Life and Works of P.B.Shelley

The great poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on 4 August 1792 at Field Place near Horsham in Sussex, England. His father was an MP, Sir Timothy Shelley and his mother was Elizabeth. Percy was the oldest of six children. He had a brother and four sisters. In 1804 Shelley was sent to Eton. Then in 1810 Shelley went to University College, Oxford. Meanwhile Shelley wrote Zastrozzi. It was published in 1810. With his sister Elizabeth Shelley also wrote Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. It was also published in 1810. Shelley also wrote St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, which was published in 1811.

However in 1811 Shelley wrote a pamphlet called The Necessity of Atheism. As a result he was expelled from university. Shelley then married a girl named Harriet Westbrook. The couple had 2 children but they separated when Harriet was expecting their second child. In 1813 Shelley published a work called Queen Mab.

Then in 1814 Shelley began a relationship with a girl named Mary, the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary had a daughter in February 1815 but the child died after a few days. However in January 1816 Mary gave birth to a son named William. In May 1816 Mary and Percy Shelley and their son traveled to Lake Geneva. While there Mary was inspired to write the novel Frankenstein. Percy Bysshe Shelley married Mary on 30 December 1816 after Harriet committed suicide.

On 2 September 1817 Mary Shelley gave birth to a daughter. She was called Clara. Unfortunately Clara Shelley died on 24 September 1818. Their son William Shelley died on 7 June 1819. However on 12 November 1819 while in Florence Mary gave birth to another son, Percy Florence Shelley. He was the only one of the couple's children to survive. Meanwhile Percy Shelley continued to write. In 1820 he published his great work Prometheus Unbound. Sadly on 8 July 1822 Shelley was drowned off Italy when his boat sank. Shelley was cremated and his ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

• P.B.Shelley's works:-

1. Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude :-

         Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written from 10 September to 14 December in 1815 in Bishopsgate, London and first published in 1816. The poem was without a title when Shelley passed it along to his contemporary and friend, Thomas Love Peacock. The poem is 720 lines long. It is considered to be one of the first of Shelley's major poems.

Peacock suggested the name Alastor which comes from Roman mythology. Peacock has defined Alastoras "evil genius." The name does not refer to the hero or Poet of the poem, however, but instead to the spirit who divinely animates the Poet's imagination.

2-Mont Blanc (poem)

            Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni is an ode by the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem was composed between 22 July and 29 August 1816 during Shelley's journey to the Chamonix Valley, and intended to reflect the scenery through which he travelled. "Mont Blanc" was first published in 1817 in Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, which some scholars believe to use "Mont Blanc" as its culmination.

After Percy Shelley's early death in 1822, Mary Shelley published two collected editions of her husband's poetry; both of which included "Mont Blanc". Mary's promotion of his poetry helped to secure his enduring reputation and fame.

In "Mont Blanc", Percy Shelley compares the power of the mountain against the power of the human imagination. Although he emphasised the ability of the human imagination to uncover truth through a study of nature, he questions the notion of religious certainty. The poet concludes that only a privileged few can see nature as it really is, and are able to express its benevolence and malevolence through the device of poetry.

3-Zastrozzi

                Zastrozzi: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1810 in London by George Wilkie and John Robinson anonymously, with only the initials of the author's name, as "by P.B.S.". The first of Shelley's two early Gothic novellas, the other being St. Irvyne, outlines his atheistic worldview through the villain Zastrozzi and touches upon his earliest thoughts on irresponsible self-indulgence and violent revenge. An 1810 reviewer wrote that the main character "Zastrozzi is one of the most savage and improbable demons that ever issued from a diseased brain".

Shelley wrote Zastrozzi at the age of seventeen  while attending his last year at Eton College, though it was not published until later in 1810 while he was attending University College, Oxford. The novella was Shelley's first published prose work.

In 1986, the novel was released as part of the Oxford World's Classics series by Oxford University. Nicole Berry translated the novel in a French edition in 1999. A German translation by Manfred Pfister was published in 2007.


Sitetion: -

http://www.localhistories.org/percyshelley.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastor,_or_The_Spirit_of_Solitude

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc_(poem)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zastrozzi