Percy Shelley:
freedom without institutions

1. Life

Percy Shelley was born in the Sussex. At the age of twelve he was sent to Eton, where he spent six unhappy years, often ill-treated by his schoolmates. This episode probably increased his dark spirit. Here he was known as "mad-Shelley" or "Shelley the atheist" as he showed a religious scepticism.  

At Oxford he came into a strict contact with the philosophy of Plato and the radicalism of Godwin. In 1811 he wrote a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism; this implied his expulsion from Oxford.

Shelley's romanticism is ethnical. Unlike most romantic poets he is not interested in reviving the past, but he is mindful of the present and hopeful of the future. Through his tyranny around him he believed in the human race and in the law of love.

2. Works

Shelley's most important works were written between 1811 and 1822.

About the prose we remember The necessity of atheism, a pamphlet written at Oxford in which it explains that there wasn't rational proof of the existence of God, and A defence of poetry, a long essay on the Nature and power of poetry.

About the drama,  Prometheus Unbound, a lyrical and philosophical drama: it tells about a long fight between Prometheus, that symbolizes man's will to a spiritual freedom, and Jupiter, that represents tyranny and oppression.

We can finally mention Ode to the west wind, The cloud, A dirge, and Ode to liberty.

3. View of poetry

In 1821 Shelley writes 'Defence to the poetry', a long essay in which is contained his view of poetry.

Peacock thought that in 19^th century poetry was almost useless, while Shelley though that poetry was the main source of civilization.

Poets are, then, all those that contribute to civilization: not only poets, painters but also teachers and philosophers.

Poetry is something divine, and it can be found in men that was divinely inspired.

Definitions of poetry: "Poetry is the record of the best and happiest minds"

"Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world"

4. Features and themes

Shelley is almost a worshipper of the French revolution and he introduced all his ideals into his poems.

As a disciple of Godwin he was a rationalist, but as a worshipper of Plato in himself he felt a deep idealism. This is one of the contradictions of Shelley. So, he was against the mankind, not owing to the fact that he hates mankind, but because he loves it and he can't help to denote the mistakes between men.

He believed that men couldn't be free because institutions, like state or church, like marriage and commerce that take man to be a selfish. But freedom doesn't mean anarchy. Between to the laws, there must be love, identified as the force that all moves, the centre of the contact between Spirit and Nature.

Like a great admirer of Plato, he believed in the separation between physic and metaphysic world. Then, matter doesn't exist because the only reality is the spirit. Nature is alive as man and as men is endowed with a soul.

Beauty, Justice, Truth and Love are all concept that recall to the idea of Good, even if nothing, for Shelley, can be identified to God, because Mighty Power and Love are two contradictory words. For this he speaks about the necessity of the Atheism and he didn't accept all the religious dogmas.

Even if he was an atheist, he believed in a spiritual force in which every man is a part; men can born, live and die, but his spirit will return to the universal spirit that the world moves. He keeps on evidence his pantheism as a true religion, instead of Coleridge, that thought to pantheism as a simple philosophical concept, or Wordsworth that spoke about pantheism as an aesthetic conception of the universe.

His pantheism involved Nature, that represents for man an infinite source of Joy and happiness, but it doesn't contain messages for men. Due to a strict contact between Man and Nature, burns the concept of ecstasy.

5. A DIRGE

Rough wind, that moanest loud

Grief too sad for a song

Wild wind, when sullen cloud

Knells all the night long.

Sad storm, whose tears are vain

Bare woods, whose branches strain,

Deep caves and dreary main,

Wail, for the world's wrong.

CANTO FUNEBRE

Vento violento, che ti lamenti forte

Dolore troppo grande per una canzone,

Vento selvaggio quando una nuvola cupa

Suona a morto per tutta la notte

Triste tempesta, le cui lacrime sono vane

Boschi spogli, i cui rami si estendono,

Profonde cave, e mare cupo,

gemete, per i mali del mondo!

5.1 Analysis of "A dirge"

1) What common ideas do the adjectives convey?

They convey an idea of sadness and desolation.

In particular: Rough and wild convey violence

Sullen and dreary convey darkness

Vain, bare and sad convey desolation

Loud and deep convey intensity

2) What common idea do the verbs convey?

They convey an idea of sadness and desolation.

3) What of them are synonyms?

Vail and moanest

4) What of them suggest suffering?

Storm

5) What words do they convey an auditive vision?

Moanest, Knells and Wail convey an auditive vision

6) There are words that refer to

SKY EARTH SEA

Cloud, storm woods, branches caves, main

7) Which word sums them up?

World        

8) Which noun is different from others?

SONG, because convey an auditive connotation and it brings us to the title of the poem.

9) What do the other words have in common?

They shares sadness

10) Which of the verbs is strict connected with the song?

Knell

11) Why is the wind invited to sing a dirge?

Because wind has a melancholy sound.

12) Why is the dirge to be sung?

For a dead

13) What is the scheme of the poem?

Ababcccb

14) Onomatopoeia:

Knell

15) Alliteration:

sad song/ wild wind/ wail world wrong

16) Personification:

Wind, storm, woods, caves, main

6. ODE TO THE WEST WIND

[.]

6.1 Analysis of "Ode to the West Wind"

The poem is divided into five stanzas. Each stanza is a strange combination of terza rima and sonnet form (in imitation of Shakespeare)

Stanza 1 describes the wind blowing over the earth, symbolized by the leaf.

The stanza is characterized by the use of personification through the presence of metaphor (enchanter, wild spirit) and similes (like a corpse, like a ghosts, like flocks). In the final couplet  the wind is defined as destroyer (in fact, the wind drives away the dead leaves of Autumn and destroys them), and preserver (in fact the wind preserves the winged seeds and drives them to their wintry bed where they will wait for the coming of the spring to give life to flowers and plants). These two antithetical terms symbolize the circle of life, while the coming of Spring symbolizes the optimistic faith of the poet in the progress of men.

In Stanza 4 the poet strikes a more personal note. After having summarized the previous three stanzas, he reveals his despair. He, like the wind, is proud, tameless and swift, and he feels crushed under the burden of the life. Shelley had already lost his first wife and two children.

In Stanza 5 the main theme is the mission of the poet. Shelley still asks the wind to help him, but now, from the passive attitude of the previous stanza (lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!) he passes in a more active one (Make my thy lire.), and finally dispirited, he asks the wind to enter him and inspirit him again. From the elemental force of nature, the wind has now changed in an immaterial power, similar to the latin Spiritus. As the wind is defined enchanter in the first stanza, now the wind, with the incantation of his verse, may quicken a new birth. As a disciple of Godwin, he wanted an ideal world, no longer based on tyranny, but he wanted a n