Percy Shelley: A Study of His Work and Writing Advice

When you think of poetry, perhaps epic imagery springs to mind or the gentle subtlety of an everyday moment expressed with a carefully chosen word. Poetry has the power to speak to our souls in a way that not even prose can do, and yet it goes underestimated by a lot of people—perhaps victims of boring teachers who drilled into their minds that poetry is nothing but an incorrect illusion of pretentiousness.

It takes a great mind to create poetry, and one of those great minds is Percy Shelley, who is one of the most well-known English poets ever, even though he lived two hundred years ago. He died at the tragically young age of thirty, but despite that, the legacy of his poetry and his life continues to be studied, mulled over, and inspirational to the people of today. Although he had no way of knowing it at the time, his works—and by extension, him—would go on to become immortal. For the striking power of words never dies.

In the foreword of John Worthen’s 2019 book The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Critical Biography, it states that Percy Shelley’s poetry “focused on the most intense concerns of his life… [and they are what] makes Shelley extraordinary.” In fact, the man wrote so much that “being concise in any biography isn’t an option.” These impressive claims practically justify Shelley’s reputation alone, and as such, his poetry and life are so closely intertwined that much can be learned from examining both.

The Life of Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in England in 1972. When he was young, he was educated at Syon House Academy from 1802 to 1804 and then after that, he went to Eton until 1810, where, unfortunately, he was severely bullied both physically and mentally, but managed to escape—or rather to endure the unfortunate torment—by “indulging in imaginative escapism and literary pranks.” 

Shelley’s father was a conventional man “caught between an overbearing father and a rebellious son,” and these incidents showcasing Shelley’s quite unconventional nature eventually culminated in a drastic event. For while attending Oxford, Shelley published a “radical pamphlet” with his “friend” Thomas Hogg—but of course, that time period being as strict and unforgiving as it was, they were known as nothing but good friends, when in reality Shelley was likely bisexual (was it the reason for the bullying?) And, later in life, he was an “ardent Hellenist”, along with other friends of his such George Gordon and Lord Byron who all knew that gay love had flourished in ancient Greece. They identified with the title of Hellenist because they saw themselves in what it meant—and, furthermore, despite the fact that, later in his life, Shelley's own friends and family censored his work—changing “love” to “friendship” and “his beloved” to a nameless other along with plenty more disgusting censors—Shelley’s love for men was evident; his writings and the writings of his friends had “abundant indications of male love.”  

The relationship between Thomas Hogg and Shelley resulted in Shelley developing strong radical and anti-Christian views, which were influenced by Hogg. Together they wrote a pamphlet brazenly titled “The Necessity of Atheism” which “questioned the lifestyles of God.” The direct quote from the shocking pamphlet declares, “If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?” For Shelley, religion was “a means of manipulation by which the powerful keep others subjugated;” he thought God himself was “the very prototype of human tyranny” and in Shelley’s mind religion, sexual and political oppression were clearly connected. Considering that he was bisexual and lived during a time you could get killed for it, his vehement attitude toward it makes total sense. Indeed, “poetry and prose output remained steady throughout his life, most publishers and journals declined to publish his work for fear of being arrested themselves for blasphemy or sedition.” Even if they didn’t directly know he was bisexual, they knew he didn’t view God like everyone else did and therefore wanted nothing to do with him.

Therefore—Shelley living in a “reactionary political climate” thanks to the ongoing war with Napoleon—both Hogg and Shelley were expelled. Shelley’s relationship with his father greatly suffered because of this event, for he threatened to cease all communications with Shelley unless he returned home and accepted the yolk of receiving instruction by specific tutors, to which Shelley refused.

The tumultuous nature of his college years would infect his marriages, as well, for he eloped with a woman named Harriet Westbrook who was “shrewd” and “mannerly” and sacrificed everything to be with him, and from 1811 until 1814, the two of them “actively participated in political and social reforms in eire and Wales, and Shelley wrote many radical pamphlets in which he manifested his views on liberty, equality and justice.” Shelley and Westbrook had two children together.

However, only a year later, Shelley fell in love with someone else: the teenage Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who would later write the famous and enduring novel, Frankenstein. They eloped to France on July 27, 1814, and took Mary’s stepsister Jane along for the ride, ignoring the enraged protests of Mary’s mother. Together, the three of them  “lived a nomadic existence” traveling across Europe until they settled down in Italy, and it was there Shelley “wrote some of his best-loved poems” including “Adonais” as well as “The Triumph of Life” (which he never finished and would end up being his last before he died by drowning.) They eventually returned to England, however, where they were shunned by the rest of the Godwin family—for “there were few greater taboos than a liaison with a married man,” but both Shelley and Mary ignored this because they firmly believed they were following the highest and eternally righteous of mortal principles: that if two people were in love, nothing should stand in their way.  

However, following your heart, in this case, had some dark consequences. Because Shelley cheated on Harriet Westbrook with the young Mary, Westbrook, after several years of an unhappy life, unfortunately, decided to end her own life by walking into a river. She was only twenty-one. In a dark reflection of this, Mary threatened suicide if Shelley did not marry her. So, he did.

While these events were confusing, tragic, and hectic, two hundred years of distance gives a new and wider perspective. The fact Shelley married twice in a traditional way contradicts his own statements where he had “he vigorously attacked the institution of marriage and argued instead for entirely voluntary unions” and as a result the contradictions between his writing on marriage and his actions “leave room for debate about where he genuinely stood” on the matter.

Shelley’s Most Famous Works

While Percy Shelley wrote dozens of remarkable poems and essays over the course of his life, three of them—“Ozymandias,” “England in 1819” and “It’s the West Wind” “reflect Shelley’s literary identity more significantly than his other works.” “Ozymandias” is one of his most famous pieces, for it “emphasizes the futility of dictators who set themselves up as supremely important, only to have all their vain show wiped out by the passage of time.” Such a sweeping, epic theme and tone reflects Shelley’s long-held opinion that there was “no need for government institutions”—especially if knowledge and art would make people into morally perfect individuals which would result in a naturally cooperative society, since he viewed government as the “greatest obstacle to perfectibility and cooperation.”  The inevitability that authority, no matter how mighty, will get crushed by time is evident in this epic poem.

Just as Shelley’s work closely reflected his life, it also reflected and is closely tied to the Romanticism movement itself. Shelley isn’t one of the greatest Romantic poets for nothing, after all—for Shelley’s “philosophical assumptions about poets and poetry can be read as a sort of primer for the Romantic movement in general.” Romanticism is defined by writers who were discontented with their world, so they escaped it by becoming fascinated by distant places such as the “medieval past, folklore and legends, and nature and the common people” as well as being drawn to supernatural things. Furthermore, Shelley’s works were considered by some to be “a weapon of class struggle.” To be Romantic was to feel that the current time period was “commercial, inhuman, and standardized,” thus necessitating the escape into other areas of interest. The “original thoughts” of Romanticism are “expressed clearly” in his work.

The obvious awe with which the narrator of “Ozymandias” describes the gigantic, half-destroyed kingly statue buried in the sand—in addition to decrying authority—is very clearly viewing the past as something alien and fascinating. The narrator pours over every detail of the statue—although Shelley and the narrator are both against such strict reign, you get the feeling that being in the presence of such a discovery is so overwhelming you can’t help but take in every inch that isn’t buried by time. For on the statue is engraved, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"—the lyrics demonstrate a fascination with the past even though living under a king like that doesn’t sound good at all (or appealing to Romantics, for that matter.)

The poem’s overall message is that “Evolution is history, and history is constantly evolving… human sensibility must not be sundered if we expect to beat back blowing sands.” As Romantic people found escapism in such things as folklore, legends, and the medieval past, the statue in “Ozymandias” encapsulates all of them; the traveler’s discovery feels like stumbling upon someone else’s awe-filled dream carrying a message of might and wariness at its core.

Shelley’s Impact

It has now been two hundred years since Percy Shelley died, and his works are still relevant in many ways. They are a window into the soul of a very politically active man. They are teachers that show how one can observe the beauties of the world, both large and small, and how time threatens its mighty fist in a shadow over everything—from the statue in “Ozymandias” to the flowers in his 1821-22 poem “The Flower That Smiles To-Day.” In that poem, which is “one of Shelley’s most widely anthologized,” lightning is bright but brief, flowers that bloom today will die tomorrow, friendships are rare, and love is unsatisfying and results in nothing but despair. In Shelley’s writings, the inevitability of time is the true tyrant, and the simple nature and approachable length of this particular poem make it an easy selection for college anthology books. His words bring to readers’ imaginations make the perfect foundation for enthralling discussions, analysis, and different perspectives.

“Shelley’s ideas have an “uncanny application” to our modern times. His “atheism, humanism, socialism, feminism, vegetarianism all resonate today”, and his critiques of the “tyranny and religious oppression” in the early 19th century seem “eerily applicable” to today—he was “ahead of his time.” For instance, Shelley was always aware of the inequality women faced and said that as long as women remained a “bond-slave” of man, life must remain “poisoned at the wells.” He tried to give up his inheritance and give it to his sisters instead, but that didn’t work, although he admired and supported women writers, including his own wife, and believed “equality” should be “the natural state” of things.

To further demonstrate his influence on modern times, this article claims his works are indispensable to people who are modern socialists and that they should all know his writings by heart. Shelley’s name was and has become “synonymous with radical social and political change.”  

Shelley’s Writing Method and His Legacy

As an author who is just setting out on your writing journey, it can often feel very overwhelming. Being surrounded by great authors of the present as well as the past can make it feel like it’s impossible to write something as good as what they wrote—especially someone like Shelley, who died as young as twenty-nine and yet has continued to live on through the study of his life and works for two hundred years. Writing has many rules, and you might assume they all must be followed to achieve even a microscopic amount of the attention or admiration that Shelley or any of the other greats had.

However, examining his works demonstrates the exact opposite. For, among the Romantic poets, Shelley is “marveled for his inimitable abstract ideas,” even though he didn’t seem to consider himself an artist, or someone aiming to create the poetry of art—no, his goal was to create “the poetry of rapture.” In other words, instead of focusing on nothing but the rules of his trade (although those are still very important), he let his emotions guide him when writing. It is imagination “which makes Shelley's poetry the best;” he “fuses intellectual ideas” with his abstract ideas which created “a new appeal.”  In his mind, poetry was “the golden standard” of writing.

Shelley took subjects he was passionate about, as well as his particular views on the world and social injustices and fueled his writings with them. He let his imagination and emotion be his guide—and that is the key to making a piece of writing or poetry that is truly great. So, the next time you plan what you’re going to write, think about what truly matters to you and how you can use it to create something everlasting.