Percy Shelley

Introduction

Amongst the most popular English Romantic Poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one. He was born on Aug 4, 1792. He is considered to be the best lyricist of English poetry. He was famous for his association with Lord Byron and John Keats. Shelley is most famous for his classic work of anthology including, To a Skylark, When Soft Voices, The Masque of Anarchy, Ode to the West Wind, The Cloud, Die, Ozymandias and Music. These poetries are considered to be the most acclaimed and popular poems in the history of English language (Blunden, pp. 45-48). However, the major works Shelley comprise of lengthy and visionary poems including The Daemon of the World The Revolt of Islam Adonaïs Alastor and The Triumph of Life which was incomplete when he died. The plays which Shelley wrote include Prometheus Unbound (1820) and The Cenci (1819) and were presented in five and four acts respectively (Medwin, pp. 54-68).

Despite the fact that he has been positioned as a reluctant dramatist, his plays continue to be enacted in theatres even today; for one thing that Shelley was passionate about theatre. He also wrote the Gothic novels St. Irvyne (1811) and Zastrozzi (1810) and short stories including Una Favola (1819), The Coliseum (1817) and The Assassins (1814 (Shelley, pp. 30-35). He was given the credit of co-author for the novel Frankenstein (1818) in a new edition printed in 2008 by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In the U.S the same book was published by Random House and was renamed as The Original Frankenstein. Charles E. Robinson was the editor of this renamed book (Robinson, pp. 170-175).

The uncompromising idealism and unconventional life of Shelley when combined with his strong critical writings, makes the author a not-so-popular author of his time. He held a significant position only in a small group of admirers, who also started criticize him; however, they this group of admirers praised the author afterwards. After his death, Mark Twain took a stand for Shelley's wife in his book, In Defense of Harriet Shelley. In this book, Twain claimed that Shelley abandoned his 18-years old pregnant wife and child by running off with the 16-year old Mary Godwin (James, pp. 172-184). His wife did not live much longer to witness her husband's extent of influence and success. Though some of Percy Shelley's works got published; however, they were repressed upon publication (Twain, pp. 80-95).

Including the Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian poets, Shelley became a start for a couple of generations of poets. Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, Isadora Duncan, Bertrand Russell and Upton Sinclair all admired him. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's passive resistance and Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience were inspired and influenced by non-violence in political action and protest of Shelley; however, Gandhi never included Shelley's name in the list of his mentors (Gilmore, pp. 48-52).

Nonviolence

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's passive resistance and Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience were inspired and influenced by non-violence in political action and protest ...