Percy Bysshe
Shelley
(1792 -1822)
(1792 -1822)
Born in Broadbridge Heath, England, on August 4,
1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the epic poets of the 19th century, and is
best known for his classic anthology verse works such as Ode to the West
Wind and The Masque of Anarchy. He is also well known for his
long-form poetry, including Queen Mab and Alastor. He went on
many adventures with his second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.
He drowned in a sudden storm while sailing in Italy in 1822.
Childhood
and Adolescence
Percy Bysshe Shelley, a controversial English writer of great personal
conviction, was born on August 4, 1792. He grew up in the country, in the
village Broadbridge Heath, just outside of West Sussex. He learned to fish and
hunt in the meadows surrounding his home, often surveying the rivers and fields
with his cousin and good friend Thomas Medwin. His parents were Timothy
Shelley, a squire and member of Parliament, and Elizabeth Pilfold. As the
oldest of their seven children, Shelley left home at age of 10 to study at Syon
House Academy, roughly 50 miles north of Broadbridge Heath and 10 miles west of
central London. After two years, he enrolled at Eton College. While there, he
was severely bullied, both physical and mentally, by his classmates. Shelley
retreated into his imagination. Within a year’s time he had published two
novels and two volumes of poetry, including St Irvyne and Posthumous
Fragments of Margaret Nicholson.
In the fall of 1810, Shelly entered University College, Oxford. It seemed a
better academic environment for him than Eton, but after a few months, a dean
demanded that Shelley visit his office. Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson
Hogg had co-authored a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism. Its
premise shocked and appalled the faculty (“…The mind cannot believe in the
existence of a God.”), and the university demanded that both boys either
acknowledge or deny authorship. Shelley did neither and was expelled.
Shelley’s parents were so exasperated by their son’s actions that they
demanded he forsake his beliefs, including vegetarianism, political radicalism
and sexual freedom. In August of 1811, Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook, a
16-year-old woman his parents had explicitly forbidden him to see. His love for
her was centered on a hope that he could save her from committing suicide. They
eloped, but Shelley was soon annoyed with her and became interested in a woman
named Elizabeth Hitchener, a schoolteacher who inspired his first major poem, Queen
Mab. The poem’s title character, a fairy originally invented by
Shakespeare and described in Romeo and Juliet, describes what a
utopian society on earth would be like.
In addition to long-form poetry, Shelley also began writing political
pamphlets, which he distributed by way of hot air balloons, glass bottles and
paper boats. In 1812 he met his hero, the radical political philosopher William
Godwin, author of Political Justice.
Harriet and Mary
Although Shelley’s relationship with Harriet remained troubled, the young
couple had two children together. Their daughter, Elizabeth Ianthe, was born in
June of 1813, when Shelley was 21. Before their second child was born, Shelley
abandoned his wife and immediately took up with another young woman.
Well-educated and precocious, his new love interest was named Mary, the
daughter of Shelley’s beloved mentor, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft,
the famous feminist author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. To
Shelley’s surprise, Godwin was not in favor of Shelley dating his daughter. In
fact, Godwin so disapproved that he would not speak with Mary for the next
three years. Shelley and Mary fled to Paris, taking Mary’s sister, Jane, with
them. They departed London by ship and, mostly traveling by foot, toured
France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, often reading aloud to each other
from the works of Shakespeare and Rousseau.
When the three finally returned home, Mary was pregnant. So was Shelley’s
wife, Harriet. The news of Mary’s pregnancy brought Harriet to her wit’s end.
She requested a divorce and sued Shelley for alimony and full custody of their
children. Harriet’s second child with Shelley, Charles, was born in November of
1814. Three months later, Mary gave birth to a girl. The infant died just a few
weeks later. In 1816, Mary gave birth to their son, William.
A dedicated vegetarian, Shelley authored several works on the diet and
spiritual practice, including "A Vindication of Natural Diet" (1813).
In 1815, Shelley wrote Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude, a 720-line
poem, now recognized as his first great work. That same year, Shelley’s
grandfather passed away and left him an annual allowance of 1,000 British
pounds.
Friendship
with Lord Byron
In 1816, Mary’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont, invited Shelley and Mary to
join her on a trip to Switzerland. Claire had begun dating the Romantic poet
Lord Byron and wished to show him off to her sister. By the time they commenced
the trip, Lord Byron was less interested in Claire. Nevertheless, the three
stayed in Switzerland all summer. Shelley rented a house on Lake Geneva very
near to Lord Bryon’s and the two men became fast friends. Shelley wrote
incessantly during his visit. After a long day of boating with Byron, Shelley returned
home and wrote Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. After a trip through the
French Alps with Byron, he was inspired to write Mont Blanc, a
pondering on the relationship between man and nature.
Harriet’s
Death and Shelley’s Second Marriage
In the fall of 1816, Shelley and Mary returned to England to find that
Mary’s half-sister, Fanny Imlay, had committed suicide. In December of that
year it was discovered that Harriet had also committed suicide. She was found
drowned in the Serpentine River in Hyde Park, London. A few weeks later, Shelley and
Mary finally married. Mary’s father, William Godwin, was delighted by the news
and accepted his daughter back into the family fold. Amidst their celebration,
however, loss pursued Shelley. Following Harriet’s death, the courts ruled not
to give Shelley custody of their children, asserting that they would be better
off with foster parents.
With these matters settled, Shelley and Mary moved to Marlow, a small
village in Buckinghamshire. There, Shelley befriended John Keats and Leigh
Hunt, both talented poets and writers. Shelley’s conversations with them
encouraged his own literary pursuits. Around 1817, he wrote Laon and Cythna;
or, The Revolution of the Golden city. His publishers balked at the main
storyline, however, which centers on incestuous lovers. He was asked to edit it
and to find a new title for the work. In 1818, he reissued it as The Revolt
of Islam. Though the title suggests the subject of Islam, the poem’s focus
is religion in general and features socialist, political themes.
Life
in Italy
Shortly after the publication of The Revolt of Islam, Shelley, Mary
and Claire left for Italy. Lord Bryon was living in Venice, and Claire was on a
mission to bring their daughter, Allegra, to visit with him. For the next several
years, Shelley and Mary moved from city to city. While in Rome, their
first-born son William died of a fever. A year later, their baby daughter,
Clara Everina, died as well. Around this time, Shelley wrote Prometheus
Unbound. During their residency in Livorno, in 1819, he wrote The
Cenci and The Masque of Anarchy and Men of England, a response to
the Peterloo Massacre in England.
Death
and Significance
On July 8, 1822, just shy of turning 30, Shelley drowned while sailing his
schooner back from Livorno to Lerici, after having met with Leigh Hunt to
discuss their newly printed journal, The Liberal. Despite conflicting
evidence, most papers reported Shelley’s death as an accident. However, based
on the scene that was discovered on the boat’s deck, others speculated that he
might have been murdered by an enemy who detested his political beliefs.
Shelley’s bodied was cremated on the beach in Viareggio, where his bodied
had washed ashore. Mary Shelley, as was the custom for women during the time,
did not attend her husband’s funeral. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ashes were
interred in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. More than a century later, he was
memorialized in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.
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