Reading Notes W8: Shelley, Part B

Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Stanzas Written in Dejection…” (395-401)

Percy Bysshe Shelley:

·         1792-1822

·         Advocate of vegetarianism, anarchism, Irish nationalism, and atheism

·         English poet

·         Is either seen as a fiery radical or a self-serving egoist

·         Came from a wealthy and aristocratic English family

·         His father was a member of the parliament

·         He eloped with the daughter of a coffeehouse owner who was named Harriet Westbrook. The marriage started to fall apart and he later fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who later created the novel Frankenstein.

·         A deeply skeptical poet that even put his own words/beliefs to interrogation/questioning.

·         He experiments with endings that resist resolution and he uses mismatched metaphors, which leaves his poems to be surprising and unsettling.

·         Stanzas written in Dejection: expresses a mood of desperation and failure

·         England in 1819: conveys vast wrongs that overcome a whole nation

·         Ode to the West Wind: “merging terza rima and sonnet, subject and object, death and life, nature and human history, poetry and prophecy” (397).

·         famous for his resistance and rebellion

·         capable of formal control

“Stanzas Written in Dejection-December 1818, near Naples”:

·         During this time in Naples, Percy had a tough time with the many things that occurred, like his children being taken from him (custody-wise, from Harriet). Mary and Percy’s children died within nine months of each other.

·         This sadness can be seen in this poem. Example: “Some might lament that I were cold, as I, when this sweet day is gone, which my lost heart, too soon grown old” (398). It is like with all this pain, his heart has grown cold. It also seems that in this poem he is seeking a way out of the pain, like death. For example, “Till Death Like Sleep might steal on me” (398).

“England in 1819”:

·         This is poem with hope towards righting wrongs, like in this case, oppression, starvation, manipulation of higher powers, etc.

·         Ex: “An army whom liberticide and prey makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield; Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay” (399). This is a reference to the army being used to destroy and such and also is a reference to the laws favoring the rich and powerful.