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Percy Bysshe Shelley. 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822 . Major works are long visionary poems Approximately 50 readers as his audience, it is said that he made no more than 40 pounds from his writings. .
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Percy Bysshe Shelley 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822
Major works are long visionary poems • Approximately 50 readers as his audience, it is said that he made no more than 40 pounds from his writings.
His father was Sir Timothy Shelley, a Whig Member of Parliament, and his mother, a Sussex landowner • Born at Field Place in Horsham, England • The eldest of the children • Received his early education at home • On 10 April 1810, he matriculated at University College, Oxford • Expelled from Oxford on 25 March 1811
After being expelled, he eloped to Scotland with the 16-year-old schoolgirl Harriet Westbrook • Visited Ireland shortly afterward and wrote his Address to the Irish People • On 28 July 1814, Shelley abandoned his family and ran away with Mary (also 16, later author of Frankenstein) • Sailed to Europe, crossed France, and settled in Switzerland • After six weeks they returned to England • In the autumn of 1815 he wrote Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude • Shelley's estranged wife Harriet drowned herself and custody of the children was given to foster parents
Contact with Byron encouraged Shelley to write again (Julian and Maddalo) • The Shelleys travelled around various Italian cities • Spent the summer of 1819 writing a tragedy, The Cenci, in Livorno • Inspired by the death of Keats, in 1821 Shelley wrote the elegy Adonais • Shelley, Byron and Hunt wanted to establish a journal, that would be called The Liberal
On 8 July 1822 Shelley drowned • A mass of evidence that Shelley may have been murdered • Was cremated on the beach near Viareggio • After his death The Courier gloated: "Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned, now he knows whether there is a God or not.“ • Shelley’s heart was later buried with the body of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, his son • His grave bears the Latin inscription, Cor Cordium, and a few lines of "Ariel's Song" from Shakespeare's The Tempest Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.
