Ariel (Masterplots II: Juvenile and Young Adult Biography Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog
- First Published: 1923
- Time of Work: 1809–1822
- Setting: Great Britain, Ireland, France, Switzerland, and Italy
- Principal Characters: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sir Timothy Shelley, Harriet Grove, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Harriet Westbrook, Mary Godwin, Jane “Claire” Clairmont, William Godwin, George Gordon, Lord Byron
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Sex or sexuality, Suicide, Gender roles, England or English people, Fathers, Death or dying, Edible plants, Horses, Animals, Racing, Horsemanship, Berries
- Locales: France, Italy, Ireland, Great Britain, Switzerland
Form and Content
Ariel: The Life of Shelley is, in André Maurois’ own words, “not the literary study of a poet, but the picture of a human conflict.” This conflict is the eternal one between freedom and restraint: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s desires to think his own thoughts and to love whomever he wished clashed with the values and beliefs of his society. Maurois was trying to display the agony of a romantic soul torn between two loves. In the story of Shelley and his two wives, Maurois saw the central moral predicament that men and women face in the modern...
[The entire page is 1387 words long]
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