Shelley, P.B. (Volume Name: Foreign Literature)
Percy bysshe shelley (1792~ 1822)
English poet. 1792 was born in Sussex. English poetry creation in this period experienced a revolution in the hands of a group of young poets: protest replaced tradition, lyricism replaced preaching, and arrogance replaced formality. Shelley is one of these romantic poets who praised revolution and attacked tradition. He was born in a rural landlord family. My grandfather was a baron, and my father belonged to the Whig Party and became a member of Parliament. Shelley began to learn Latin at the age of 6. From 10 to 12, he studied mathematics, Latin, French, geography, astronomy, and attended lectures on chemistry and physics. /kloc-entered Eton College in 0/804 and continued to study French and German.
1809, he and a friend wrote a long poem "Wandering Jews" (unpublished). He wrote the legendary stories Chai Strozzi and Saint Anewin himself, and also co-wrote a collection of poems with his sister. 18 10 10 entered Oxford university. He once wrote a philosophical paper The Necessity of Atheism, which was published at his own expense. This challenging article discusses the existence of God purely and rationally, analyzes the arguments of believing in God and not believing in God, and concludes that "believing in God is unfounded" and atheism is necessary. 18 1 1 In February, the necessity of atheism appeared in the bookstore in Oxford. After being discovered by a priest, he immediately forced the bookstore owner to burn it. A professor received a book sent to him by Shelley and hurried to school to ask questions. In March, Shelley was expelled from school. His father asked him to apologize, but he refused. He abandoned his family and had to stay in London for the time being. At this time, Haley Westbrook, a girl who was also under family pressure and a friend of Shelley's sister, asked Shelley for protection and was willing to elope with him. Shelley agreed out of sympathy. 18 1 1 August, five months after leaving Oxford, Shelley and Harriet left and got married in Edinburgh.
The stubborn father stopped helping Shelley, which made his life very difficult. But this did not dampen his revolutionary spirit. 18 12 In February, he and Hailie crossed the ocean and came to Ireland where religious and ethnic contradictions were intertwined. Ireland has long been oppressed by the British government. Under the influence of the French Revolution, Ireland launched a rebellion and was suppressed. He always sympathized with the weak Shelley and prepared a letter to the Irish people before leaving. After arriving in Dublin, he printed it at his own expense and distributed it on the street. In this open letter, Shelley advocates abstinence from alcohol, helping the poor, reading and discussing, and being a moral and intelligent person, so as to win international respect and support and realize national freedom and religious liberation.
1812 In July, an unknown publisher was arrested for publishing Thomas Pine's book Human Rights. Shelley wrote to Lord Allen Burrow, the prosecutor, to defend the freedom of the press. In September, Shelley went to Deke Village in Trima, North Wales, to raise money for the local construction of a long embankment for land reclamation. This shows that Shelley is loyal to his ideal and tries to realize it with action.
At this time, Shelley read william godwin's Social Justice, which was an influential book encouraging social reform in British ideological circles at that time. It criticizes the present society and puts forward the conception of the future society. The central idea is to transform society through education. Educated people are strict with themselves and do not harm the public, fat and private interests. The penalty system should be reformed; It is an unbearable shackle to insist on maintaining the relationship between husband and wife without love. Shelley criticized the unreasonable social system all his life, but he advocated transforming society by means of education and advocating pure and free love, which were all influenced by godwin.
In June, 2004, Shelley visited godwin and became friends with his 17-year-old daughter Mary. Mary fell in love with Shelley. Godwin and Harriet both objected. On July 27th, 2004, Shelley and Mary went to Switzerland. Six weeks later, I returned to England.
18 15 1, Shelley's grandfather passed away. Shelley's father decided that Shelley would get an annual allowance of 1000 and pay off Shelley's debts for many years. From the autumn of this year, Shelley gradually entered the heyday of creation. 1865438+In May 2006, I went to Switzerland and met Byron for the first time. They live by the lake of Geneva and exchange visits by boat. In September, Shelley returned to England. In February 65438, Wu Haili drowned in the river in Hyde Park, London. 18 18 In March, Shelley finally left England and went to Italy, where he lived with Byron on the Mediterranean coast, rowing, riding, shooting and talking about poetry. Shelley admired Byron's bold poems, and Byron loved Shelley's purity and innocence. 1822 On July 8th, Shelley and his friends sailed back to Lericque Port from Livorno Port. Shortly after going out to sea, a storm struck, and the ship sank and died. 10 days later, the body was found at the seaside. Byron attended the cremation. The ashes were buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.
Shelley's earliest long poem is Fairy Queen Maibu, which was printed and published at the age of1813,21year. In the poem, the fairy queen invited the young girl Ian Shan to travel with her by car, explore the galaxies in the universe and overlook the ant-like crowd on the ground. The fairy queen comments on human things as an education for Aung San (Shelley has a daughter named Aung San).
Shelley condemned Christianity in his poems, thinking that it provoked people's quarrels and hatred. He opposes the trading system, under which even love can be bought and sold. He hates the existing way of wealth distribution and thinks that there is no wealth except human labor. Shelley also believes that the world is eternal, with evil and a cure for it. It was in the year of displacement and chaos that great wisdom and courage appeared. This idea of pinning human hopes on great wisdom and courage is also reflected in another poem by Shelley, Leon and Sisner (18 17). This poem was written shortly after the French Revolution suffered setbacks and the monarchy was restored, aiming at inspiring the confidence of the revolution. This poem, also known as "Islamic rebellion", is about resistance to the old forces. Leon and Sisna are a pair of lovers in myth. For their ideals, they rebelled in a country called "Gold". The rebels won at first and drove away the tyrant. Soon the tyrant fought back and Leon was burned to death. Sisna arrived and asked to be buried in the fire with Leon. Then, there was a loud noise in the fire, and the big smoke ball roared and swept away the woodpile, the tyrant and his liegeman. Walking in the long river, Leon and Sisna deeply understand that great wisdom and courage are not easy to be found on the ground, but they can withstand changes and exist in the most beautiful form. Shelley finally expressed his confidence in the French Revolution and human liberation.
18 18 At the end of this year, Shelley came to live in Italy from England and entered the bright Mediterranean from an island country with weak sunshine. He often writes poems with clouds, flowers, running water and birds. Rome's blue sky, blooming spring flowers and intoxicating spring have aroused his great creative enthusiasm. He completed three acts of poetic drama in succession, and later added the fourth act, Prometheus Liberated. The feature of this poetic drama is that Prometheus has established a new image, from a man who compromised with Zeus to an unyielding fighter. Aeschylus, an ancient Greek tragedian, wrote two plays about it. Some people wrote that Prometheus stole fire from the sky and gave it to mankind. Locked by Zeus in a mountain that eagles can't cross; The other is about the compromise and release of Prometheus and Zeus. In the preface of Prometheus Liberated, Shelley said, "If I take Aeschylus as the blueprint, at best, I can only make his lost plays spread to the world again." And doing so is tantamount to competing with the famous Greek tragic actor, which he does not want to do. His real reason is: "I don't want to reconcile a kind beneficiary with a human oppressor." Shelley's life is a struggle against any form of human oppression, and his Prometheus embodies the spirit of this struggle.
In Shelley's poetic drama Prometheus, Prometheus, who was locked on a cliff, was bitten by an eagle every day for 3000 years (according to ancient mythology, he bit his liver). He did not shed tears, nor did he ask Zeus (the Latin God in Shelley's poems) for mercy. He firmly believes that the end of Jupiter will come. In the third act of the poetic drama, the god of eliminating disasters sailed to Jupiter's throne in an hour's drive. Jupiter was doomed, sank into hell, and Prometheus was liberated. The world has become "equal, regardless of class, race or country, without fear, without rank, and without anyone being king."
Shelley's plays have both inheritance and innovation. The god of disaster relief in the poem and play is Artemisia annua. He was a mythical god in the 4th century A.D., and Shelley used him to supplement the classical mythology. Poetic drama inherits the characteristics of Greek tragedy. At the beginning of the first act, Prometheus described the torture of three thousand years with a long blank poem, followed by mountain gods, spring gods, air gods, cyclone gods and so on. , and describes the vicissitudes of 900 thousand years with rhyme poems, forming a kind of sadness of the universe; The fourth act is full of rhythmic singing, with elves, ghosts, gods of time, the earth and the moon, or duets or semi-choruses. Finally, all people (including the roots of Artemisia annua) sing in unison to celebrate liberation. This poetic drama is a masterpiece of a modern poet who combines Greek form with modern revolutionary thoughts.
In 18 19, there are also five tragedies "Chyi Chin family". The play is written in blank poems, with light sentences, almost all in vernacular. The script is adapted from a case that happened in Italy at the end of 16. Count Chyi Chin, who owns this palace manor, is the darling of the Pope. He was violent, killing his son and raping his daughter, but he bribed the Pope with gold coins and vineyards to escape. The daughter can't bear it. She hired an assassin to kill Chyi Chin and was sentenced to death. Shelley wrote about Chyi Chin's anger and his loyalty to Catholicism. For him, religion is a fanatical action, an escape, not a restriction. The daughter was humiliated, but her stepmother still tried to impress Chyi Chin with religion, but to no avail, so she had to ask the assassin to kill Chyi Chin. The judge acquitted his daughter, but the Pope insisted on the execution. Chyi Chin's daughter is the victim of the combination of animal nature and church power, and she is a tragic figure. This is Shelley's intention in writing this play.
1865438+In August, 2009, 60,000 people gathered in Manchester to demand the cancellation of the "corn laws" endangering people's livelihood. The cavalry rushed into the dense crowd and killed 600 people. Shelley heard the news of Italian atrocities and wrote poems to protest. The longest song is The Rank of Tyranny. The team was led by the nose by saboteurs such as murder, fraud and hypocrisy, and finally by tyranny, with the words "I am God, man is king and law" written on my forehead. The rank symbolizes the suppression of the people, and the cabinet members of the reactionary government are at the top of the rank. In his poems, Shelley deliberately used short sentences and language that the working people could understand, so that the working people realized their own strength and twice issued a call to fight: "Get up, sleeping lion!" " Qian Qian will never be defeated! Shake off the dew in your hair and the chains on your body. There are many of us, but there are few of them! "Other poems written by Shelley in support of the protest movement of the British people include Song for the British, Englandzai 18 19 and Ode to Libertarians. The famous sentences in these poems became the lyrics of later labor movements, such as the Charter Movement.
Shelley wrote the famous ode to the west wind in 18 19. The whole poem has five stanzas. 1, 2, and 3, it is written that the west wind sweeps away fallen leaves, sows seeds, dispels chaotic clouds, releases thunderstorms, awakens the Mediterranean from its deep sleep in summer, and paints the Atlantic with solemn autumn colors; Section 4 The poet hopes to be as unrestrained, swift and contemptuous as the west wind; The fifth section is the poet's charge:
May you sound the alarm from my lips,
West wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
During the two and a half years from 1820 to the end of his life, Shelley wrote many poems praising the national revolution in southern Europe, such as Ode to Naples, Freedom and Ode to Freedom, all of which praised national freedom. Lyric creation has a cloud ("I take water from the sea and rivers to bring a good rain to thirsty flowers." ), facing the lark ("soar and sing, sing and soar"), facing the moon ("your pale face, but you are too tired to climb for nine days?" ), there is also an "elegy" that seems to have a premonition that death is coming ("Life, world, time and years are not mine?" )。 The longer poems in this period are adonis and the lyric drama The Greek. Adonis is a sad poem written in memory of the poet Keats. "Greece" describes the fear of the Turkish monarch Muhammad who invaded Greece at that time about the people's uprising in various parts of Greece in 182 1 year, which ended with the tyrant stepping down and the people winning their freedom. Shelley's last poem is the victory of life. It seems to talk about/kloc-the ideal of life from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment in the 8th century, but only more than 504 lines have been written, which has not been completed yet.
Shelley's prose is as lively as his poetry. We can see that Shelley is a philosopher in his poems, and he is as passionate as poetry in his prose creation. Critics say that some paragraphs in the letter to the Irish people can easily be arranged as blank poems. Many of Shelley's letters describing Swiss and Italian landscapes read like prose poems.
The long paper "The Defense of Poetry" was written in 182 1 and published in 1840. At that time, Thomas peacock, Shelley's friend in England, wrote a book called Four Periods of Poetry, which discussed the different status of poetry in ancient and modern literature. Peacock believes that poetry can play an educational role in primitive society, but with the progress of human civilization, poetry is out of date in a society where rationality prevails. For this reason, Shelley euphemistically criticized peacock's point of view when defending poetry. Shelley was going to write three parts of this article, but only the first part.
Shelley's definition of poetry is: "Poetry is the image of life expressed by eternal truth." He also said: "Poetry is the most beautiful moment and the most beautiful idea." "Unsolvable inspiration, the poet is the interpreter; The future reveals to the present that the poet is a mirror, reflecting its great image; The poet's poems are enough to express what the poet himself doesn't understand; The poet blew the horn of attack, which has an appeal that the poet himself does not understand; The poet's power is not controlled by others, but can control others. Poets are legislators of the world, although they do not have the title of legislators. " It is precisely because Shelley thinks that poetry and poets have these positive functions that he disagrees with the view that poetry has better functions than today. He believes that English literature has almost experienced a new life. People with low thoughts are jealous of their contemporaries and belittle their achievements, but this is a brilliant era of wisdom and will eventually be recognized by future generations. At present, philosophers and writers will be far better than those who appeared after the British Revolution in the middle of the 7th century. Here, Shelley affirmed the social function of the poet, the historical contribution of his contemporaries and the progressive view of history, but at that time, the French Revolution was at a low ebb and the European ideological circle was extremely dull.
The most complete works of Shelley are The Complete Works of percy bysshe shelley with volume 10, published by 1926- 1930, edited by Yin Ben and Peck. This book features poems, essays, letters and juvenile exercises. Shelley's most detailed biography is Shelley in two volumes, which was published by White on 1940. This book is characterized by informative historical materials and detailed index.
philology
Edmund Blunden, Shelley, NY 1946.
Noun (abbreviation of noun) Whitetown, Shelley, New York, zip code 1947.
K Cameron, young Shelley, new york, 195 1.
K.N. Cameron, Shelley: Golden Years, 1974.
D.H. Riemann, S.H. Bowles, Poetry and Prose of Shelley, 1977.
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