By Lechi Eke
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a major writer (poetry, prose, drama, essays) of the Romantic Era; one of the most influential of the 18th century literary movement.
His friends included Lord Bryon, John Keats, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock and his second wife Mary. These formed his close circle of visionary poets’ and writers’ pals.
Although he was a prolific writer during his days, no publisher accepted to publish him for fear of getting into trouble with the government. Yet, he had an underground readership.
Shelley influenced a whole lot of people after his death, including the Chartist and other movements in England, down to this day. His theories on economics and morality influenced Karl Marx. Also, Leo Tolstoy was influenced by his writings on non-violent resistance. Tolstoy in turn influenced Mahatma Gandhi, and through him, Martin Luther King Jnr, down to other activists of the American Civil Rights movement.
His admires included George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Robert Browning, Bertrand Russell, etc.
Born in 1792 in Horsham, Sussex in UK and died in 1822 in Lerici, Italy off the Gulf of Spezia, his father, Sir Timothy, was the Baron of Sussex. Shelley attended Eton College and University of Oxford, although it was said that he attended only one class but “frequently spent 16 hours a day reading!”
He was later expelled from Oxford for his radical, although anonymously published pamphlet titled, The Necessity of Atheism.
Before then, the young restless poet had been publishing some great literary works like: first, a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810) where he exposed his atheistic views, then he followed with St. Irvine or The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) and in the same year, he and his sister published what they titled, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire.
He went on, while at Oxford, to publish a collection of verses which were very offensive, titled, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson with Thomas Jefferson Hogg. These verses were according to a contemporary’s review “burlesque and quite subversive” – meaning that he made a comic imitation or caricature of – subversive – writing offensive articles aimed at undermining the government of the day!
However the one that earned him an expulsion from Oxford, just after barely a year there (matriculated 10th April 1810, expelled 25th March 1811) was The Necessity of Atheism!
Shelley’s personality can be gleamed from these quotes attributed to him:
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world;
Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle – Why not I with thine?
Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.
The first quote reveals Shelley’s political radicalism while the second and third quotes reveal the kind of passion that is so Romanticism.
Shelley was a radical writer. In fact, he was radical in everything – his beliefs and lifestyle. He was very interested in literary matters. He sought out people of like minds with him and made friends such as his group of visionary writers and poets, which included his second wife, Mary Shelley. He met her through her father whom he had been attracted to because of his political and philosophical writings.
Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, was a well known writer in his days. His published work includes a book titled Political Justice and he also owned a bookshop.
Mary Shelley’s mother was a famous feminist and writer. She authored a book titled The Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.
It was likely that Shelley fell out of love with his first wife (Harriet Westbrook (married from 1811-1816 and died 1816, although not living together since 1814) because of her lack of interest in literary matters.
It is on record that P. B. Shelley craved for educated minds and that William Godwin who later became his father-in-law number two had three educated daughters. On the other hand, Harriet Westbrook, Shelley’s first wife, abandoned school to elope with Shelley.
Mary Shelley’s name came up last week as one of the Romantic writers. In fact, she was the one he threatened to commit suicide for if she didn’t return his love. They loved, travelled Europe together and collaborated on some literary works.
One of the features of the literary works of Romanticism is that they had a deep interest in ruins and the relics of the Ancient past. Romantic writers were definitely drawn to the Classical Period as they romanced the themes of rebellion, heroism, emotion, sense and sensuality, sublime, etc.
Writers of the Romantic Era recognized emotionalism as that aspect of human make up that does not answer to reason. This can be seen even in their personal lives like P.B. Shelley who once threatened to kill himself if his love for a lady (his second wife, Mary) wasn’t reciprocated. Before that, a different lady (Harriet, his first wife) had threatened to kill herself if Shelley did not return her love for him.
P. B. Shelley found fame with his writings posthumously. One of his most famous works is a poem titled Ozymandias.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antic land a
Who said – “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone b
Stand in the desert ………Near them on the sand, a
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, b
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, a
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read c
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, d
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; c
And on the pedestal, these words appear; e
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, d
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair’ e
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay f
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare e
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” f
This is a metaphorical poem representing power, legacy and command (of Ramesses II of Egypt). It is a poem P. B. Shelley wrote in friendly competition with one of his friends from his circle of visionary writers, Horace Smith (1779-1849). Smith also wrote a sonnet with the same title and on the same subject matter. It was on the occasion of the British Museum acquiring the statue of Ramasses II of Egypt from its mortuary temple (Ramesseum) at Thebes in 1816.
P. B. Shelley uses this poem to attack absolute powers like monarchs, tyrants and dictators telling them that: ‘Power is only temporary. No one is immortal.’ No matter how big and powerful you are, one day, you will grow old, weak, die and become irrelevant!
In the process of time, power and might would be wasted. This is portrayed in the power and authority of the pharaoh, Rameses II of Egypt (Ozymandias was his Greek name (1279-1213 BCE)) who was once a king of kings, famous for many achievements, – now, after many years, we don’t know who he was, nor do we care!
So, Ozymandias is a sonnet, a 14-line poem in iambic pentametre with a sarcastic tone – there lies the great and mighty Ozymandias or his statue – in shambles, in the sand!
The important message of the poem is that power is transient. People in power should know that it is only a matter of Time before they are gone; their statues, once revered, would become relics; their authority useless and their names though engraved on objects to immortalize them, would become useless.
Who cares about the pharaohs and the kings and queens and emperors of this world – except of course in History and Literature classes? How many of those who tremble before them are here today? How many of us are interested in them today or persuaded by them today? Time, Time, Time, striding through the ages (years) taking the shine, the power, the glory off ephemeral things. Let us fear God!
Other works of Percy Bysshe Shelley include: The Masque of Anarchy (which he wrote after a massacre at Manchester); Adonais; Queen Mab and Alastor (long form poems); Prometheus Unbound, Ode to the West Wind, etc.
So much is packed into the 29 years of P. B. Shelley that makes one marvel –
Percy Florence Shelley was his son (born by Mary). When Percy Florence died in 1889, his father’s heart (P. B. Shelley’s) was buried with him in the family vault. For, it is recorded that when P. B. Shelley drowned in the Gulf of Spezia just a month before his 30th birthday, and he was cremated that, his heart refused to burn. So, they wrapped it in one of the pages of one of his last poems and returned it to England.
The atheist, poet, essayist, novelist and dramatist of the Romanticism literary movement of the 18 th/19th died at 29 by drowning. He was earlier disowned by his father the Baron for his radical political writings which he failed to recant before University of Oxford authorities.
Shelley lost all his children by his first wife, Harriet Westwood. Harriet herself drowned herself (suicide – after losing her husband to Mary and her children to death); Mary Shelley died of depression (which gave rise to brain tumours) which she fell into after her husband drowned, and never came out of until her death in 1851, but was survived by a son, Percy Florence Shelley.
