Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792 – 1822
Born to an aristocratic and
conservative family (father in
parliament)
Went to Oxford in 1810 (and
published his first book)
Thrown out in 1811 for publishing
“The Necessity of Atheism.”
• eloped with Harriet Westbrook (16,
he was 19) to Scotland, where he
passed out incendiary pamphlets (to
a peasantry that wasn’t literate)
William Godwin, 1756 – 1836
Inventor of “Benevolent Anarchy”
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 1793
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 1793
Main Tenets:
•Man is born benevolent
•Corrupted by government (esp. monarchy),
private property, religion. Take away these
influences, and man will be led by pure reason,
benevolence, and morality.
•Therefore Man can be perfected and
enlightened
•Marriage is a corrupting influence (v. free
love)
•Education should not be dictated by led by a
child’s own interests and reason
•Education should resist ideology
William Godwin, 1756 – 1836
Inventor of “Benevolent Anarchy”
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 1793
enjoyed success, despite the downturn of
the F.R.
became the center of London intellectual
circle
hooked up with Mary Wollstonecraft in
1796
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759 – 1797
Pioneer of equal women’s rights, feminism
A Vindication of the Rights of Men, 1790
A vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
• Men and Women are equal.
• Women’s “inferiority” is due to lack of education
• Society should be based upon a social pact led by
reason.
• advocated for women’s education
Affair with Henry Fuseli, painter (both married)
and Gilbert Imlay, with whom she had her first
child, Fanny (1792)
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759 – 1797
Pioneer of equal women’s rights, feminism
A Vindication of the Rights of Men, 1790
A vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
• Men and Women are equal.
• Women’s “inferiority” is due to lack of education
• Society should be based upon a social pact led by
reason.
• advocated for women’s education
Affair with Henry Fuseli, painter (both married)
and Gilbert Imlay, with whom she had her first
child, Fanny (1792)
Hooked up with Godwin in 1796
Married in 1797 (!!), to much controversy
Died in after giving birth to Mary Wollstonecraft
Godwin, 1797.
William Godwin, 1756 – 1836
•Inventor of “Benevolent Anarchy”
•An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 1793
• enjoyed success, despite the downturn of
the F.R.
• became the center of London intellectual
circle
• hooked up with Mary Wollstonecraft in
1796
•Remarries in 1801 to Mary Clairmont
•Raises Fanny, Mary, step-daughter Claire
Clairmont.
•Starts a publishing firm, specializing in
children’s books
•Often in debt
•Writes a tribue/memoir to Mary
Wollstonecraft, which ruins her reputation
Mary Shelley, 1797 – 1851
•Raised by Godwin’s tenets of education
•Meets Coleridge and other intellectuals at a very
young age
•Raised on the writings and philosophies of her
parents
• nurtures her mother’s memory
•Strained relationship with mother-in-law
•Spent time in the wilds of Scotland
•Meets Percy Shelley in 1814, at 16…
•Graveyard romance
•Eloped to France (with Claire Clairmont) in 1814
….What was the attraction?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792 – 1822
Born to an aristocratic and
conservative family (father in
parliament)
Went to Oxford in 1810 (and published
his first book)
Thrown out in 1811 for publishing
“The Necessity of Atheism.”
• eloped with Harriet Westbrook (16,
he was 19) to Scotland, where he
passed out incendiary pamphlets (to a
peasantry that wasn’t literate)
• Met William Godwin, author of
Political Justice in 1814, helps with
debts
• Fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft
Godwin and abandoned Harriet who
was pregnant (2nd child) with Mary for
Italy. …
“Men of England”
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.
Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood?
Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, -- let no imposter heap;
Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?
With plough and spade and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre!
England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despis'd, and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn – mud from a muddy spring,
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,
A people starv'd and stabb'd in the untill'd field,
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edg'd sword to all who wield,
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,
Religion Christless, Godless – a book seal'd,
A Senate – Time's worst statute unrepeal'd,
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
Relationship to earlier Romantics…
To Wordsworth
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship, and love's
first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to
mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to
be.
Hence “Mont Blanc”…
a) How is “Mont Blanc” a “romanticist” poem?
Where are there similarities to Wordsworth and Coleridge
In stanza two, can you find action or descriptions in this poem
similar to those other poets, esp. about the interaction of
nature and the mind? Where? Is there any difference?
b) How do the sentiments or claims in the third stanza question or
undermine those of the second stanza (or of those other poets)?
c) Look at the language of the fourth stanza; what is the tone? What
words that convey that tone? What is the role of nature here?
d) The final stanza (and the poem), ends with a question. What is it
asking? Does the poem answer it? (hint: Why is the title
important?)
So, how is Shelley different from other romantic poets?
And do we see any “godwinian” influence here?