Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in 1792 to an aristocratic family, and his father was a member of parliament. He attended Eton where he was bullied by the other students, which, for Percy, came to represent society??s lack of humanity. He later attended Oxford where he was expelled for co-writing The Necessity of Atheism, which claimed that God??s existence could not be proven by observation or experience. After he was expelled from Oxford, Percy met Harriet Westbrook and eloped with her causing his father to reduce his monthly allowance to a small annuity. Percy and Harriet lived in several areas of England and Ireland, while Percy distributed pamphlets and spoke against political injustice.
In 1813, Percy published ??Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem? which was atheistic and represented William Godwin??s socialist philosophy. Through his friendship with William Godwin, Percy came to know Godwin??s daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who became his lover. In 1814, Percy and sixteen year- old Mary, along with Mary??s stepsister, traveled the continent for a brief time, until economic circumstances forced them to return to England. In 1816, Percy, Mary, and her stepsister again traveled to the continent, this time to Geneva, Switzerland, where they spent some time in the company of Lord Byron. That same year Hariet Westabrook, Percy??s wife, committed suicide, and soon after Percy and Mary were married. Within this year, he also wrote ??Hymn to Intellectual Beauty? and ??Mont Blanc?. In 1817, Percy produced Laon and Cythna, later reissued as The Revolt of Islam, a narrative poem that is a symbolic story of revolution. During this time, he was also writing political essays under the name ??The Hermit of Marlow?, Marlow being the English city where he was living.
In 1818, Percy Shelley and Mary left England for the last time. He traveled throughout Italy making temporary homes in Rome, and Pisa. During his years in Italy, Percy produced some of his best known works including the Odes ??To a Skylark?, ??To the West Wind? and ??The Cloud? as well as ??Adonis? which was an elegy for John Keats. In 1822 during a sailing trip off the coast of Italy, Percy was caught in a storm and drowned. His body was washed ashore, where it was burned (his heart would not burn) on the beach in the presence of Lord Byron and the remains buried in Rome.
Articles About Shelley, Percy Bysshe
|
At Shelley's Grave: The Ineffable Calico Cat at il Cimitero Straniero
|
February 5, 2007 |
|
So I said, most impractically, to the obliging calico cat with yellow eyes, as we turned to depart the old Protestant Cemetery, that walled oasis of green quietude in the midst of hurried, cacophonous Rome.
|
