Percy Shelley Research Paper

Anyone can write a good poem, but it takes talent and effort to be an excellent poet. Percy Shelley is one such poet, and his natural gifts and hard work are evident in his poetry. Born on August 4, 1792 in England, Shelley lead a short yet scandalous and dramatic life before his death in 1822 (“Percy”). This influential life of his greatly impacted Shelley and his poetry, but he took influence from the time period as well, with a spin of his own. Percy Shelley used the passion of the Romantic Era, but deepened the meaning of emotion with his symbolism. Percy Shelley made emotion a major theme in his poetry, which perfectly reflects the Romantic period. This is evident in his poem “Love’s Philosophy”, which expresses love, longing, and loss.
One such example is the content of his poetry. Shelley often uses narrative poetry, meaning he tells stories in his poems. These stories are often very specific and sometimes a bit peculiar, but he made it this way for a reason. Instead of focusing on the stories of his poetry, he wanted his audience to focus on his universal themes. One such example of a specific story, but a ubiquitous theme is “Ozymandias”. This poem is about a very specific monument, built to Ozymandias, also known as Ramses II, who was a Pharaoh of Egypt and may have been the pharaoh mentioned in the Biblical book of Exodus (Mikacs). The poem states that this man had a massive statue built in effigy of himself, with an inscription bearing the words “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair” (“Ozymandias”). The statue is now destroyed and shattered, affirming the idea that glory doesn’t last, and things of this earth are in essence pointless. “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck”
Its contextual story is about a forbidden love, seen in the second stanza: “Like sweet thoughts in a dream/The Nightingale’s complaint/It dies upon her heart/As I must on thine,/Oh, beloved as thou art!” (“The Indian Serenade”). To further enhance this message of despair, the narrator in fact dies at the end of the poem, in the third stanza: “Oh lift me from the grass/I die! I faint! I fail!/Let thy love in kisses rain/On my lips and eyelids pale” (“The Indian Serenade”). Shelley uses this story to present the power of two very different topics: love and death. Love reigns over the death of the narrator, but death still has control over the story as a whole. Even with the love between the narrator and the Indian, death takes it away very easily. “The Indian Serenade” and “Ozymandias” both beautifully express ideas of loss, despair, and the impermanence of life and material things.
Through all of his poetry, Percy Shelley uses symbolism to enhance his themes, which shaped Romantic poetry in following years. Though he uses emotion and passion to represent the Romantic era in his poetry, he changed it to fit his style and to intensify his themes of despair and loss. His tragic life and the heavy mindset of the time period shaped his poetry, but did not define it. He wrote excellent poems but the passion and personal touch he put into his work is what made him an excellent