Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822

2. Percy Bysshe Shelley1792-1822 • Percy Shelley was raised by a wealthy and conservative family from a noble background. He attended Oxford University. • Eloped to Edinburgh with Harriet Westbrook when he was 18 and she was 16. • In 1814, his marriage to Harriet was falling apart and he fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the daughter of his mentor, William Godwin. He abandoned Harriet and fled to France with Mary. • Two years later, Harriet (pregnant by an unknown man) drowned herself in the Thames. • Mary and Percy lived mostly in Italy, with Percy in constantly poor health and short of money. They had two children who both died with in nine months of each other in 1818-19 (Clara and William), around the same time that Mary's famous novel Frankenstein was published. • Percy, due to his own sorrow and also due to the disintegration of his relationship with Mary, threw himself into his work, and produced many of his most famous poetry at this time. • Percy Shelley was drowned off the coast of Italy on 8 July 1822, after a storm came up and wrecked his boat, the Don Juan ("Percy Bysshe Shelley").

3. “Ode to the West Wind” • " This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. • “The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it" (Shelley).

4. Group Work With your group, study your assigned section of the poem and answer the following questions in 10 minutes. • Go through a reading of the section. • Identify and discuss the form. • Paraphrase any difficult lines or ideas. • What is the dominant image in your section? • Identify as many poetic devices as you can (metaphor, simile, allusion, personification, paradox) • Think about the ways in which this is a work of the Romantic Movement.

8. Individual Work • Individually, examine the last two sections of the poem. Write a commentary for 10 minutes. • Ideas: • Theme • Purpose • What problem is he identifying? • Is there a solution to this problem?

11. Discussion Points • What did you notice about each section? (Hint: count the number of lines and look at the rhyme scheme... do you see a turn in the meaning at a certain point? Does it make you think of an Italian word that starts with a "V"?) • In what ways is this a work of the Romantic Movement? Remember the 5 "I"s: • Intuition • Individual • Inspiration in Nature • Idealism • Imagination