Is Shelley an idealist or a materialist?

Reading the abstract of Shelley's "Defending Poetry": By reading the idealistic philosophy reflected in the text of "Defending Poetry", combining Shelley's characteristics as a poet and Plato's philosophy, this paper analyzes Shelley's poetics from one angle; From this, we can find Shelley's ideological roots and subjective motives as a poet to defend poetry. Key words: Shelley Plato's idealistic philosophy, poet's idea, pantheism of soul ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————. Engels once commented: "Shelley, a genius prophet, and Byron, who is full of passion and irony for society, are mostly workers …" while Marx called him "an out-and-out revolutionary". From this comment, we can almost know that Shelley is revolutionary as a poet and poetic as a revolutionary. The combination of these two qualities was rare in British and even world poetry at that time. The writing of "The Defense of Poetry" originated from an article "Four Times of Poetry" written by Shelley's friend peacock. Peacock concluded in his article that in that utilitarian era, poetry was doomed to decline. Shelley was disgusted with this and wrote this polemic article. Shelley thinks that poets are legislators. He wrote in the article: "However, poets ... not only created prophecy, music, dance, architecture, sculpture and painting; They are also the makers of laws, the founders of civilized society, the inventors of various life skills, and they are even more mentors ... "From this announcement written by Shelley at the beginning of the article, we can clearly feel the author's respect and worship for the great title of poet. Literally, we may even think that such a declaration is a big fallacy. How do poets create predictions? How to create music, dance, architecture, sculpture and painting? How did he become a legislator, a founder of civilized society and an inventor of various life skills? Of course, on the surface, those specific creations are definitely not from the hands of poets. Under the social division of labor of human beings, many different production departments and authorities will inevitably appear, which are responsible for the concrete and meticulous operation of society and become direct participants and promoters of social production progress. However, if traced back to the source, the motive force of social development must have the shadow of a poet. This is due to the infinite power of the spirit. We can interpret the origin of the author's point of view in this way. In the author's ideological system, a large part comes from the idealistic philosophy system of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Plato's idealist philosophy holds that everything in this world is an illusion, and there is a more real, ideal or spiritual world, which is immaterial, perfect and eternal, and our changeable and imperfect material world is its projection. Plato once made a famous metaphor about this. He said that most humans seem to be prisoners sitting in caves with their backs to the fire, and the light casts a shadow on the rock wall, which people put in front of the real world. Only a few people (philosophers) turn around and walk up the steep stone steps can they see the sunshine outside and see the "truth". Therefore, to get the truth, we must turn our eyes to the sun and face the "real world." In Plato's philosophy, this real world is sometimes called "idea", "spirit" or "one". Therefore, through such a philosophical explanation, it is incisive and profound for us to understand the author's exposition at the beginning of the article. We can understand that the real world in which human beings live is not only the material world mentioned in Plato's philosophy, but the fundamental driving force of the conceptual world lies in a higher idea. Therefore, in order to promote the development of human material world, we must gain strength from this higher world of ideas, which is profound in wisdom and only a few human beings can reach the height necessary to gain strength. This power comes from reason, but it is spiritual and idealistic. When it spread to the material world of human beings, just like the great potential of kindling, it began to generate huge energy to act on all aspects of the human world, including music, painting, dance, sculpture, architecture and other artistic fields, laws, rules and regulations and other social fields, inventions of machinery, physics, chemistry, mining and transportation, and the initial promoters of this power must be poets and philosophers. Poets are gods of sensibility and philosophers are gods of reason, but these are not comprehensive, because truly great poets must have both gods of sensibility and reason, far more brilliant and wise than philosophers. The poet's sensibility enables the poet to grasp the shining divinity in the world and bring it to the world to show it to people, thus playing the role of education and promotion. As the author once described in "The Defense of Poetry": "Poetry can make all the best and most beautiful things in the world immortal; It captures those fleeting illusions wandering in the shadow of life, decorates them with words or forms, and then sends them to the world, and at the same time brings such good news to those who stay with their sisters ... "So we can agree with the author's assertion without hesitation that poets are the root of all things. However, it is certainly not enough to understand it simply from the perspective of materialist philosophy. We should also understand Plato's philosophical core "idea", so as to be deeper and easier to understand. In the following discussion, the author puts forward the characteristics of the poet's gender. "A poet essentially contains and integrates these two characteristics. Because he not only observes the objective present, but also finds the laws that the present things should follow, he can also see the future from the present. Poets forget themselves in eternity, infinity and unity; So in his concept, there is no time, space or quantity. " In this discussion, we can still clearly see that the author is deeply influenced by Plato's soul theory. Plato's philosophy holds that there is still spirit after death, and the other side of the grave is not darkness and emptiness, but a better reality. Therefore, as a prophet, there is no life and death, because the poet's death is to enter a more real world, which is the perfect world that the poet praised and pursued when he was alive. Plato's philosophical theory about human soul also deeply influenced Shelley's poetics as a poet and literary critic. Plato's philosophy holds that the human soul is possessed and complete by both sexes, and it becomes a divided existence after entering the body, so it always seeks to combine with its other half; The same is true in nature, where "many" always tries to converge to "one". The ocean and the sun are symbols of "one", and everything must converge in one spirit, that is, eternity and unity. Therefore, the author said, "Poetry is not only the center of knowledge, but also its circumference. It contains all sciences, and all sciences must be traced back to it. It is also the old root of all other ideological systems; Everything happens from it and is decorated by it ... "This sentence can be counted as the author's name for the status of poetry. Poetry is the mother of all things. That is, as an idea, poetry is essential and sacred, and everything is produced or derived from poetry, so everything must belong to poetry and be integrated into it. This is the essential spirit of the world. Although such an assertion has obvious idealistic ills and tendencies in our eyes today, in the ideological circles of the nineteenth century at that time, such a poetic view was first of all worthy of recognition. It first gave hope and freedom to poetry. In Shelley's defense of poetry, we can feel the author's extreme praise and attention to poetry as a whole, and explain it from different angles to defend poetry. This is positive and optimistic. At the same time, we can clearly see the shadow of another active idealism philosophy-"pantheism" in the author's ideological system. As a poet, no matter whether Shelley talks about freedom, love, joy or sadness, no matter what philosophy he talks about, he always likes to talk about natural scenery, because in his view, everything in the universe is interrelated. His description of nature accords with his thoughts and explanations, but at the same time, his natural paintings are full of scientific spirit and realistic characteristics, and even amazing in the accuracy of observation. For example, there is a saying in "Defending Poetry". "Poetry is the perfect appearance and brilliance of all things; The texture of its structural components is like the fragrance of roses ... If poetry can't soar to the eternal realm where planning ability can't soar with owl wings ... "Although we think pantheism has its idealistic side, it is also a progressive thought in a certain historical period. Engels said, "Pantheism is the last step to realize freedom and human viewpoint". In this way, we can understand how profound the author's expectations in the application of pantheism are. The author thinks that the universe is interlinked, and poets are integrated with everything, eternal and more free. The poet's characteristics enable him to communicate divinely with everything in the world, as if everything in nature were integrated with the poet. Poets can perceive the secrets of the universe, the revelation of God and the secret language of the earth that ordinary people can't perceive. Poets shoulder the most and are the greatest! As we know, this article "In Defense of Poetry" was written by Shelley to oppose the negative poetics of Friends. An optimistic and positive thinker, because he believes that ugly reality is fleeting; The truth is inevitably mixed with the subjective emotions of some authors. This is also inevitable. From Shelley's numerous lyric poems, we can see that he is an active and optimistic thinker. Because Shelley thinks ugly reality is fleeting; Truth, goodness and beauty will always exist; People can constantly improve themselves, people's will is harmonious, and the golden age of the world will surely come; The power of the universe exceeds the sadness and misfortune caused by a few people, and the world will eventually turn to light and the spirit of love and beauty. From here, we can well understand the reason why Shelley wrote this article as a poet, and the ideological root of the profound connotation expressed in it.