Selected Poetry

by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Isabel Quigly (Introduction)

In the pantheon of English poets, Shelly has long occupied a lofty place, his poems as admired for their profound thought and subtle perceptions as for the music and fervor of their language. His life as well as his poetry embraced the passions, ideals and causes of Romanticism, whose emergence and early influences coincided with the dates of his own brief life (1792-1822). This selection of many of his best-known and most representative poems will give readers an exciting encounter with one of the most original and stimulating figures in English poetry.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Romanticism, Literature, British Literature, 19th Century, Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1913

About the author

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, British romantic poet, include "To a Skylark" in 1820; Prometheus Unbound , the lyric drama; and "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.

The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.

People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .

Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.

Reviews

[Nasrin M]

ما
دمادم
به گذشته و نامده‌ها می‌نگریم
و در آرزوی فقدان‌ها
سخت می‌سوزیم؛
صادقانه‌ترین خنده‌هامان
مالامال از دردهاست
و زیباترین ترانه‌هامان
آکنده از حزن‌آلودترین اندیشه‌هاست.
لیک اگر ما را یارای آن بود
تا نفرت، غرور و ترس را
خوار داشته
از خود دور بداریم
و ریختن اشکی را
از آغاز زاده نمی‌شدیم
باز هم هرگز پی نمی‌بردیم
که شادمانی تو را
چگونه بایست راه یافت.
ای که خاکیان را
سخت سخره می‌کنی
این هنر شاعرانگی توست
که نیکوتر از
هر میزان
از آهنگی دل‌انگیز
و هر دفینه‌ی کشف‌شده
از میان سطورِ کتاب‌هاست.
ای روح! ای پرنده!
نیمی از آن شادمانی
که در ادراک خویش
بدان آگاهی،
مرا بیاموز:
چنان آهنگین شوریدگی‌هایی
که از لبان من
شوند لبریز
و جهانی را
به شنیدن بشاید
بدان سانی که اکنون
تو هستی بر من.

[Велислав Върбанов]

Пърси Шели е прекрасен английски поет! В наши дни е популярен най-вече като романтик, понеже е създал много нежна любовна лирика и красиви стихове за природата.... Обаче, той не е живял никак идилично, а е бил отхвърлен от Англия и преминал през различни перипетии, защото е имал смелостта да бъде противник на религията, както и същевременно е написал и много провокативни за времето си творби... Загинал е на 29-годишна възраст в Италия при злополука, тъй като лодката му е потънала по време на буря. Произведенията му са станали известни в Англия, благодарение на неговата съпруга Мери Шели, която се е завърнала там след смъртта му и се е постарала да ги популяризира, освен че е писала своите собствени книги!





„Не сме ли облак ний, среднощ закрил луната
Блести и тръпне той във своя късен бяг!
Но не минава миг и кратката позлата
изчезва, и нощта обвива го във мрак!

Не сме ли арфа ний, забравена в полето,
та вятърът по нас напеви да реди,
и всеки лъх, едва достигнал до сърцето,
оттам да къса звук, различен от преди?

Заспим ли, сън един почивката ни трови;
отворим ли очи — и сграбчва ни тъга;
ний бягаме, пълзим, за плач и смях готови,
ту скръбни, ту скръбта сразили на шега!

Но все едно — тъжиш, ликуваш и обичаш,
а чезнат и плача, и радостта, и обичта!
И утре никой път на днес не ще приличаш,
че нищо тук не трай освен Нетрайността!…“




„Странник непознат от край далечен ми разказа:
два огромни крака сред пустинята стърчат,
изваяни от камък. Във пясъка до тях,
напукан и полузарит, лежи на мъж ликът.
Усмивката на този лик, надменен и студен,
говори, че ваятелят добре е разгадал
човека — страстите му и до този ден
от камъка надничат: страсти на човек без жал.
„Аз Озимандий съм и цар съм над царете!
Делата мои всички със завист погледнете!“
— все още на пиедестала тез слова личат.
Но друго нищо няма. Покрай тая
развалина огромна голи пясъци мълчат,
самотни и безжизнени, се губят във безкрая.“

превод: Цветан Стоянов

[Aspie Author]

Let me start off by clarifying that I don't like Percy Shelley as a person. I can say that his writing is phenomenal and beautifully written. I don't understand why publishing houses refused to publish his work when he was alive. But then again, his social and political beliefs were radical for the time.

My favorite poem was "Invocation to Misery" because it made me cry. I loved the poem where Percy was whining about how his wife criticized his poem, "The Witch of Atlas". The same can be said about "Lines to a Critic". It seemed to me that he was pretty emotionally immature when he was alive. I don't understand how Mary Shelley or Harriet Westbrook stayed with this guy for so long if he was so sensitive to criticism. I also really liked "Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici", "Autumn", "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty", and "The Waning Moon".

Readings his poems also helped me better understand why Mary Shelley ran off with this guy when she was 16. I probably would have done the same thing.

[Steven Godin]

That light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which, through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

[Antagonistkinja]

Volim što se na kraju knjige nalazi deo pod nazivom „Komentari i beleške”, gde su za skoro svaku pesmu napisali pod kakvim oklonostima i uticajima je nastala: gde je pesnik tada bio, na šta se ona odnosi, kome je posvećena, šta se u trenutku kada je napisana dešavalo u pesnikovom životu ili društvu uopšte...

[Ryhne]

3.5/5
بیشتر امتیاز برای تحلیلات خوب و باکیفیت بعد از هر شعر بود

[W]

An absolute favourite of mine.So musical,so lyrical and so sad.

[Mohammad Hanifeh]

ای روح زیبایی، به کجا کوچیده‌ای؟
ای که تمامیِ آن اندیشه‌ها و هیئت‌های انسانی را
که بدان می‌تابی
با رنگ‌هایت تبرک می‌دهی،
چرا از دیار ما، این درهٔ تاریک و بزرگ اشک‌ها
درگذشته،
متروک و مرگ‌زده
به حال خویش رهایش داشته‌ای؟
با ما بگو از چه روی آفتاب
رنگین‌کمان را
پیوسته، بر فراز رودهای جاری
در کوهستان، درهم نمی‌بافد؟
و هر جلوه‌ای، چرا به آنِ ظهور
می‌بایست فروریخته، و محو شود؟
ترس و رؤیا، مرگ و تولد
بر روشناییِ این کرهٔ خاکی
چرا سایه‌ای چنین تیره
و پُراندوه می‌افکنند
و آدمی
به کدامین دلیل
دارای چنین گنجایی
از عشق و بیزاری
دلسردی و امید است؟

پی‌نوشت:
حوالی دو سال پیش بود که با «پرسی بی. شلی» آشنا شدم و زندگی شگفت‌انگیزِ غریبش من را به خود جلب کرد. این‌که در زمانهٔ خود نمی‌گنجید و بنا بر رضای هم‌عصرانش نمی‌اندیشید. مصداقش هم درافتادن با کلیسا و اخراج زودهنگامش از آکسفورد. یا فرضیه‌ای که مدعی است «فرانکنشتاین» را پرسی نوشته است؛ نه همسرش «مری شلی». اما حالا او را ورای این حواشی، با شعرهایش به یاد خواهم داشت. با نگاه بدیعش به طبیعت و بهره‌گیری به‌جا و دقیقش از طبیعت برای بیان احساسات و حتی اندیشه‌های فلسفی‌اش.

[Elvira ✵]

Shelley, cuando te pones a hacer poemas ultra largos de romántico inglés muchas veces no te aguanto, pero luego me tiras dos versos de la nada que hacen que los lea en bucle una y otra vez mientras me aguanto las ganas de llorar en el transporte público y te quiero mucho.

[Jawad A.]

First came across a reference to these beautiful lines of Shelly in Joyce's A portrait of the artist as a young man:
To The Moon -
'Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?'

[Angie]

I'll probably be reading this one for a while. It's like talking to a really eloquent crazy person.....which is a good thing.

[Jacky Chan]

I still like Keats much more, because there's something truly genuine and moving about Keats' emotions, passions, and poetics. Shelley's explosive and hypertactic style seems like it is concealing something, some rolling unease, some lurking subversiveness, that I can't pin down - but I really don't think he's just another Keats, worrying about death, pining for transcendence, etc. The question is, so what is Shelley really like? (Please tell me Dr Ruth Scobie.)

[felicia varenius]

I adore his work!

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, Then wander like spirits among the spheres, Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;

[二六 侯]

「英國尚在沉睡中：她豈不曾／被喚醒過？」 好啦，現在英國醒了嗎？（以下無關） 所謂抒情，即是熱血又濫情的獨白，從《愛爾蘭人之歌》的慷慨激昂、《世界從誕生到衰亡》「逝者如斯夫」的感歎，乃至《心之靈》的精神出軌……寫散文或詩出賣自己才有看頭。

[Sara 🦷]

decent dark romantic poetry, they don’t make it like this anymore :(

[J.D. Estrada]

Finally finished this collection and although it has some nice moments and some epic poems, I found myself pushing through. A couple of things, often felt like these run-on thoughts that went on forever and blame language, my attention span, or just long winding verses, but I often found myself rereading to not get lost. Also, although the verse line might end in a rhyme, often, it felt as if the text was fractured to match end of verses but when you read it with periods, commas, etc, it was kind of jerky for me and again, I found myself disconnecting often. I did enjoy the notes shared and actually did learn a lot of things which was interesting, but I can't help but feel like it was a slog for me. Maybe a reread would be better or flow better but can't say I'm jonesing to dive back in. In the end, happy I read it but looking forward to reading something that connects a bit more.

[Dex]

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English Romantic poet, was not as prolific as his contemporaries, i.e. John Keats and Lord Byron; nevertheless, his output of poesy seemed to have been produced when inspiration hit him the most. Each poem within this volume glows with stunning beauty and the spectrum of the emotions--love, melancholy, happiness, cheerfulness, wistfulness, &c. Many types of poems are in here, including odes, dirges, sonnets, and other forms. Shelley's words were made to read out loud to hear the full music and virtuosic meter of the verse. Excellent work, I must keep it near me for a while!

[Hesper]

Well, there's no question Shelley could write, though I found little of it that weathered well. If you can keep a straight face when confronted with rabid, self-indulgent Romanticism, then you will probably love Shelley.

Alas, I cannot keep a straight face or love.

Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, forever!*

#eyeroll


*Sorry, Prometheus. I feel for you, just not so much when Shelley makes you say ridiculous things due to flimsy reasons involving THE GLORY OF POETRY.

[Maggie]

Shelley has way with words! His words, his writing is beautiful, but it becomes very tedious after a while!

[Matthew]

For people struggling with modern poets, we should remember that poets of the past were not always easy to read either. One example is Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Despite being heavily influenced by Shakespeare, Keats, Coleridge and early Wordsworth, Shelley did not imitate their much simpler style of writing. Allowing for changes in word usage, all of those writers are accessible to the casual reader in a way that Shelley is not.

Of course there are plenty of Shelley poems that can be enjoyed easily, and this volume contains them. Still there are a number of poems where Shelley’s high-flown style and love of abstract ideas can make the poems somewhat hard to grasp.

It does not help that this particular volume includes extracts from longer poems, thereby giving us passages out of context that render them even more confusing for anyone who has not read the entire poem.

However much of the blame must be laid at Shelley’s door. Think of Prometheus Bound, a fascinating subject for someone like Shelley. He takes a popular story from Greek legend written about by Aeschylus and turns it into a metaphor for the battle between liberty and tyranny in the early nineteenth century.

However the poem’s accessibility is greatly lessened by Shelley’s inclusion of such things as conversations by Asia and the Earth, and a number of abstractions that expand the character list into allegory.

Perhaps the best way to enjoy Shelley on a first read is to surrender to the poem’s difficulties, and content oneself with trying to enjoy the startling imagery in each poem. Shelley is a nature poet of sorts, and dedicates much time to describing plants and animals. One of his most famous poems is about a skylark.

Aside from his inflated style, Shelley may not appeal to some due to the content of his poems. Here much depends on your own views of life. Shelley was a political radical who hated monarchy and tyranny. He was an atheist. He believed in free love, and did not draw the line at incest. Privately he had other unusual views. He was an early advocate of non-violent protest, and he was a vegetarian.

Perhaps this radicalism might have died out with age, and Shelley might have followed the same path that he deplored in Wordsworth, a shift from radicalism to conservativism. Like Lord Byron he was an aristocrat who could afford a little iconoclasm in his youth, but, also like Byron, Shelley did not live long enough for us to see how this would have developed over a long life.

This selection is disappointing in its inclusion of fragments of poems, and also of incomplete poems, some of them very incomplete indeed. However some of Shelley’s most accessible and enjoyable poetry is here too. It is perhaps not the best introduction to a writer whose work is not always an easy read, and I hope it does not put readers off from trying more of Shelley’s poetry.

Personally I find large chunks of Shelley to be indigestible, but the smaller servings are certainly appetising.

[Joel Jentelson]

Reading Shelley is a lot like holding on for dear life while Shelley acts as Falcor the Luckdragon from the Neverending Story and you, the reader, play Bastian flying wildly through a shifting sea of clouds. When he catches the right wind, the flight is pure magic. But other times, you’re just holding on tight as he loops through confusing skies, wondering where the ground went.
The Good:
Shelley is at his absolute best when he grounds his vast imagination. "Ozymandias" is a short, punchy masterpiece about the arrogance of rulers and how time crushes everything we build. His defense of poetry captures that raw, visionary spark of the Romantic era. When he keeps a steady hand on his thesis—like in the structured rhythm of Hymn to Intellectual Beauty—he delivers an airtight, brilliant case in verse.
The Bad:
When Shelley loses his footing, the ride gets rough. In long, wandering works like The Witch of Atlas, the narrative plot completely vanishes. Instead of a clear story, you get dense puzzles stuffed with obscure mythological names and high-level vocabulary that require a constant encyclopedia check. If a poet doesn't give the reader a clear path to follow, the flight turns into an exhausting chore.
The Ugly:
Behind the soaring idealism lies a messy, chaotic personal life. Shelley spent his days demanding that the real world bend to his utopian fantasies, only to break his own heart when reality refused to cooperate. That lack of grounding spilled into his personal choices, including a track record of severe drama, social exile, and reckless relationships that matches his poetry's tendency to fly too close to the sun.
Ultimately, Shelley is an essential pillar of the Romantic movement, but his extreme idealism and lack of structural discipline make him a frustrating travel partner. Read him for the brilliant masterworks, but keep your seatbelt fastened.

“Never give up and good luck will find you.” See Shelley, I can make obscure references too, but at least I use words that 80% of the population can understand.

[Jonathan]

7/10

"Drain not to its drags the urn of bitter prophesy."

Shelley at his best is exuberant and transportive. I have a new respect and love for him after reading him more in depth, and feel that I'll often return to him later in life. My greatest deficency in reading poetry is the auditory enjoyment from hearing rhyme, which causes me to underrate all lines that don't. Despite my relative newness to poetry, I found much I enjoyed here.

"Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth"

"How divinely sweet a task it is, to imitate each other’s excellencies."

“No more let life divide which death can join together.”

For those who haven't read it, this has been one of my favorite poems, included here in full:

Ozymandias

"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

[Rob]

Quite moving. "Ozymandias" has long been a favorite of mine, but I spent the past few nights reading through Shelley and I found it remarkable. When I last read Shelley I was young(er), in college, and reading it now, 11 years older than Shelley was at the time of his death, I am astounded at his passion and clarity as a young man. I loved "Ode to a Skylark," which I don't think I had read before.

I would love to have a dinner or spend a day with Shelley--not to mention his wife Mary Shelley--and see how he lived his day-to-day life. Maybe I should read a biography of him. I think it would be worthwhile.

[OvercommuniKate]

Liked:
- "Ozymandias" lives up to the hype. Great
- "To a Skylark" starts simple but builds
- "Mutability" nought may endure
- "music when soft voices die" fun
- "Adonais" tragic

Like the last line:
- "Love's Philosophy"

Meh:
- "The Question"
- "To night"

Dislike:
- "Ode to the West wind"

[Mia Huang]

The essence of romanticism: natural imagery, entrancing lyricism, and above all else, emotional intensity that truly pierces to the heart. I found many of the poems immensely moving and personally resonant.

[Debra]

All he ever had to write was "The Cloud".

[Devina]

3.2

[Nathan Nicolau]

Actually, Frankenstein was the name of Percy Bysshe Shelley, not the monster.

[spring m]

3/05

[Ariwa Zavijava]

Gorgeous imaginary.