P.B. Shelley the 'Beautiful But Ineffectual Angel'

He fearlessly and sincerely celebrated the total sentimentality of his own time and even beyond. This made his poetry chameleonic and his poetry was rich in context, colour and depth which allowed his work to resonate even after two hundred years with each new generation. The West Wind of Time drove his thoughts all over the universe and none will doubt the enduring quality of his poetry which even Tagore and the iconoclastic Bernard Shaw loved to follow. His own father did not understand him and had disowned him and nearly kicked him out of the family home. But this hardly affected his mind because Shelley had a peculiar mindset which indulged in a poetic homelessness. He lived as an exile almost all his life and almost as a destitute

Two hundred years ago on July 8 1922, P.B. Shelley died in Italy. Over two hundred years not a whit of his popularity has diminished. The poet who drank the deep joy of poetry till his last breath had a tragic death in the Gulf of Spezia .

Eminent critics explored the myths of his final journey, which are still an enigma to the readers. He was bohemian and known as a writer of infidel poetry from his Oxford days - the real Don Juan of 19th century British literature. Just one year earlier Keats died a tragic premature death in Rome and Byron died only two years later at Missolonghi. History books are full of forgotten poets and writers who have been consigned to the dustbin of irrelevance after their short- lived fame. But Shelley was somewhat different and Matthew Arnold commented disparagingly on his poetry by comparing him to an 'ineffectual angel beating his luminous wings in the void in vain.' However, even Arnold did not forget to mention that the ineffectual angel was 'beautiful' too. He fearlessly and sincerely celebrated the total sentimentality of his own time and even beyond. This made his poetry chameleonic and his poetry was rich in context, colour and depth which allowed his work to resonate even after two hundred years with each new generation. The West Wind of Time drove his thoughts all over the universe and none will doubt the enduring quality of his poetry which even Tagore and the iconoclastic Bernard Shaw loved to follow. His own father did not understand him and had disowned him and nearly kicked him out of the family home. But this hardly affected his mind because Shelley had a peculiar mindset which indulged in a poetic homelessness. He lived as an exile almost all his life and almost as a destitute .Very few poets (not even Keats of Neruda) ever suffered like him during their lifetime. Practically he did not have a home and this homelessness made him more and more a romantic soul with a clear disdain for home and the realities of life.

Today we listen to the stories of those who have overcome adversity or have suffered mental health issues. This was not probably the case of Shelley for he philosophizes his poetic homelessness in his writings. He was a tortured soul and restless not for the torture but for the dreams which he nourished inside his revolutionary mind , a dream of the New Millennium as he envisioned in Prometheus Unbound or The Revolt of Islam. This essence is found in the two lines that have been made almost a cliché by the readers and the critics "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind" It was not a facile optimism but a dream that made Shelley overcome all tortures on him when he was a victim of the powerful elites. He might not be a 'real hero' in their eyes, but he was 'a hero to his ideas'. Mere sentimentality could not make Shelley so great that history could not forget him even after two long centuries. He is neither forgotten nor ignored. It is not important who had been kind and who had been unkind to him. Was it not a Red Shelley more than a Romantic Shelley who with wife Mary joined the Sugar boycott. His political voice in 'Ozymandias' or the song 'To the Men of England' was not accepted by many which later generations understood fully. As stated earlier his own father did not accept his son's notorious radicalism like the other elites of his time. In Alastor he almost prophetically quoted from Wordsworth's The Excursion to ironical effect - The good die first. He never sacrifices his mastery of style in spite of the propaganda element in his creative works. Who can forget his majestic use of Terza Rima or the tempestuous march of the imagery in his odes especially 'Ode to the West Wind'. Who can forget his definition of love 'Soul meets soul on lover's lips?' He lifted the veil of the hidden beauty of the world and made the familiar everyday reality poetic in the ever great artistic way where propaganda is overruled.

By: Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee. The writer is an associate professor and head of the postgraduate department of English at Dum Dum Motijheel College, Kolkata. He is also a trilingual poet. Dr Bhattacharjee may be reached at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com

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