Percy Bysshe Shelley

The theme of Shelley's 1820 poem is the phenomenon of unrequited love. In the first stanza, the speaker observes that in the natural world, specifically in the elements of water and air, there is...

In this quote from “In the Defence of Poetry,” poet Percy B. Shelley is commenting on the unrecognized level of influence that poets have in society. Consider how a legislator is someone who writes...

This poem is a homage to Wordsworth. To a great extent, the Romantic movement is seen in two phases. Wordsworth and Coleridge represented the first phase of the movement. Leaders and the voices...

In this first stanza of the poem, the speaker sets the scene. It is a beautiful day: the sun is "warm," the sky is cloudless, and the ocean's waves dance "fast" and bright. The mood is therefore...

Shelley saw his thoughts and philosophy as representing a kind of revolutionary ideal that he saw as being important for mankind to be seized and changed by. Contextually, he was a figure who, like...

The concept of the sublime in Shelley's poetry refers to the way that nature is above and beyond man and represents concepts such as eternal beauty and also power that shows at once the frailty of...

The title of the poem "A Lament" suggests that Shelley is sad about something and grieving its loss. It is unclear though what exactly he is grieving about and for. It is possible that he is...

With regard to Shelley's "Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte," I believe that the sentiment the author expresses is anything but cordial. Shelley's first line quite simply states, "I...

Earlier Romantic poets were writing during the time of the American and French revolutions, as well as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The tone of energy, transformation, renewal...

In the briefest terms, the poem is saying that everything is connected; everything mingles with everything else. Nothing stands alone without a relation to something else. Like "no man is an...

Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the leading and most prolific of the English Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century. His contributions to English literature are substantial, beginning with...

In "A Song: 'Men of England,'" Percy Bysshe Shelley asks why the "bees of England" work to "forge / Many a weapon, chain, and scourge." By "bees," Shelley means the working men of England, whom he...

Both of the poems "To a Skylark" and Ode to the West Wind" are by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Both these poems celebrate an aspect of nature, a higher order of existence that the poet compares to man's...

While Shelley was in Naples, he experienced one of the emotional lows of his life. His daughter Clara died, and his wife Mary blamed him indirectly, it is claimed, for insisting on moving the...

Mutability is defined as the tendency or liability to change. Something that is mutable is, at its core, incapable of establishing a sense of regularity or identity. As such, something cannot both...

The correct title of this poem is England in 1819. I tried to move this question to a different group- "England in 1819" -but was unable to do so for some reason. Nevertheless, there is such a...

The sublime is a concept in romantic poetry that applies to the description of nature and how man comprehends the realm of experience that cannot be easily defined or measured. The sublime in...

In his poem “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley powerfully conveys ideas about life and death through the image of a statue of a once powerful but now long dead and nearly forgotten ruler. Let's...

Shelley says the workers in England should not be like bees because they are supporting the "drones," or upper-class people who produce nothing of worth, while at the same driving themselves into...

It is somewhat difficult to identify the form of Shelley's "Love's Philosophy." It certainly is not a sonnet, because a sonnet has--by definition--14 lines, and Shelley's poem has 16. Is it an ode?...

Percy Bysshe Shelley can be described as revolutionary in several ways, namely in terms of his lifestyle and personal beliefs, in terms of the content of his poetry, in light of his notions of the...

Shelley's concept of "beauty" is a vigorously debated one with some scholars connecting it with metaphysical or mystical meaning and others connecting it with a rejection of knowing beauty through...

Throughout "Love's Philosophy" Shelley personifies certain aspects of the natural world. The mountains "kiss high heaven" and the waves "clasp each other." And "no sister-flower would be forgiven...

Shelley's lyricism is a poetic expression of his innermost sensibility as a man deeply engaged in the numerous political struggles of his time. Shelley was very much a political animal, a man...

Several poetic elements grab the attention of the reader in this poem. First, in the beginning two lines: O world! O life! O time!On whose last steps I climb, both a speaker and the intended...

The structure of this sonnet is a bit confusing because it does not fit exactly into the usual pattern of a sonnet. Traditionally there are two major types of sonnet: the Petrarchan/Italian, and...

Shelley is referring here to the nature of mutability, or change. The central paradox at the heart of the poem is that the one thing that doesn't change is change itself. It's always there,...

To get you started on this assignment, let's look closely at Shelley's poem “England in 1819” to see what he has to say about the politics and society of his day. Shelley, in fact, paints a...

In Shelley's poem, "England in 1819," the historical allusion he makes is to the "old, mad, blind, despised, dying king." This would refer to George III. Though it seems that George was...

Shelly's "A Lament" is a poem of grief for the loss of life's prime. As such, the most powerful quotes would be the portions that elucidate the theme, the speaker's feelings, and the affects of...

What is most notable about this excellent poem of love and how the speaker views the world and uses the way that all of nature mixes together to support his request that his beloved kiss him is the...

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1810 novella Zastrozzi does indeed appear to be quite vague in its setting, perhaps in Italy in the 1790s. Its characters and action do often seem to come from an earlier...

Try "In these three poems, the author expresses his fascination with, adoration for, and connection to different aspects of nature." Then you could go through and find quotes that show him...

The woman named Jane to whom Shelley addressed several poems was Jane Williams, the wife of British naval officer Edward Williams. The Williamses met Shelley and his wife, Mary, in Italy, and the...

Shelley followed much in way of Romantic tendencies in his work. Yet, I also believe that there were some distinctly different elements in his writing. Whereas thinkers like Byron and Wordsworth...

The Romantics favored extreme emotion over logic and/or reason because they felt that there was simply something more natural about emotion. We come into the world knowing how to feel, how to feel...

Assuming the format of this exercise is unspecified, I will eschew the poetic verses for simplification’s sake. For “Ode to the West Wind,” you could say something like the following. I Oh...

A good starting point for your research would be Paul Foot's 1981 book Red Shelley. Foot was a left-wing political journalist who appreciated Shelley's poetry from a literary perspective but was...

This is a fairly short poem of two stanzas, each with eight lines. It follows an ABAB, CDCD rhyme scheme, although in both stanzas, the "A" rhyme is only a pararhyme ("river"/"ever,"...

Although Percy Shelley is generally thought of more as a Romantic poet than one who was interested in politics and social reform, many of his poems actually do delve deeply the political scene....

In many respects, Shelley's writing is the result of his perception English society and politics. It is well documented that during his university studies, Shelley was the target of bullying and...

Although Percy Bysshe Shelley had a brief life, he wrote a great deal in both poetry and prose. Given the diversity of Shelley's achievement, it is even more difficult than usually to summarize his...

Shelley was indeed a late Romantic who, perhaps more than any of the other Romantics, was outraged by the political and social conditions of his country. In his youth he was an atheist, and...

Much of Shelley's poetry discusses the Romantic ideals of freedom from tyrannical powers and other forms of authority. Here are two titles to get you started. Shelley wrote a long poem titled...

John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley were both leading poets in the second generation of Romanticism. They were born and died within a few years of each other, and both died very young, Keats at...

It does seem that poetry has the power to be the kind of moral and political force which Shelley dreamed of it being. The first poem I would point to is Amanda Gorman's piece "The Hill We Climb,"...