"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity."
~ Adonais
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the most important
poets of the Romantic period and is widely regarded as one of the preeminent
lyric poets of the English language (though I’m a Frost man myself). Shelley
had a short stint at University College at Oxford University before he was
unceremoniously expelled for penning a pamphlet titled, “The Necessity of
Atheism.” It is rumored that he only attended one lecture in his time at
Oxford. Though he died under auspicious circumstances in a boating accident at
the age of 29, Shelley’s influence reached into the next several generations of
Victorian poets and he was a considerable figure to members of the
pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Mark Twain even took aim at Shelley’s
eccentricities and behavior after he abandoned his first wife, Harriet Shelley,
when she became pregnant.
Shelley died after his schooner, the Don Juan (an
homage to Byron), was overtaken by a sudden squall in the Gulf of Spezia on the
way from Livorno to Livici. His body washed up on shore in a much similar
fashion to the way the title character did in his epic poem Adonais.
Only, Shelley’s body was so badly disfigured from several days floating in the
ocean that there was no flesh upon the body parts not covered by clothing.
The Shelley memorial can be viewed in a portico
built specifically for the monument at University College in Oxford. The
monument was sculpted by Edward Onslow Ford and the impetus for the design was
drawn specifically from the death scene in Adonais.
0 comments:
Post a Comment