Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley (/ˈpɜrsi ˈbɪʃ ˈʃɛli/; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve 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 Lord Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy. His other major works include long, visionary poems such as Queen Mab (later reworked as The Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonaïs, the unfinished work The Triumph of Life; and the visionary verse dramas The Cenci (1819) and Prometheus Unbound (1820).

His close circle of admirers, however, included some progressive thinkers of the day, including his future father-in-law, the philosopher William Godwin. 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 themselves for blasphemy or sedition. Shelley did not live to see success and influence, although these reach down to the present day not only in literature, but in major movements in social and political thought.

Shelley became an idol of the next 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, Karl Marx, Upton Sinclair and Isadora Duncan. Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience was apparently influenced by Shelley's non-violence in protest and political action.

Read more about Percy Bysshe Shelley:  Shelley's Heart, Idealism, Legacy, Major Works, Short Prose Works, Essays, Collaborations With Mary Shelley, See Also, References

Famous quotes by percy bysshe shelley:

    Within my heart is the lamp of love,
    And that is day!
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these
    All things are subject but eternal Love.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Every epoch, under names more or less specious, has deified its peculiar errors.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
    With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
    Of human thought or form,
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)