Plato Aristotle
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was born in Sussex and
educated at Eton and Oxford. During his lifetime Shelley’s opinions obscured
his powers as a poet. Even to Scott, who with all his Tory prejudices was
liberal enough in views on literature, he was simply, that atheist
Shelley. After his death his reputation rose rapidly and by the middle
of nineteenth century his position was assured.
His work, A Defence of Poetry was published in
1840. The book is a strong exposition of the romantic point of view. It was a
reply to the attack made by his contemporary Peacock. P.B.Shelley, a great
romantic poet and critic defends poetry by claiming that the poet creates human
values and imagines the form that shape the social and cultural order.
Unlike Peacock, for Shelley each poetic mind recreates its
own private universe and poets. He says himself,
Poets
are the hierophants of an un-apprehended inspiration: the mirrors of the
gigantic shadow which futurity casts upon the present words which express what
they understand not, the trumpets which sing to battle; and feel not what they
inspire; the influence which is moved not but moves. Poets are the
unacknowledged legislators of the world.
For Shelley, poetry is the vehicle to reach to the ideal
world or platonic world. He argues that all forms of arts and science depend
upon nature but poetry improves the nature and creates better than it. Here,
his views share similarities with Aristotle, who said that a poet is not only
an imitator but also a creator.
Reason and imagination are the two faculties of mind. The
former is the principle of analysis, whereas; latter is the principle of
synthesis. Imagination has soothing power that pacifies the mind and the people
become moral. It creates the best and the happiest moment; as such peaceful
mind is required to produce the poetry. For Shelley, the best mind and the
happiest moment produced by imagination are the ways to get the essence but
Coleridge’s imagination does not soothe the mind, instead it is just a creative
force.
Shelley believes that poetry strengthens the moral faculty
and gives pleasure so he treats imagination both as creative and pragmatic
aspects. Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing
it with thought of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and
assimilating to their nature all other thoughts. The poet is a moral teacher
who gives idea and pleasure to the society by teaching indirectly. He is a
prophet and legislature who create social norms, rules and moral lessons with
the help of poetry. A poet to him is not only the author of language, of music,
of the dance and of architecture but is also the legislature of laws, the
founder of civil society.
No other English poet of the early 19th cen. so
emphasized the connection between beauty and goodness, or believed so avidly in
the power of art’s sensual pleasures to improve society. Byron’s pose was one
of amoral sensuousness. Keats believed in beauty and aesthetics for his own
sake. However, Shelley was able to believe that poetry makes people and society
better. His poetry has its social and moral functions along with its aesthetic
pleasure. Thus, these are the grounds on which Shelley defends poetry.
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