Percy Bysshe Shelley, English Romantic Poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 - July 8, 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as well as epic, poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, he did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Though Shelley's poetry and prose output remained steady throughout his life, most publishers and journals declined to publish his work for fear of being arrested for either blasphemy or sedition. Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy. On 8 July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, Shelley drowned in a sudden storm on the Gulf of Spezia while returning from Leghorn (Livorno) to Lerici in his sailing boat, the Don Juan. His body was washed ashore and later, in keeping with quarantine regulations, was cremated on the beach near Viareggio. Shelley became a lodestone to the subsequent three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Robert Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was admired by Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, W. B. Yeats, Upton Sinclair and Isadora Duncan. Henry David Thoreau's civil disobedience was apparently influenced by Shelley's non-violence in protest and political action. Shelley's popularity and influence has continued to grow in contemporary poetry circles.
Size: 3298px × 4350px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -, 18th, 19th, art, artwork, author, bw, bysshe, century, classic, dramatist, drawing, english, epic, era, essayist, european, famous, figure, historic, historical, history, illustration, important, literary, literature, lyric, male, man, mary, men, notable, novelist, people, percy, person, personalities, personality, poet, poetry, portrait, romantic, romanticism, shelley, wollstonecraft, writer
