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Percy Bysshe Shelley was the most progressive poet among the revolutionary romanticists in English literature. He was at the same time the greatest lyrical poet in English literature.
Like Byron, he came from an ancient aristocratic family, and, like Byron, he broke away from his class.
When he was a student, he published a pamphlet “The Necessity of Atheism” for which he was expelled from the university and forbidden by his father to come home.
In his first great poems “Queen Mab” and “The Revolt of Islam” Shelley protested against religion, against all forms of tyranny. He gave pictures of a revolutionary movement for freedom and expressed his belief in a new golden age.
Like Byron, he was forced by his enemies among the ruling classes of England to leave his native country. So in 1818, he went to live in Italy where his friend Byron lived. (Shelley wrote about their friendship in a poem called “Julian and Maddalo.”) But he kept up his ties with England. In August 1819, when he heard that the English government had sent soldiers against a demonstration of Manchester workers and that several men, women and children had been killed and many wounded, he decided to start writing a collection of revolutionary songs calling the English workers to rise against the oppressors.
During his life in Italy he wrote his best works, among which are his dramas and many poems. The most famous of his long poems is "Prometheus Unbound," in which he retold the Greek legend of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven and brought it down to men. Shelley used the old story to express his feelings of joy and hope for the future of mankind.
Shelley wished to change all that was bad in the world so that people could live in freedom and love. In every poem or song he repeated the same idea: a day will come when a revolution will free mankind.
Shelley also wrote lyrical poems in which he sang of nature and simple things. These poems are full of melody and grace. Like Byron, Shelley was especially fond of the sea and described it in many of his poems. But the difference between Byron and Shelley is that while in Byron’s poetry we can very often feel his gloomy mood, Shelley’s poetry is full of bright optimism.
In 1822, Shelley was drowned while he was sailing in a small boat. He was only thirty years old. But the English workers did not forget their poet. When the English workers’ revolutionary movement, Chartism, arose, the workers on the demonstrations marched singing one of Shelley’s revolutionary songs.