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Revision:Shelley poetryTSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > Shelley Poetry Percy Bysshe Shelley was a metaphysical romantic poetry. He wrote a lot about revolution, nature and his idea of the spirit. While he was not Christian, nor was he an atheist. He believed, and wrote about the spirit, a higher power without the constrains imposed by the church, and that through poetry the spirit could be connected to. He was bullied at school for his girlish appearance, was expelled from Oxford because of his pamphlets. At 19 he married 16 year old Harriet Westbrooke but ran away with Mary (later to become Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein) while his wife was pregnant in 1814. By 1816 she had drowned herself and he married Mary. This was in part to get custody of his and Harriet's children, but it didn't work. There is a reference in Mask of Anarchy- Lord Eldon denied the custody. Shelley's second marriage was not a success either. Shelley had another child with someone else, no one is sure with whom. Shelley was friends with Lord Byron and John Keats. Shelley drowned at the age of 29- this was not a suicide. Note: Most of these notes are my opinions. Everyone has the right to their own.
MutabilityIn Mutability Shelley remarks on how quickly life passes ‘yet soon/ Night closes round, and they are lost forever’, and therefore how very little can be achieved ‘to whose frail frame no second motion brings’ (no legacy). He also remarks on how despite this people still continue to be people, unclouded by these thoughts ‘We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep’. He comments on nothing except stillness ever stays the same ‘Man’s yesterday may never be like his morrow/ naught endures but mutability’. It is difficult to understand what he is saying here, is he suggesting that stillness is good, but stillness would be a complete lack of life? The moon represents reason. Quotes
Hymn to intellectual beautyContext: Shelley met and was inspired by Lord Byron. This is a poem about how poets can connect to the spirit but could never truly express it. The poem's form is a classical hymn, could be ironic. Most of it is contrary, a balance between separation and unity. It also uses pentameter, a mark of respect when talking about the spirit ‘unseen power’. He directly addresses the ‘Spirit of Beauty’ whom he sees as holy ‘consecrate/with thine own hues all thou dost shine upon’ i.e no one can look upon the spirit of beauty with out seeing it as holy and being inspired. He seems to think the spirit has disappeared ‘where art thou gone?/ Why dost thou pass away and leave our state?’ leaving them miserable ‘dim vast vale of tears’, with alliteration to emphasise a point and lacking ‘vacant and desolate’. This appears to be a comment on humanity, Shelley believes that humanity is less than it was before, a comment on the working classes after the industrial revolution or that Shelley is annoyed that nothing is being done to change the conditions ‘why man has such a scope/ For love and hate, despondency and hope?’ the positive and negative together gives the impression that man has the ability to change things for the better but doesn’t. It is interesting that he mentions ‘Demon, Ghost, and Heaven’ in the same sentence, because two of them are obviously negative. It may be a comment on Shelley’s religious ideas, linking heaven with demon. He seems to think the notion of God is an attempt to explain the spirit, but the spirit is something more. ‘Remain the records of their vain endeavour’. ‘Thy light alone’ is a comments on the spirits intellect, its reason, Shelley uses light as a metaphor for reason a lot. Love, hope and self-esteem are all human ideas and cannot compare to the spirit ‘like clouds depart’. They are the last testaments to a people dying without the spirit of beauty ‘like darkness to a dying flame’. Quotes
OzymandiasContext: In competition with his friend, Smith. An unusual sonnet, but a sonnet none the less and is perhaps a symbol of corruption. The poem is basically about how mankind’s works crumble. Ozymandias was a tyrant and entirely human. It talks about desolation, the ‘lone and level sands’ may represent time. ‘Look on my words, ye mighty’ the entire inscription is ironic, perhaps sarcasm on Shelley’s part, but a warning to ye mighty may be Shelley’s warning that the tyrants today will suffer the same fate. Quotes
Lines written among the Euganean HillsContext: Clara Shelley died in Este while visiting Lord Byron, this trip also resulted in Julian and Maddalo (before her death) and Lines written in dejection near Naples. Euganean is a mountain in Italy. Long verses are strophes. First stropheA giant metaphor for life, talks about life as a voyage over the sea of misery driven on by the winds of necessity. Occasionally he lands on an island of hope ‘green isle’, but never for long. Winds of necessity suggests there is no control. ‘Whilst above the sunless sky’ sun= reason. No reason, no meaning, no divinity. ‘To the haven of the grave’ surcease of sorrow in death, but ‘What if there no friends to greet’ doubt, uncertainty of afterlife. ‘Are like sapless leaflets now’ is an allusion to Shelley’s failed leaflets the necessity of atheism.
Second strophe‘As once a wretch lay there to sleep’ sleep could be death, a wretch is pitiable, alone and unlucky. ‘One white skull and seven dry bones’ No face, forgotten ‘a few gray rushes stand’ and ‘unburied bones’ suggests little value of the place and ‘Nor is heard one voice of wail’ suggests no mourning’. ‘Sea mews’ refers to paradise lost.
Third stropheAn island of hope. Is more calm and colourful. A paean is a song of thanksgiving, suggesting refief and rooks are a symbol of imagination and divine energy. ‘Through the dewey mist they soar/ Like grey shades till the eastern heaven/ Bursts, and then, as clouds even,/ flecked with fire and azure’ a symbolic world, a distortion of reality, suggests the power of the human imagination. Is this stophe the suggestion that Shelley finds relief from mourning in his poetry?
Forth and fifth stropheThe corrupted city of Venice sinks into the waves, on fire. Comments on corrupted poets, particularly Lord Byron. The fire represents truth, and reason. ‘Shine like obelisks of fire’ ‘as the flames of sacrifice’ ‘Apollo spoke of old’ Greek allusion to Apollo the sun god. Fifth: This strophe gets darker ‘Ocean’s child, and the his queen’ ?????? ‘Slave of slaves’ By there own will they joined the Holy alliance. Sixth stropheDegredation of Venice, ‘To the corpse of greatness cling’ they keep doing what they always did. All the keys of dungeons cold/ where a hundred cities lie/ Chained like thee, ingloriously/ Thou and all thy sister band.’ This has happened before. ‘By her sun consumed away’ reason brings destruction of old ways and rebirth. Flowers represent hope and love.
Seventh strophe‘As the garment of the sky’ immaterial. ‘As the ghost of homer clings’ poetry is forever. Lord Byron- ‘tempest cleaving swan’. ‘Till the universal light/ Seems to level plain and height’ balance and reason. ‘From the sea a mist has spread/ till the beams of morn lie dead’ life and nessecity dampen the imagination or reason.
Eight Strophe‘Son and mother, Death and Sin/ Played at dice for Ezzelin’ allusion to rhyme of ancient mariner ‘But Death promised to assuage HER’ sin begat death. ???? Adam and Eve? ‘That incestuous pair’ with each other, mother and son? The swallow is a symbol of necessity. Ninth Strophe and rest‘In thy halls the lamp of learning/ Padua now no more is burning.’ Social redemption. Tyranny attempts to stamp out the flames of imagination ‘But their spark lies dead in thee/ Tramped out by tyranny’…’The spark beneath his feet are dead/ he starts to see the flames it fed’ Tenth (starts with ‘Noon descends around me now’ I might have passed out with boredom at one point). Talks about cosmic harmony with the numerous links to nature. Eleventh- without love everything disappears. Darker and calmer than above. Last, a summary.
Stanzas written in dejection, near Naples.Context: Clara Shelley’s death still The tone is measured and reasonable, and at first appears positive ‘the sun is warm, the sky is clear’ but the setting soon suggests something amiss. ‘The purple noon’ is a reference to sin. ‘The City’s voice’ represents immorality. In the next stanza he describes the human condition, with discord ‘With green [nature and the spirit] and purple [sin]’ and the idea that he alone had achieved enlightenment ‘did any heart now share in my emotion?’ The third stanza mentions ‘The sage in meditation’ who ‘walked with inward glory crowned’ an is an allusion to Marcus Aurelius. He then insults other more worldly poets, particularly Byron ‘smiling they live and call life pleasure/ … that cup has been dealt another measure’. In the forth stanza he complains about how he must bare the burden of enlightenment alone until he dies. The final stanza talks of Shelley’s understanding of public opinion. This opinion is still held today in many classrooms around England ‘for I am one that men love not’. But ultimately states that he regrets nothing. Quotes
Julian and MaddaloContext: A conversation between Shelley and Byron during his trip to Italy, allusion to Byron’s daughter, Allegra. Criticism that Shelley, being upper class, can not understand lower class predicament. Julian and Maddalo are riding through the countryside of Italy, talking of nothing, and on their ride home the talk became more serious. Julian and Maddalo took different sides to a discussion, or as Shelley puts it ‘but pride made my companion take the darker side’. In the first stanza, Shelley comments on the passage of time ‘ever shifting sand’ and the desire of the soul ‘what we see is boundless as we wish our souls to be’. He also makes several comments on religion ‘yet pleasing, as such, so the poets tell, The devils held within the dales of hell’. Shelley complains that Byron is so full of himself he has become blind ‘that sense that he was greater than his kind… his eagle spirit blind’ He comments on the need for change ‘as age to age might add, for uses vile’ and the vulgarity of manmade objects ‘we could just hear it’s hoarse and iron tongue’ [[[note, more than meets the eye]]]. Maddalo (Byron) comments on Shelley’s atheism, and echo’s Shelley’s own thoughts on religion ‘perilous infidel… A wolf among meek lambs… if you can’t swim, beware of providence’ he talks about children being the future ‘with eyes… which seem Twin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam with such deep meaning as we never see. Talks about being able to achieve everything with understanding ‘Where is the truth, love and beauty we seek But in our mind?. Maddalo then accuses Shelley of not acting on his ideas, only talking ‘you talk of Utopia’ and Julian replies that this idea goes beyond mortality ‘something nobler than to live or die- so taught the kings in old philosophy’. ‘Who reigned, before Religion made men blind’ personification of religion, another comment, Religion personified, not god. Shelley demonstrates self loathing when he comments ‘How vain are such aspiring theories.’ The next dialogue talks of the madman, who came to Venice famous and lost his fortune, going mad after his lady left him. An outlet of his own feelings? The madman is except from normal laws of society and says things that Shelley, being rich and privileged, cannot because of social expectations and criticisms that because he is rich, he cannot comment on the problems of the poor. He is partly autobiographical. Quotes
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