Shelley's works contain two easily distin guished strains: one, the propagandism of opinion which is associated with his "passion for reform ing the world"; the other, the expression of his personality, his essential being, in the creation of lyrical beauty by spontaneous and half-un conscious art. He adopted from early youth radical formulas of Anglicized French thought, certain beliefs regarding the perfectibility of man, the evil of social institutions like property and marriage. and the inviolability of the indi vidual. He had an active philosophical mind and an active philanthropic spirit to these two. and to the necessity for expression inherent in his powerful genius, his first works were chiefly in debted. Three times he did, in effect. utter his whole mind. In Queen Ilab (e.1813), his first important poem and the one by which he was long the most widely known, he put forth all he had learned and thought. In it are amalgamated his first essays in verse and prose to make a whole view of the world and of society. In The Berolt of Islam (1817-18), a more imaginative and elaborate poem, setting forth the moral revo lution of the world under the form of a romantic epic, he did the same thing again. In Prome theus Unbound (1820), though in forms of much higher poetry, he achieved the task still a third time. To say that in the social part of these great works he put Godwin's philosophy into verse is a very imperfect description. The prin ciples of Godwin were no more than the chrysalis that released the butterfly: the poet transformed the philosophy of his teacher and it came forth as poetry with a different potency and meaning. Yet the intellectual units of his thought were to be found in English radicalism. Shelley, ewer, never stiffened into any formula, but con stantly and increasingly responded to fresh knowledge. The most efficient new element in his earlier development was Greek. In Queen Mob and The Revolt of Islam, this is not felt : in Prometheus Unbound it is the soul of the poem. Philosophically the stud• of Plato changed him from a materialistic atheist, of a Lucretian type, to a pantheist, though the term as applied to him is a crude one; and under -Esehylus he became a master of choral myth, and under the impulse of Greek imagination generally. a symbolic poet. In becoming less didactie and more imaginative in style, less Latin and French and more Greek and Italian in inspiration, less definitely dog matic and more intuitive. prophetic, and personal in method, he changed from a respectable minor poet of intellectual and descriptive power and emotional abandon to a great lyrical master of the imagination. Mystery is a constantly in creasing element in his work, and almost meas ures his growth; in thought it plunges him into depths which he describes as speechless, and in the sensuous world it fills the atmosphere of the verse with light, color, and fragrance, and em bodies forms of nature and idealities of char acter which overpower and distract his readers. This presence of mystery is most obvious in the series of works which are more personal and dis engaged from any preoccupation with the present world, In _4 lastor (1815) it is not sufficient to cloud the narrative or the picture, but is a mood; in such poems as The ,tionsitirr Plant ( 1820 ) , and 77te Witch of Atlas ( 1820 I , apparent ly simple in fable, the evasiveness of the meaning is constant, like a retreating echo in the woods; in Epipsychu//en (1821) the mystery has made the poem one only for elect readers. In the
_donuts (1521), which after Alastor and Queen. Nab is probably most easily read in a popular way, the mystery, though deep and pervasive, goes naturally with the theme of early death, in which both Keats and Shelley are the answering chords. So, too, on the purely intellectual side. the prose Defense of Poetry (1821, pub, in 1810) discloses to a careful reader the ground of mystery in all Shelley's later thinking. Apart from the major works of the poet stand the brief lyrics and the odes, and the many fragments, which are also divided between a predominant social interest. as the Ode to Liberty, and a personal inspirational interest. as the Lines to an. Indian Air. In his growth he never lost touch with the present world, of which fact Hellas (1821) and The Masque of Anarchy (1819, pub. in 1832) are capital examples. In his dramatic attempts, seeking objective artistic results by effort. he was MT the line of his genius, and neither The Cenci (1819) nor Charles I., of whieli only a few scenes exist, reaches an excellence comparable to that of his other achievements. The most obvious quality of his verse. melody. is so readily felt that he is placed without any division of opinion among the great lyrical poets of England with the first. In other respects, though his fame is now established for his century, in the minds of many lie is regarded as vague in meaning, hysterical in feeling, loose and diffuse in style. He was the poet of ahstract and ideal love, and set forth under that conception the concrete beauty and order of the universe as he saw it, and of man's life as he desired it to lie.
His personal character was such as to draw about him many devoted friends, of whom some. as Leigh Hunt, Byron, Peacock, Trelawny. and Hor ace Smith, are well known: and lie also attracted women. who are chiefly known by the verse in which, as in life, lie idealized them. The charm he exercised is best seen in their own words. In fact, every one who knew him seems to have loved him. He was by nature generous, and gave so liberally of his scanty means as to keep him self always poor. Ile was constant in friendly kindness to all associated with him, and he at all went about doing charity among the poor. 1k was violent in indignation against actual wrong: but gentleness characterized him. His later years were full of sadness from one or an other cause. and though lie died young there was to him nothing premature in his death. llis verse and prose have been published in eight. vol umes by Forman (London. 1876-80) ; the poems alone by W. Al. Rossetti (ib.. 1870, 1878, 1888), by Dou•den (ib., and by Woodherry (Cam bridge, 1892. 1903). Consult also: DOWdell, Life (London. 1896) ; and for the view of his con temporaries, Hogg, Life (ib., 1858) ; Peacock, Memoirs (ib., 1847) ; Leigh Hunt, sl utobiography (lb., ISGO) ; Trclawny, Records (ih., 1858).