Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Unnamed poem of page 330

PercyHe was born on the 4th of August in 1792 and he died on July 8th 1822

He has also famously written Ozymandais the poem thought to have been inspired by the statue of Ramasses II as well as such political poems such as The Revolt of Islam it appears he had an affinity with Egyptian culture

He was a bit of a rock and roll poet

Percy and George• After he had been expelled from his school he eloped to Scotland with his

schoolgirl bride-to-be, however he became unhappy with their relationship. He ran off with his new mistress to Switzerland where he met with Lord Byron.

• They rented neighbouring houses and Byron’s character and converstaion began to greatly influence Shelly’s poem’s.

The First Two Lines

• Music, when soft voices die,

• There is a concept or image of death throughout the entire poem,

• The comparison of voices to music implies an image of beauty, which shows affection for the voices the poet discusses

• Vibrates in the memory-• The word Vibrates clearly

references sound.• A sound is the creation of certain

vibrations in the air, the conceit of things outlasting death has already been established

The couplet of the first verse

Oudours, when sweet violets sicken,

• Here is a metaphor for death• The poet is describing how when

someone dies and their body starts to go off, it emits a sickly sweet scent.

• The comparison is effective because the poets statement is that once something lovely dies it becomes even sweeter yet

Live within the sense they quicken.• Here the poet simply references

how when someone you know dies you think about them all the time.

• The implication is simply how quickly someone springs to your thoughts when they are gone

The second verse- couplet

Roses leaves, when the rose is dead,

• Here the rose again references a thing of beauty, the use of leaves is effective because the metaphor of the rose dying is an effective one, it portrays the fragility of love.

Are heaped for the belovèd’s bed;• The metaphor here is one of

burying the beloved in love,• This could be viewed in two ways-

in the other form• The love is being buried and

forgotten about with the deceased lover- to be forgotten about

The final linesAnd so thy thoughts when thou art gone,• Here the poet is saying that

though the subject of his love is dead and gone she still lives in his thoughts therefore she/ he is not truly dead

Love itself shall slumber on.• Here is a powerful metaphor

combining love and death, the characteristics of the two most powerfully used images in literature

• The metaphor states that love itself is transcending death and therefore it is more powerful than it.

• Herein is the central conceit of the whole poem, the idea of love overcoming death