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Shelley, P.B. (Volume title: Foreign Literature)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792～1822)
British poet . Born in Sussex in 1792. During this period, the creation of British poetry experienced a revolution in the hands of a group of young poets: protest replaced convention, lyricism replaced preaching, and wantonness replaced restraint. Shelley was one of these romantic poets who praised revolution and criticized tradition. He was born into a rural landowner family. His grandfather was a baron, and his father became a member of the Whig Party. Shelley learned Latin at the age of 6, and from 10 to 12 years old, he studied arithmetic, Latin, French, geography, astronomy, and listened to lectures on chemistry and physics at the Scion Academy. In 1804, he entered Eton College and continued to study French and German.
In 1809, he and a friend co-wrote the long poem "The Wandering Jew" (unpublished). He himself wrote the legendary stories "Zestrozzi" and "St. Alwin", and also Co-wrote a collection of poems with his sister. Entered Oxford University in October 1810. He once wrote a philosophical paper "The Necessity of Atheism" and published it at his own expense. This challenging article explores the issue of the existence of God from a purely rational perspective and analyzes the arguments for belief in God and disbelief in God. The conclusion is that "belief in God has no basis" and atheism is necessary. In February 1811, "The Necessity of Atheism" appeared in a bookstore in Oxford. It was discovered by a priest and he immediately forced the bookstore owner to burn it. A professor received the book Shelley sent him and rushed to the school to question it. In March, Shelley was expelled from school. His father asked him to admit his mistake, but he refused. Seeing that he was abandoned by his family, he had to live in London temporarily. At this time, a girl who was also under family pressure and a friend of Shelley's sister, Hilaria Westbrook, asked Shelley for protection and was willing to run away with him. Shelley agreed out of sympathy. In August 1811, five months after leaving Oxford, Shelley and Helen ran away and got married in Edinburgh.
The stubborn father stopped supporting Shelley, causing difficulties in his life. But this did not dampen his revolutionary spirit. In February 1812, he and Haili Miao crossed the sea to Ireland, where religious and ethnic conflicts intertwined. Ireland has been oppressed by the British government for a long time. It once launched a rebellion under the influence of the French Revolution and was suppressed. Always sympathetic to the weak Shelley, he prepared a "Letter to the Irish People" before departure. After arriving in Dublin, he printed it at his own expense and distributed it on the streets. In this open letter, Shelley advocated giving up drinking, helping the poor, reading, discussing, and being a moral and wise person in order to win international respect and support and achieve national freedom and religious liberation.
In July 1812, an unknown publisher was arrested for publishing Thomas Payne's book "The Rights of Man" advocating human rights. Shelley wrote to the prosecuting prosecutor Lord Ellenborough, Argue for freedom of the press. In September, Shelley went to the village of Trimadeck in North Wales to raise funds for the construction of a causeway to reclaim land from the sea. This shows that Shelley is loyal to his ideals and strives to realize his ideals through actions.
At this time, Shelley read William Godwin's "Social Justice", which was a very influential book in British intellectual circles at that time advocating social reform. It criticizes the current society and puts forward the vision of future society. The central idea is to reform society through education. Educated people should be strict with themselves and do not harm the public and benefit themselves. The penal system should be reformed; insisting on maintaining a marital relationship when love no longer exists is an intolerable shackles to the marriage system. Shelley criticized unreasonable social systems throughout his life, but advocated the use of educational means to reform society, and advocated pure and free love, all of which were influenced by Godwin.
In June 1814, Shelley visited Godwin and became friends with his 17-year-old daughter Mary. Mary fell in love with Shelley. Both Godwin and Hailiai objected. On July 27, 1814, Shelley and Mary fled to Switzerland. Returned to the UK after 6 weeks.
In January 1815, Shelley's grandfather died. Shelley's father determined that Shelley would receive an annual allowance of one thousand pounds, and at the same time repaid Shelley's debts during his years away from home. From the autumn of this year, Shelley gradually entered the prime of creation. In May 1816, he arrived in Switzerland and met Byron for the first time. The two lived on the shores of Lake Geneva and visited each other in small boats. In September, Shelley returned to England. In December, Haili Miao drowned in the Hyde Park River in London. In March 1818, Shelley finally left England for Italy, where he and Byron lived on the Mediterranean coast, where they went boating, horseback riding, shooting, and talking about poetry. Shelley admired Byron's bold poetic talent, and Byron loved Shelley's innocence. On July 8, 1822, Shelley and his friends sailed from the port of Leghen back to their residence in Lerici. Shortly after going to sea, a storm broke out and the boat sank and died. Ten days later, the body was found on the beach. Byron attended the cremation. Interment of ashes in Roman Protestant Cemetery.
Shelley's earliest long poem was "The Faerie Queene" which he self-printed and published in 1813 when he was 21 years old. In the poem, the Fairy Queen uses fairy magic to ask the girl Ionshan to drive with her on a drive, surveying the galaxies in the universe and looking down at the ant-like crowds on the ground. The Fairy Queen comments on human affairs as an education for Ionshan (Shelley has a daughter also named Ionshan).
Shelley condemned Christianity in the poem, believing that it stirred up quarrels and hatred among people. He opposed the system of buying and selling, under which even love could be bought and sold. He hates the existing distribution of wealth and believes that wealth does not exist except for human labor.
Shelley also believed that the world is eternal, there is evil, and there are ways to cure evil. It was during the years of wandering and chaos that great wisdom and courage appeared. This idea of ??placing human hope on great wisdom and courage is also reflected in another poem by Shelley, "Lyon and Sisna" (1817). This poem was written shortly after the French Revolution suffered a setback and the monarchy was restored, and was intended to inspire confidence in the revolution. The poem is also called "The Rebellion of Islam", and its theme is resistance to the old forces. Leon and Sisna are a couple in mythology. For their ideals, they rebelled in a country called "Golden Country". The rebels were victorious at first and drove away the tyrant. Soon the tyrant succeeded in counterattacking and Leon was burned in the fire. Sisna arrived and asked to die in the fire with Leon. Then there was a loud noise from the fire, and a roaring ball of smoke swept away the pyre and the tyrant and his ministers. Leon and Sisna roamed the long river and deeply understood that great wisdom and courage were not easily discovered on the ground, but they could withstand changes and exist in the most beautiful form. With this ending, Shelley expresses his confidence in the French Revolution and human liberation.
At the end of 1818, Shelley moved from the United Kingdom to live in Italy. From an island country with little sunshine to the bright and warm Mediterranean Sea, he often wrote poems with clouds, mountain flowers, flowing water, and flying birds. The blue sky, blooming spring flowers and intoxicating spring mood of Rome triggered his great creative enthusiasm. He completed the three-act poetic drama one after another, and later added a fourth act, which is "Prometheus Unchained". The characteristic feature of the poetic drama is that it established a new image for Prometheus, from a compromiser with the god Zeus to an unyielding fighter. The ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote two plays related to this. One is about Prometheus who stole fire from the sky and gave it to mankind. He was locked by Zeus in a mountain that is difficult for eagles to cross; in another story, Prometheus compromised with Zeus and was released. Shelley said in the preface to Prometheus Unchained: "If I were to use Aeschylus as a model, I would only be reviving his lost play." And in doing so. It was tantamount to competing with the famous Greek tragedian, which he did not want to do. His real reason is: "I am unwilling to reconcile a human benefactor with a human oppressor." Shelley's life was a struggle against any form of human oppression, and his Prometheus embodies this fighting spirit.
In Shelley's poetic drama, Prometheus is chained on a cliff and an eagle bites his heart (ancient mythology says it bites his liver) every day for 3,000 years. He neither wept nor begged Zeus for mercy. He was convinced that Jupit's end would eventually come. In the third act of the poetic drama, the god of evil takes the chariot of time and drives towards the throne of Eupit. Eupit's doom has come and he sinks into hell, and Prometheus is also liberated. The world becomes "equal, regardless of caste, race, or country. There is no need for fear, no official rank, and no one needs to be king."
Shelley's play contains both inheritance and innovation. The god of evil in the poetic drama is named Doumuhaogen. He was a mythological god from the 4th century AD, and Shelley used him to supplement classical mythology. Verse drama inherits the characteristics of Greek tragedy. At the beginning of the first act, Prometheus describes 3,000 years of torture in a long blank verse, followed by the gods of mountains, springs, air, whirlwinds, etc., describing 900,000 years in rhymed verse. The vicissitudes of life form a kind of cosmic sadness; the fourth act is all rhymed singing, elves, ghosts, the god of time, the god of the earth, the god of the moon, or duet, or semi-chorus, and finally the whole body (including Dou Muhao) Roots) chorus, the whole world celebrates liberation. This poetic drama is a masterpiece of a modern poet integrating Greek forms and modern revolutionary thoughts.
Also completed in 1819 was the five-act tragedy "The Qinqi Family". The play is written in blank verse, with brisk sentences, almost entirely in vernacular. The script is based on a case that occurred in Italy at the end of the 16th century. The Count of Chinchi, who owned a palace and estate, was a favorite of the Pope. He became violent, killing his son and raping his daughter, but he bribed the Pope with gold coins and vineyards to get away with it. The daughter couldn't bear it anymore and hired an assassin to kill Qinqi and was sentenced to death. Shelley wrote about Chinchi's rage and at the same time his devotion to Catholicism. "For him, religion is a fanatical action, an escape, not a restriction." The daughter was humiliated, but the stepmother still tried to use religion to impress Qinqi, but to no avail, so the daughter had to hire an assassin to kill Qinqi. The judge acquitted the daughter, but the Pope insisted on execution. Qinqi's daughter is a victim of the combination of animal nature and church power, and is a tragic figure. This is Shelley's intention in writing the play.
In August 1819, 60,000 people gathered in Manchester to demand the abolition of the "Corn Laws" that harmed people's livelihood. The cavalry charged into the dense crowd, killing and wounding 600 people. Shelley heard news of the atrocities in Italy and wrote poetry in protest. The longest one is "The Procession of Tyranny". At the head of the procession are murder, fraud, hypocrisy and other destroyers, ending with tyranny, with the inscription on the forehead: "I am God, King of Men, Law." The procession symbolizes the suppression of the people, with cabinet ministers of the reactionary government at the head of the procession. In the poem, Shelley deliberately used short sentences and language that the working people could understand. He wanted the working people to realize their own strength and twice issued a call to arms: "Arise the sleeping lion! Thousands of them cannot defeat you! Shake you off The dew on your hair, shake off the chains from your body, we are many, they are but a few!" Shelley's poems written to support the British people's protest movement include "A Song to the British" and " England in 1819" and "Hymn to a Freedman." Famous lines from these poems became the lyrics of later labor movements such as the Chartist movement.
Also in 1819, Shelley wrote the famous "Ode to the West Wind". The whole poem has five stanzas, stanzas 1, 2, and 3 describe how the west wind sweeps away fallen leaves, sows seeds, disperses clouds, releases thunderstorms, wakes the Mediterranean from its summer slumber, and paints the Atlantic with solemn autumn colors; stanza 4 is a poem. People hope to be as unfettered, swift and contemptuous as the west wind; verse 5 is the poet’s instruction:
May you blow a wake-up call from my lips,
West wind, if winter has come, can spring be far away?
In the two and a half years from 1820 to the end of his life, Shelley wrote many poems praising the national revolutions in southern Europe, such as: "Ode to Naples", "Liberty", "Ode to Liberty", all of which It is a poem praising national freedom. Lyrical creations include "Clouds" ("I draw water from the sea and rivers, and bring a good rain to the thirsty flowers."), "To the Skylark" ("Soar to sing, sing to soar again"), "To the Moon" ("Your face is pale, is it because you are too tired from climbing nine days?"), and there is also a "Elegy" that seems to predict the impending death ("Is life, the world, time, time is not mine?"). The longer poems of this period include "Adonis" and the lyrical drama "Greece". "Adonis" is a lament written in memory of the poet John Keats. "Greece" writes about the fear of Muhammad, the Turkish king who invaded Greece at that time, about the uprising of people across Greece in 1821. It ended with the tyrant stepping down and the people winning freedom. Shelley's last poem was "Life's Triumphant Procession". It seemed to be about the ideals of life from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment period in the 18th century, but only more than 504 lines were written and it was not completed.
Shelley's prose, like his poetry, also has a bright rhythm. We see in Shelley's poems that he was a philosopher, and in his prose writing we see the same passion as his poetry. Literary critics say that there are passages in "Address to the Irish People" that could easily be arranged in blank verse. Many of Shelley's letters describing scenes in Switzerland and Italy read like prose poems.
The long essay "A Defense of Poetry" was written in 1821 and published in 1840. At that time, one of Shelley's respected friends in England, Thomas Peacock, wrote a book called "The Four Periods of Poetry", which discussed the different statuses of poetry in ancient and modern literature. Peacock believes that poetry can play an educational role in primitive societies, but with the progress of human civilization, poetry is no longer necessary in a society where rationality prevails. Shelley mildly criticized Peacock's views in "A Defense of Poetry". Shelley planned to write this article in three parts, but only wrote the first part.
Shelley’s definition of poetry is: “Poetry is the image of life expressed in eternal truth.” He also said: “Poetry is the most beautiful and good thoughts at the best and most beautiful moments.” “The inspiration of inspiration. The poet is the interpreter of the incomprehensible; the future is revealed in the present, the poet is the mirror, showing its huge image; the poet's verses are enough to express the meaning that the poet himself does not understand; the poet blows the bugle of attack, and the poet has The power of the poet is not controlled by others, but can influence others. The poet is the legislator of the world, although he does not have the title of legislator. "It is precisely because Shelley believes that poetry and poets have these positive qualities. Function, he disagrees with the view that the function of poetry was better than it is now. He believes that British literature can almost be said to have experienced a new life now. People who are not noble-minded will be jealous of their contemporaries and belittle their achievements. However, this is an era of brilliant talents, which will eventually be recognized by future generations. The current generation of philosophers and writers will be far superior to those that emerged after the revolution in England in the mid-seventeenth century. Here, Shelley affirmed the social role of the poet, the historical contribution of his contemporary poets, and the progressive historical perspective. At this time, the French Revolution was at a low ebb and the European intellectual world was extremely dull.
The most complete collection of Shelley's works is the 10-volume "The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley", published from 1926 to 1930, co-edited by Yin Ben and Peck. The characteristic of this book is that poetry, prose, letters and juvenile exercises are all included as much as possible. The most detailed biography of Shelley is the two-volume "Shelley" written by White and published in 1940. This book is characterized by rich historical information and a detailed index.
Bibliography
Edmund Blunden, Shelley, N. Y., 1946.
N.I. White, Shelly, N. Y., 1947.
K.N.Cameron, The Young Shelley, N. Y., 1951.
K.N.Cameron, Shelley: The Golden years, 1974.
D.H.Rieman, S.H.Powers, Shelley's Poetry and Prose, 1977.
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