Percy Bysshe Shelley, short note for UP PGT English

                                    Percy Bysshe Shelley

1. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, in Horsham, Sussex, England.

2. His parents were Timothy Shelley, a Member of Parliament, and Elizabeth Pilfold.
3. He is classified as a second-generation Romantic poet, along with Byron and Keats.
4. At Eton College, he was famously known by the nickname "Mad Shelley" due to his violent temper and eccentricities.
5. He attended University College, Oxford, entering in 1810.
6. In 1811, Shelley was expelled from Oxford for co-authoring a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism.
7. His collaborator in writing The Necessity of Atheism was his lifelong friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg.
8. Shelley eloped with his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, in 1811 when she was only 16.
9. His second wife was Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein), whom he married in 1816 after Harriet's suicide.
10. Shelley drowned in 1822 at the age of 29 in the Gulf of Spezia, Italy.
11. The boat he was sailing when he died was named the Don Juan.
12. When his body was recovered, a copy of John Keats's poems (specifically Lamia) was found in his pocket.
13. His ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
14. His epitaph includes lines from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: "Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change...".
15. He was described by Matthew Arnold as a "beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain".

16. C.S. Swinburne called Shelley a "perfect singing God".

17. Shelley was deeply influenced by the political philosopher William Godwin, who was also his father-in-law.
18. He is often called a revolutionary poet due to his focus on reform and radical change.

Ode to the West Wind: Key Facts

1. "Ode to the West Wind" was written in 1819 and published in 1820.
2. It was composed in a wood near Florence, Italy.
3. The poem was published as part of the collection titled Prometheus Unbound with Other Poems.
4. It is written in five sections.
5. Each of the five sections consists of 14 lines, making each section a sonnet.
6. The total length of the poem is 70 lines.
7. The stanzaic form used is Terza Rima, a three-line rhyme scheme popularized by Dante.
8. The rhyme scheme for each section is ABA BCB CDC DED EE.
9. The poem is written in Iambic Pentameter.
10. The West Wind is addressed as both a "Destroyer and a Preserver".
11. It "destroys" the old, dead leaves of autumn and "preserves" the seeds for spring.
12. The wind is called the "breath of Autumn's being".
13. Dead leaves are compared to "ghosts from an enchanter fleeing".
14. The colors of the falling leaves are described as yellow, black, pale, and hectic red.
15. The seeds are compared to a "corpse within its grave".
16. The "sister of the Spring" mentioned in the poem is the East Wind.
17. The wind's effect is described across three realms: Land (Section I), Sky (Section II), and Ocean (Section III).
18. In Section II, clouds are compared to decaying leaves shaken from the boughs of Heaven and Ocean.
19. The "Maenad" reference refers to the followers of Bacchus (Dionysus), the god of wine.
20. The wind is called a "dirge of the dying year".
21. Section III describes the wind's effect on the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
22. Undersea vegetation, such as "sea-blooms" and "oozy woods," despoil themselves in fear of the wind.
23. In Section IV, the poet expresses a desire to be a "dead leaf," a "swift cloud," or a "wave" to be carried by the wind.
24. Shelley famously cries, "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" expressing his personal suffering.
25. In Section V, Shelley asks the wind to make him its "lyre" (a musical instrument).
26. The wind represents a force of political and spiritual change.
27. The poem ends with the famous optimistic question: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?".
28. This final line indicates Shelley's optimism and belief in rebirth.
29. The poem was partly inspired by the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.

To a Skylark: Key Facts

1. "To a Skylark" was written in 1820 and published in the same year.
2. It was inspired by a walk Shelley took with his wife Mary near Leghorn (Livorno), Italy.
3. The poem consists of 21 stanzas.
4. Each stanza has five lines (a cinquain).
5. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABABB.
6. The first four lines of each stanza are in Trochaic Trimeter, while the fifth line is an Alexandrine (Iambic Hexameter).
7. The bird is addressed as a "blithe Spirit" rather than a mere bird.
8. It is said to come from "Heaven, or near it".
9. The skylark sings "unpremeditated art," meaning its song is natural and unplanned.
10. Shelley uses several similes to describe the bird:
• Like a Poet hidden in the light of thought.
• Like a high-born maiden in a palace tower.
• Like a glow-worm golden in a dell of dew.
• Like a rose embowered in its own green leaves.
11. The skylark represents pure joy and is free from human "satiety".
12. A famous line from the poem is: "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought".
13. Shelley notes that humans "look before and after, / And pine for what is not".
14. Even our "sincerest laughter / With some pain is fraught".
15. The poet asks the bird to teach him "half the gladness" its brain must know.
16. If he knew that gladness, the world would listen to him as he is listening to the bird.
17. Unlike human art, the bird's song is free from the "cloyed" nature of human love and exhaustion.

Major Works and Publications

1. Zastrozzi (1810) was Shelley’s first published work, a Gothic novel.
2. St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian (1811) was another early Gothic horror novel.
3. Queen Mab (1813) is a philosophical poem in nine cantos that attacks institutional religion and government.
4. Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1816) is a visionary poem in blank verse.

5. The title Alastor was suggested by Thomas Love Peacock and means "evil genius".

6. The Revolt of Islam (1818) was originally titled Laon and Cythna.

7. It is written in Spenserian stanzas and explores themes of revolution and free love.

8. The Cenci (1819) is a verse drama (tragedy) in five acts based on a real Italian family.

9. It is considered a closet drama, meaning it was intended for reading rather than stage performance.

10. Prometheus Unbound (1820) is a lyrical drama in four acts.

11. It is a "sequel" or response to Aeschylus's lost play Prometheus Bound.
12. In this work, Prometheus represents humanity struggling against the tyranny of Jupiter (the oppressor).

13. Adonais (1821) is an elegy written on the death of John Keats.

14. It is modeled on the Greek pastoral elegies of Bion and Moschus.

15. Hellas (1822) was the last work published during his lifetime and was written to raise money for the Greek War of Independence.
16. A Defence of Poetry (written 1821, published 1840) is Shelley’s major critical essay.

17. It was written as a response to Thomas Love Peacock’s essay The Four Ages of Poetry.
18. Shelley famously states: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world".
19. He defines poetry as the "record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds".
20. He also describes a poet as a "nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds".

21. The Masque of Anarchy (1819) is a political poem written in response to the Peterloo Massacre.

22. It calls for non-violent resistance, with the famous line: "Ye are many—they are few".

23. Julian and Maddalo (1819) is a conversation poem featuring characters based on Shelley (Julian) and Lord Byron (Maddalo).
24. The Triumph of Life (1822) was Shelley's last, unfinished poem, written in terza rima.

25. It is modeled on Dante’s Divine Comedy and Petrarch’s Trionfi.

26. Ozymandias (1818) is a famous sonnet about the transience of power and the ruins of an Egyptian king.
27. The Sensitive Plant (1820) was published alongside Prometheus Unbound.

28. "England in 1819" is a political sonnet attacking the ruling class of England.
29. "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (1817) was inspired by Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality".
30. "Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples" (1818) reflects Shelley’s period of ill health and personal suffering.

31. Epipsychidion (1821) is a poem addressed to Countess Teresa Viviani.

32. The poem "A Cloud" (1820) personifies a cloud and explores the water cycle.
33. The cloud famously says: "I change, but I cannot die".
34. Shelley often used the term "closet drama" for plays like Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, which were meant for reading.
35. His poetic style is characterized by lyricism, idealism, and complex imagery.
36. Shelley’s work is a central part of the UP PGT syllabus, emphasizing his role as a visionary and revolutionary Romantic.