Jennifer Friend
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on 4 August 1792 in Horsham, Sussex, England. He was the eldest of the seven children of Elizabeth Pilfold and Timothy Shelley, a country squire who would become baronet in 1815 on the death of his father. Percy attended Oxford University and was expelled for his publication entitled the necessity of Atheism.
After Shelley’s expulsion from school for expressing his atheistic views, and now estranged from his father, he and sixteen-year old Harriet Westbrook eloped to Scotland. They married on 28 August 1811 and would have two children, daughter Ianthe born in 1813 (d.1876) and son Charles born in 1814. Due to some struggles in the marriage Shelley attempted an open marriage with his wife Harriet, which ultimately led to it's demise. After Percy and Harriet went their separate ways, he developed a personal relationship with journalist William Godwin, the father of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. In the same fashion of his first marriage Percy eloped with Mary Godwin to Switzerland much to the dismay both of their parents. After all, Percy Shelley was still legally married to his first wife Harriet who reportedly drowned herself.
Percy’s most famous short poem, “Ozymandias” was published in 1818.
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 Other notable works include
*Prometheus Unbound
* Alastor
*Adonaïs
*The Revolt of Islam
*The Triumph of Life.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on 4 August 1792 in Horsham, Sussex, England. He was the eldest of the seven children of Elizabeth Pilfold and Timothy Shelley, a country squire who would become baronet in 1815 on the death of his father. Percy attended Oxford University and was expelled for his publication entitled the necessity of Atheism.
After Shelley’s expulsion from school for expressing his atheistic views, and now estranged from his father, he and sixteen-year old Harriet Westbrook eloped to Scotland. They married on 28 August 1811 and would have two children, daughter Ianthe born in 1813 (d.1876) and son Charles born in 1814. Due to some struggles in the marriage Shelley attempted an open marriage with his wife Harriet, which ultimately led to it's demise. After Percy and Harriet went their separate ways, he developed a personal relationship with journalist William Godwin, the father of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. In the same fashion of his first marriage Percy eloped with Mary Godwin to Switzerland much to the dismay both of their parents. After all, Percy Shelley was still legally married to his first wife Harriet who reportedly drowned herself.
Percy’s most famous short poem, “Ozymandias” was published in 1818.
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 Other notable works include
*Prometheus Unbound
* Alastor
*Adonaïs
*The Revolt of Islam
*The Triumph of Life.