A very important thing to know about Shelley is that he
was an athiest. This immediately changes how he saw the world and how he expressed his
poetic vision. While religion shouldn't be the basis for judging a poem, in this
particular case it is a vital aspect. Think of William Blake, an early Romantic, whose
work was substantially Christian-based and Biblically influenced. His beliefs are not
only found in his work, but they actually create his work and its
message.
With Shelley, then, we see someone who does not
believe that God is in nature, or that Christ is in a flower, but as someone who views
life as a fleeting thing. This is beautiful in its own right. It approaches the
Romantic's favorite subject, nature, with new eyes. Is God
in nature, is nature God, or is nature simply a beautiful
accident?
Shelley's work deals greatly with nature and
natural imagery. This is true for all of the great Romantics. Shelley's beliefs on
what nature is, and how it came to exist, steer away from religion. That is probably
the most concise way I can express the difference between Shelley and other
Romantics.
Consider what Romanticism is: nature v.
culture, with culture being negative and nature being positive. There is a
contradiction: one cannot write about nature without first having culture; however, this
is mostly overlooked when analysing Romantic poetry. Romanticism is also about the
outsider v. the insider, with the outsider being the ideal human. Poets such as Lord
Byron (Shelley's best friend) break that rule by being of a noble class, while poets
such as John Keats (another close friend of Shelley) embrace it with their lower class
backrounds. Shelley automatically becomes an outsider due to his lack of religion: a
very serious issue in the 1800s.
I encourage you to browse
through the victorianweb's Shelley page, as well as glance through Shelley's Prometheus
Unbound. Both will give you further insight into this great
poet.
I hope this was of help. Good
luck!
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