Percey Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822

Percey Bysshe Shelly was another poet classified in the second generation of the Romantics. He too was a stern critic of the political culture around him; however, he never gained the level of fame that Lord Byron did during his lifetime. Shelley had a passion to make a difference in the world but was upset that his voiced opinion did not have the desired effect that he wished it to. In 1814 he married Mary, the daughter of Wollstonecraft.

One of the poems written by Shelley was Ozymandias, a response to a contest between him and a friend of his over a exhibit in the British Museum of Ramses II. Ozymandias is the Greek name for Ramses II. Shelley has a unique rhyme scheme that he uses in Ozymandias that is typical of him. This poem can be interpreted in several ways. Some may think he is praising Ozymandias as a great king that will not be able to matched by any other king. Others might take a different viewpoint, interpreting it to show that all that is left from the great Ozymandias is the ruins of this statue. This is much more pessimistic view but one that is often attributed to the second generation Romantics. This bleak ending can be seen at the end of his work in Mont Blanc, a poem about the mystic highest mountain in Europe. Mont Blanc starts off is awe on the great mountain, but in the end Shelley questions what lies at the summit of the great peak, since at that time no one had ascended to the top. He wonders if there is anything there at all other than silence and solitude. I got the impression when reading this that the silence and solitude he questions is not a positive thing but rather a very depressing and bleak ending to a poem that started in a much more uplifting way.

It is clear to me, after I have read the first and second generation Romantics, that the second generation writers differed greatly in the less comforting conclusions to their work. I have a feeling that they probably did this in large part to break free of their ties to the first generation. I myself, prefer the first generation poets because I like the warmer feeling I receive after reading one of their works compared with the somberness I have wash over me after reading a Shelley poem.