuals do not pay more attention to reason and religion; they are concerned with stories and the way of plotting them. Therefore, they establish a new movement known as romanticism. One of the most apparent features of the Romantic Movement is the freedom of imagination, so all romanticists are dreamers. The classic mythology gives them the early seeds for planting their own imagination. The romantic writers start with exploiting the mythical stories and scenes to be the sources of their works and then they start to make their own myths. Shelley is one of the greatest romanticists who belong to the second generation of this movement. Because of his early knowledge of the classic myths, he exploits some aspects of them in his works such as mythological themes, names and features of some characters, mythical creatures and some mythical images. Furthermore, he creates his own myths that depend on the principles of creating myths. His own myths are based on the concept of spiritualizing the nature. [27;27] 2.1. The Use of Mythical Themes and Characters Shelley applies some mythical themes in his works such as the theme of death, incest, solitude, unrequited love and narcissism. The early death of Adonis in classic myths is the source for one of his long poems in which he laments Keats. The early death of Keats affects Shelley, so he composes an elegy entitled Adonais (1821). He believes that Keats has died because of critics who have attacked his work, Endymion (1818), so he compares them to the bear that kills Adonis, the god of fertility. The goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, laments the death of Adonis, her lover. Similarly, Urania, Adonais ‟s mother mourns for the

21

death of her son. In the poem, the name of Adonais symbolizes Keats. A consolation comes at the end in both stories. In the classic myths, Adonis is eternalized by claiming that his grave produces flowers in the spring every year. On the other side, Shelley portrays Keats as a spiritual force living in the nature forever. Shelley discusses the theme of incest in some of his works. In fact, incest has its root in classic mythology as well as ancient literary works. Jack David Zipes assures that this issue has a long history in the western literature and culture. He states that this theme “can be clearly traced back to the Greek and Roman myths, in particular to the Antics of the male gods such as Jupiter and Zeus.” (Zipes : 218) Classic myths include some myths that focus on this issue; for instance, the myth of Oedipus is one of the most popular stories that talk about a prohibited intercourse between mother and son. The intercourse that has happened between Oedipus and his mother is unwitting. Thus, the revelation of the truth leads to tragic ends for both Oedipus and his mother. His mother hangs herself as soon as she knows the fact. After finding her dead, Oedipus pulls the pins of the robe and stabs out his eyes. Eventually, he asks for exiling from the kingdom. Likewise, Shelley uses the unwitting incestuous love along with the tragic end in the poem Rosalind and Helen. Like the myth of Oedipus, the hidden fact appears after committing incest. Shelley adapts the myth to be between a half-brother and a sister. The story has a tragic end as similar as the myth.

Rosalind ‟s brother falls dead when he hears that he has been in love with his sister. On the other hand, Rosalind has been shocked, and her heart becomes stone like. After her father and second husband's death, she has never felt sorrow for them. She explains her situation: I did not weep: I did not speak: But day by day, week after week, I walked about like a corpse alive Alas ! sweet friend, you must believe This heart is stone: it did not break.

22

The influence of classic myths on Shelley leads him to produce a work that has some similarities with another myth. He produces a novel entitled Zastrozzi (1810) that discusses the incest between a father and his daughter. The myth of Myrrah is another story about a sexual relation between a daughter and a father. In this novel, the father rapes his daughter. The daughter has attempted her best to get revenge by killing him. In the myth of Myrrah, Aphrodite urges Myrrah to commit incest with her father. Myrrah has done that with the assistance of her nurse. When her father knows the fact, he pursues her with a knife to kill her. However, Aphrodite turns her into a myrrh tree. Myrrah gives a birth to Adonis whose early death inspires Shelley to write an elegy on the death of Keats. The themes of incest and revenge dominate both the myth and the novel. Shelley uses all his knowledge to suit his poetic and politic aims. He produces another poem that contains incestuous relation between a brother and a sister in the first version of the poem, Laon and Cythna (1818). However, the publishers reject to publish it because of “the incest theme along with some of the more extreme radicalism and atheism.” (Leask : 110) After adapting, it is entitled as The revolt of Islam. In classic myths, the mythologizers create stories that discuss the theme of solitude as well as the theme of narcissism. The myth of vengeful demon that drives his victims into deserted places inspires Shelley to produce a poem entitled Alastor after the name of that demon. In American Heritage dictionary, Soukhanov refers to „Alastor ‟ as “an avenging deity or spirit, the masculine personification of Nemesis, frequently evoked in Greek tragedy.” (Soukhanov : ..) Shelley does not talk about solitude of Physics, but he discusses the solitude of spirit that may derive the soul to create its own world. The poem shows some allusions of the myth of Narcissus. Stuart M. Sperry states, “The myth that informs Alastor is its close correlative, the story of Narcissus and his love for his own reflection.” (Sperry 21) In fact, the poem shares the myth

23

many similarities such as the theme of solitude. In his thesis, Narcissus Englished a Study of the Book of Thel, Alastor, and Endymion, Bernhard David Harder explains the allusions of the myth of Narcissus in Alastor. In his explanation, He refers to the correspondence of leaving societies and homes in the sake of wandering. Whereas Narcissus leaves his society for wandering and hunting, the poet in the poem leaves home for seeking for the truth. Harder concludes that the poet's leaving of home corresponds to Narcissus ‟ seclusion of society. In fact, the poem contains some mythical features. One of the themes that characterize the myth is the unmistaken search for shadow. Instead of looking for truth and beauty, the poet pursues the shadow of truth that is in his deep mind only. Likewise, Narcissus pursues his shadow to fall in love with it instead of falling in love with Echo. The poet becomes the pursued and the pursuer, and Narcissus becomes “the worshipped and the worshipper.” (Ovid : 77) The theme of unrequited love is another theme that has taken place in both stories. In the myth, Echo loves Narcissus who rejects her love. Similarly, Arabian maiden loves the poet who rejects her, as well. Because of Narcissus and the poet's rejection, maiden and Echo are doomed to gaze them only. The maiden gazes him through tears, and Echo gazes from afar. Besides, the poem includes some images that are only as an echo of the images of the myth. For example, the poem and the myth have introduced the same images of virgins who waste ways for love as well as the wild eyes of youth. [27;27,28] In the art of characterization, Shelley shows extraordinary talent in exploiting of classic myths in his works. Hence, several characters are only shadows of some mythological characters with whom they share names and some features. Therefore, the influence of classic myths is widespread on his works Most classic myths are interwoven around supernatural elements such as gods, goddesses, demigods, spirits, nymphs, ghosts and mythical creatures. Shelley has knowledge of such facts, so he employs many of these elements in his works. Shelley introduced Apollo in some of his works such as Prometheus

24

Unbound (1819). Moreover, he composes a poem entitled as Hymn of Apollo (1820). Shelley writes the poem in a first person singular and makes Apollo the narrator. Apollo, in this poem, is the main character who explains how he gives life to the earth and provides its elements with various colors. Black art along with the hidden power of witches is a part of the supernatural world. Shelley writes poems that include a witch as a character and writes poems that refer to her residence. His witch is not like others' witches. They have some attributes that present them in a different form than others. His witch has divine roots as well as stunning beauty. Besides, she does not possess the innate power to do evil as a traditional witch. His poem, The Witch of Atlas (1820), is about a witch who resides on Atlas Mountains. The impact of classic myths apparently appears in the poem. In the introduction of the poem, the poet mentions that the witch's mother is “one of the Atlantides” and Apollo. In Greek mythology, “Atlantides was name given to the Pleiades who were fabled to be the seven daughters of Atlas.” (Chopra : 41) The poet recounts how the beauty of the mother attracts the god of the sun. He respectively changes her into a vapor, a cloud, and then a meteor. Eventually, he changes her into “One of these mysterious stars /which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.” (P. B. Shelley, The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley : 269) [27;25] 2.2. The Use of Mythical Images and Creation of Myths Each writer or speaker is capable to use his own language skillfully to achieve his aim. For instance, a dreamer is interested in either unreal world or planning a real future world. Therefore, he illustrates mental image for unreal world by using some words and phrases to affect the minds of others. In his essay, A Defence of Poetry (1821), Shelley states that poetry “may be defined to be „the expression of imagination. ‟” (Shelley : 635) According to him, the association between past, present and future is the work of imagination. Thus, as a dreamer and an imaginationist, Shelley attempts to produce a clear image about his fictional

25

world in which he mingles the world of spirits with real world to introduce his Utopia. Shelley borrows some mythical images and uses them in his poems and plays. In Ode to the West Wind, the traditional mythological association of death and winter has taken place in the first stanza. Shelley refers to the association of autumn and diseases that preceded the death, as well. He portrays the moving of the rotten leaves like the fleeing of the ghosts from enchanters. He uses some images of mythological gods and goddesses in his works. In Adonais, he compares Byron to Apollo: ..……like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped ' And smiled ! (Shelley, Adonais : 50) Here, Shelley refers to the image of Apollo whose appearance is always portrayed bearing a bow and arrows. [27;30] The classic writers have created myths by providing nature with the power to do the same deeds and actions that human beings and animals do. Therefore,

Shelley does not rely on others ‟ creativity totally, but he transcends to create his own myths by following the same procedures of creating their stories. According to him, myth is a fictitious narrative incarnating an idea on natural phenomena. In mythology, the primitives believe that the sun god rides the chariot of the sun from the morning until night. The movement of the sun follows the tracks of dawn and night that vanish after each position the light of the sun reaches. Seasons appear as powerful beings that overcome each other regularly in the year. On this basis, Shelley moves forward to mythologize the components of nature by creating new myths out of the natural forces. He ignores the belief that the nature as one being and he alternatively believes that each natural phenomena is a detached being has its own life and power. Thus, he mythologizes the cloud, the night, the west wind and the moon. In his poem The Cloud (1820), Shelley does not only deal with it as

26

a physical substance but also as an immortal minor divinity. He endows it the features of nymphs in classic mythology. On the other hand, its ability to change its form makes it eternal. Thus, the death is improbable to happen. Shelley refers to the various forms that the cloud seems in. Shelley looks upon the cloud as a living being, so he portraits it with various images that connect to other beings. The early images have some resemblance with some activities that human beings do. The poet impersonates the cloud as a gardener watering flowers. In another image, it is as a mother provides “light shade” for her child from the sun when he takes a nap. In the later images, he depicts the cloud as a bird that has wings, and it moves its wings to drop down the dew on “the sweet buds”. The poem is full of images that mirror Shelley's genius as a mythmaker. In spite of that, Shelley creates his myths imaginatively; he does not ignore the scientific truths. On other words, he uses the scientific truths along with imagination to be sources to his myth. In the poem, he refers to the rotation of the earth around the sun when he depicts the dance of the cloud “about the sun”. Shelley's knowledge of science appears again in his reference to the fact that the loud changes. Its change includes the change of shape, size and color. Shelley produces some other poems in which he mythologizes some natural phenomena. To Night (1821), To a Skylark (1820), Ode to the West Wind and To The Moon (1820) are other illustrations of his myth-making power. In the process of personifying the natural phenomena to be myths, Shelley depicts them in such a plausible way that they never lose their true features. According to him, the west wind, night, moon, skylark and cloud remain natural elements, so they retain their own features. The scientific truths remain the basis for his description of these phenomena. In his description of the west wind, Shelley refers to scientific truth that wind moving the rotten leaves from one place to another and then these leaves become seeds for growing other trees. To conclude, the classic myths influence Shelley's thoughts that lead him composing works with mythical features. These features are diverse such as themes, names and traits of some characters and supernatural elements. Besides, his mythical power is due to the deep 27

understanding of the basis of the creation of classic myths. Therefore, most of his works include some mythical features either classically or creatively. [27;31]

Conclusion Today, Shelley is considered by critics and readers to be among the greatest of the second generation of English Romantic poets. Unlike Lord Byron, though, Shelley did not receive full critical and popular recognition until after his death. Several generations of later poets and intellectuals—including, most notably, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw, and William Butler Yeats—were inspired by Shelley’s political and social idealism and radicalism. Shelley is also much admired for his lyrical and psychologically powerful poetry, which offers a striking, visceral style as well as strong messages on behalf of social justice, liberty, and non-violence. This work can help the people who willingly to know about the romantic poet, Percy Bysshy Shelley. This course work consists 2 chapter. The first chapter is devoted to the life and works of the poet. In this chapter I tried to bring information about his early life, education, his works and their importance of his time. The second chapter is dedicated the use of creation of myths in major works of Percy B. Shelley. Shelley became a lodestone to the subsequent three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Robert Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was admired by Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, W. B. Yeats, Upton Sinclair and Isadora Duncan. [4;15,134] 's was apparently influenced by Shelley's non-violence in protest and political action. Shelley's popularity and influence has continued to grow in contemporary poetry circles. 28

In conclude Percy Bysshy Shelley was one of the famous poet of his time. In spite of living shortly, only 30 year, he acquired great reputation with his works. Along with Lord Byron and John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley is among the most respected and admired of the second generation of English Romantic poets. Best known for his extended visionary poems, such as Queen Mab and the Triumph of Life, and his short verse poems (including “Ozymandias” and “Ode to the West Wind”), Shelley is also famous for his once controversial and radical political ideals and his often-proclaimed social idealism. He is perhaps best known, though, as the husband of the novelist Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein, a novel which Percy Shelley is himself now credited with coauthoring). [26;1]

29

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Adams, Stephen. "Percy Bysshe Shelley helped wife Mary write Frankenstein, claims professor: Mary Shelley received extensive help in writing Frankenstein from her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, a leading academic has claimed." The Daily Telegraph , 24 August 2008. 2. Bieri, James (2004). Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography: Youth's Unextinguished Fire, 1792-1816. Newark: University of Delaware Press. p. 86. 3. Cory, William, "Shelley at Eton", The Shelley Society's Note-Book, part 1, 1888, pp. 14-15. 4. Duncan, Isadora (1996). My Life. W. W. Noton & Co. pp. 15, 134. 5. Edmund Blunden, Shelley, A Life Story , Oxford University Press,1965 6. Gilmour, Ian (2002). Byron and Shelley: The Making of the Poets. New York: Carol & Graf Publishers. pp. 96–97. 7. HarperCollins, 2007. First published in 1988 8. India Knight. "Article in the "Times" Online". The Times. Retrieved 8March 2010. 9. James Bieri, Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Biography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) p.73. 10.John Lauritsen (2007). The Man Who Wrote "Frankenstein". Pagan Press. ISBN 0-943742-14-5 11. Medwin, Thomas (1847). The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London. 12. M. Hecker, T. Volosova, A. Doroshevich "English Literature" Moscow "PROSESHCHENIYE" 1974 13. O'Neill, Michael(2004). "Shelley, Percy Bysshy (1792-1822)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(Online ed.). Oxford University Press. 30

doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2512. Retrieved 2015-11-13. (subscription or UK public library membership required) 14. "Poems of the Week". Themediadrome.com. Retrieved8 March 2010. 15. Richard Holmes, Shelley: The Pursuit (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975). 16. StClair, William, Trelawny, the Incurable Romancer , New York: The Vanguard Press, 1977 17. "Shelley's Poetical Essay: The Bodleian Libraries' 12 millionth book". Oxford: Bodleian Library. November 2015. Retrieved2015-11-13. 18. Shelley, Mary, with Percy Shelley. The Original Frankenstein . Edited with an Introduction by Charles E. Robinson. NY: Random House Vintage Classics, 2008. ISBN 978-0-307-47442-1 19. Trelawny, E. J. Recollections of the last days of Shelley and Byron, p. 137, Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1858 20. Tagore Rabindranath biography. Bookrags.com (2 November 2010). 21. "The Sinking of the Don Juan " by Donald Prell , Keats-Shelley journal, Vol. LVI, 2007, pp 136–154 22. Upton Sinclair, "My Lifetime in Letters," University of Missouri Press, 1960. 23. Woudhuysen, H. R. (2006-07-12). "Shelley's fantastic prank: An extraordinary pamphlet comes to light" . The Sunday Times. London. Retrieved 2010-08-04 . 24. "The Mask of Anarchy", 37,38 25Yeats: The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry, 1900. 26. www.Abika.com p.3- 5 27. www.iosrjournals.org 28. www.poetryf oundation.org 29. www.saylor.org/courses/engl404/

31