When the Lamp Is Shattered (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- First Published: 1824
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Love or romance, Art or artists, Poetry or poets, Imagination, Birds, Romanticism, Heart, Lamps, Eagles
The Poem
“When the Lamp Is Shattered” is a poem of thirty-two lines expressing the loss of ecstatic poetic creativity in response to the loss of a beloved woman’s affections.
The poem was written at the height of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetic powers, in the last year of his short life, after he had anchored his restless exile from England in Pisa, Italy. There, in 1820, he at last found the semblance of contentment with his troubled wife and a group of close friends. Among Shelley’s friends were Edward Williams, a retired lieutenant of a cavalry regiment...
[The entire page is 1313 words long]
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