The Amorous Antics of the Radical Rhymester

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n                          Percy Bysshe Shelley was born innSussex on August 4^th 1792, the son of Sir Timothy Shelley, angentleman landowner so dull, it was said, he “… was secured from all risk ofnaberration from the social conventions by a happy inaccessibility to ideas.”nPercy’s grandfather, Bysshe, received a baronetcy in 1806, and began to build,nat great expense, Castle Goring, a magnificent country seat although, towardsnthe end of his life, he became a notorious miser. 

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nIn his boyhood, young Percynspent most of his time in country pursuits, fishing and hunting, but at tennyears old he was sent to Syon House Academy, a school not yet entirelynDotheboy’s Hall but harsh enough, where he was bullied mercilessly. 

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nIn 1804, henattended Eton, where his refusal to conform to the ‘fagging’ system ensured henwas bullied by boys and masters alike, and in 1810, he entered UniversitynCollege, Oxford but was expelled the following year for failing to repudiatenthe authorship of a pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism. 

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nLater in 1811,nShelley eloped with the sixteen-year old Harriet Westbrook to Gretna Green,nwhere they were married, causing Sir Timothy to cut off his allowance, fornmarrying beneath him. The marriage was unhappy, not least because Harrietninsisted her elder sister, Eliza, live with them (Shelley hated both the sisternand the arrangement). Shelley travelled to Keswick in the Lake District to seenthe poet Southey, whom he presumed was still politically active, and whonadvised him to contact William Godwin, author of Political Justice. 

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nGodwinnwas penniless and trying to support his large family, and saw Shelley as anpotential source of income; he had two adopted step-daughters, Fanny Imlay andnClaire Clairmont, and a daughter, Mary, from his second wife, MarynWollstonecraft, (who had died of fever 10 days after her birth). Harriet (nownpregnant with Shelley’s son, Charles) and sister Eliza (together with Shelley’sninfant daughter, Elizabeth), moved back to their parent’s home; in July 1814,nShelley abandoned his wife and travelled across France to Switzerland with MarynGodwin and her half-sister Claire (both aged 16), returning destitute after sixnweeks. 

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nTwo years later, in 1816, Shelley, Mary and Claire returned tonSwitzerland, where they stayed with Lord Byron and his doctor, John Polidori,nand in June, Mary began to write Frankenstein. Later in 1816, afterntheir return to England, Fanny Imlay travelled from London to Swansea where, onnthe night of October 9^th, she killed herself with an overdose ofnlaudanum; there have been various theories as to why, but no clear evidence –nsome say it was unrequited love for Shelley. In December 1816, HarrietnShelley’s heavily pregnant corpse was taken from the Serpentine, where she hadndrowned herself; Shelley and Mary Godwin married three weeks later. In 1818,nShelley, Mary and Claire returned to Italy, to deliver Claire’s daughter,nAllegra, to Byron, her father and Shelley, encouraged by Byron wrote some ofnhis best works. Later in the year, William Shelley, the three-year old son bornnout of wedlock, died of fever in Rome, and the following year, their daughter,nClara, also died. 

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nShelley continued to write, including The Mask of Anarchy,nwhich was a response to the Peterloo massacre, and Prometheus Unbound, anlyrical drama in four acts, works for which he was probably best known in thennineteenth century. In July 1822, whilst sailing back from Leghorn, Shelley’snschooner was hit by a storm; his body was washed ashore and, due to quarantinenregulations, was cremated on the beach at Viareggio. He was twenty-nine. 

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nTheories about the cause of Shelley’s death are legion; some say it was purelynan accident, some say he fell foul of robbers or pirates, some hint at suicidenand yet others are sure it was a politically motivated assassination.

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nShelley’s poetic reputation wasnnot great during his lifetime, as his political radicalism was not wellnreceived in some circles. The critic Matthew Arnold tried to marginalise him,nreferring to him as ‘beautiful and ineffectual angel’, but thenPre-Raphaelites, other poets and early socialists were among the first to appreciatenhim. His status continued to rise during the twentieth century as his worksnbecame more readily available and unpublished works were published, and hisnpolitical message remains just as relevant in our time.

nThe Mask of Anarchy