Stanzas Written in Dejection: Explication
JK
9-19-2013
Poetry Explication: Stanzas Written in Dejection by Percy Shelley
Written in 1818, Stanzas Written in Dejection was penned directly in the midst of the English romantic era. Shelley, though not thought to be at the time, was one of the most incredible poets of his age, composing unique poems to capture the vibrant emotions of everyday life. Due to this fact, it almost goes without saying that his poem, Stanzas Written in Dejection, is a very descriptive and emotional piece that encompasses many of the romantic notions of the time. These thoughts and notions include, but are not limited to: spontaneity, impulses of feeling, glorification of the ordinary, individualism, and alienation.
Throughout his lifetime, Shelley wrote many incredibly distinctive pieces and became very known for his authorship of various poems. However, he was not particularly popular with the masses until recently. “His poetry is autonomous, finely wrought, in highest degree imaginative, and has the spiritual form of vision stripped of all veils and ideological coverings, the vision that many readers justly seek in poetry, despite the admonitions of a multitude of churchwardenly critics” (Bloom 261). Shelley was an atheist in a Catholic world and therefore, his poetry was not often received as being appropriate, regardless of his poetic genius and mastery of various poetic techniques.
In his poem, Stanzas Written in Dejection, Percy Shelley mellifluously describes the hardships and emotions that he had been suffering with at that point in his life. He does this by using a distinctively romantic contrast of the beauty of nature against his morbid and disheartening thoughts on his recent experiences. This rather extreme contrast along with Shelley’s strong diction and use of other romantic mechanisms makes Stanzas Written in Dejection one of his most deep and powerful experiences for the reader.
The first stanza makes evident very early on the romantic nature of
9-19-2013
Poetry Explication: Stanzas Written in Dejection by Percy Shelley
Written in 1818, Stanzas Written in Dejection was penned directly in the midst of the English romantic era. Shelley, though not thought to be at the time, was one of the most incredible poets of his age, composing unique poems to capture the vibrant emotions of everyday life. Due to this fact, it almost goes without saying that his poem, Stanzas Written in Dejection, is a very descriptive and emotional piece that encompasses many of the romantic notions of the time. These thoughts and notions include, but are not limited to: spontaneity, impulses of feeling, glorification of the ordinary, individualism, and alienation.
Throughout his lifetime, Shelley wrote many incredibly distinctive pieces and became very known for his authorship of various poems. However, he was not particularly popular with the masses until recently. “His poetry is autonomous, finely wrought, in highest degree imaginative, and has the spiritual form of vision stripped of all veils and ideological coverings, the vision that many readers justly seek in poetry, despite the admonitions of a multitude of churchwardenly critics” (Bloom 261). Shelley was an atheist in a Catholic world and therefore, his poetry was not often received as being appropriate, regardless of his poetic genius and mastery of various poetic techniques.
In his poem, Stanzas Written in Dejection, Percy Shelley mellifluously describes the hardships and emotions that he had been suffering with at that point in his life. He does this by using a distinctively romantic contrast of the beauty of nature against his morbid and disheartening thoughts on his recent experiences. This rather extreme contrast along with Shelley’s strong diction and use of other romantic mechanisms makes Stanzas Written in Dejection one of his most deep and powerful experiences for the reader.
The first stanza makes evident very early on the romantic nature of
Cited: Bloom, Harold. English Romantic Poets. Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Print. Greenblatt, Stephen, Diedre Shauna Lynch, and Jack Stillinger. Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 9th Edition, Volume D. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., Print.