WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 Okay, let's start with this image. A major romantic 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:07.099 poet, dead at just 29, a chaotic shipwreck off 00:00:07.099 --> 00:00:09.419 the Italian coast. Right. I mean, his whole life 00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:12.980 was a state of intellectual and personal explosion. 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.839 But the image that really truly gets you is what 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:19.199 happened after he died. The cremation. The cremation 00:00:19.199 --> 00:00:22.179 on the beach. Right. The heat, the flames, and 00:00:22.179 --> 00:00:25.199 this human heart that just famously refused to 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:27.420 burn. And you know what's so fascinating is that 00:00:27.420 --> 00:00:30.620 this one physical event, Whether it really was 00:00:30.620 --> 00:00:33.159 his heart or maybe his liver, calcified, we don't 00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:35.719 know for sure, it becomes the perfect symbol 00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:38.179 for the man himself. How so? It just mirrors 00:00:38.179 --> 00:00:41.039 the intense, fiery, and completely resistant 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:43.820 nature of his entire intellectual life. So today, 00:00:43.899 --> 00:00:45.920 we are diving deep into Percy Bysshe Shelley. 00:00:46.299 --> 00:00:48.960 And not just as the author of, you know, Ozymandias 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:50.780 or Ode to the West Wind, which you probably read 00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:52.640 in school. Exactly. We're looking at him as one 00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:54.659 of the most politically charged, skeptical and 00:00:54.659 --> 00:00:56.820 honestly, genuinely radical intellectuals of 00:00:56.820 --> 00:00:59.700 his entire era. Absolutely. Our mission for this 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:02.280 deep dive is to give you a real shortcut to understanding 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:05.900 the ultimate nonconformist. You'll see why his 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:08.920 short life was this perpetual series of crises, 00:01:09.060 --> 00:01:12.819 self -exiles and these intellectual explosions 00:01:12.819 --> 00:01:16.090 that led to some of the most enduring. and politically 00:01:16.090 --> 00:01:19.310 urgent poetry of the entire Romantic period. 00:01:19.569 --> 00:01:21.790 And that influence, it doesn't just stay in literature. 00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:25.189 Shelley's worldview, his ideas, they directly 00:01:25.189 --> 00:01:27.849 inspired foundational figures who are just worlds 00:01:27.849 --> 00:01:29.489 apart. You're talking about Karl Marx. Right, 00:01:29.530 --> 00:01:31.290 the father of communism. George Bernard Shaw, 00:01:31.409 --> 00:01:33.590 the playwright and socialist. And maybe most 00:01:33.590 --> 00:01:36.109 importantly, Mahatma Gandhi. The father of modern 00:01:36.109 --> 00:01:39.090 nonviolent resistance. Exactly. So to really 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:41.730 understand the depth of his art, you absolutely 00:01:41.730 --> 00:01:43.810 have to trace the ferocity of his rebellion. 00:01:44.129 --> 00:01:46.049 So let's... start right at the beginning. How 00:01:46.049 --> 00:01:48.349 does a boy born into the absolute heart of the 00:01:48.349 --> 00:01:50.730 English establishment, how does he transform 00:01:50.730 --> 00:01:53.430 himself into the country's most feared radical? 00:01:53.709 --> 00:01:56.590 It all begins with just immense privilege. I 00:01:56.590 --> 00:01:58.750 mean, total expectation. Shelley was born August 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:01.890 4, 1792, at Field Place in Sussex. He's the eldest 00:02:01.890 --> 00:02:04.010 son of Sir Timothy Shelley. A member of parliament? 00:02:04.030 --> 00:02:06.530 Right, a member of parliament, yes. And for you 00:02:06.530 --> 00:02:08.150 listening, it's important to know what kind. 00:02:08.409 --> 00:02:10.909 Sir Timothy was a Whig. Okay, let's pause there 00:02:10.909 --> 00:02:12.590 for a second, because this is the turn of the 00:02:12.590 --> 00:02:16.300 19th century. What does being a Whig MP actually 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:19.840 mean for Shelley's background? It's it's a really 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:22.020 crucial piece of context. So the Whigs, they 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.020 weren't the Tories. They were generally the more. 00:02:26.370 --> 00:02:29.129 liberal reformist party. Right. They favored 00:02:29.129 --> 00:02:32.189 constitutional monarchy. They supported Catholic 00:02:32.189 --> 00:02:35.129 emancipation. They kind of represented this rising 00:02:35.129 --> 00:02:37.830 professional class, a more progressive view of 00:02:37.830 --> 00:02:40.050 government. So he was born into a family that, 00:02:40.150 --> 00:02:43.150 while definitely aristocratic, was already leaning 00:02:43.150 --> 00:02:44.830 toward a certain amount of intellectual freedom. 00:02:45.009 --> 00:02:47.069 Exactly. So he wasn't rebelling against some 00:02:47.069 --> 00:02:50.509 rigid, ultra conservative dogma. He was rebelling 00:02:50.509 --> 00:02:53.370 against moderate reform in favor of absolute 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:55.819 revolution. And his early childhood was was, 00:02:55.819 --> 00:02:58.139 by all accounts, pretty sheltered, pretty happy. 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:00.180 He was close to his mother, his four younger 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:03.659 sisters. He had this brilliant mind right from 00:03:03.659 --> 00:03:06.259 the start. Oh, an incredible memory, a gift for 00:03:06.259 --> 00:03:09.400 languages, a real thirst for knowledge. The path 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:12.340 was laid out for him. You know, inherit the baronetcy, 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.300 continue his father's political career. Simple. 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:18.500 But that path to the establishment gets, well, 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:20.819 it gets instantly derailed by the establishment. 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.360 Yes. The moment he's sent off to school, first 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:25.740 to Scion House Academy and then, crucially, to 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:29.560 Eaton College in 1804. His nonconformity just 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:33.400 surfaces violently. He hated it. He later called 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:36.639 it a period of absolute loathing. And this wasn't 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:38.560 just, you know, a kid being miserable at boarding 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:40.800 school. He was subjected to severe organized 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:43.280 mob bullying. They had a name for it. Shelly 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.819 Bates. It was a ritual. What was it about him? 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:49.120 What made him such a specific target? It was 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:51.680 his entire nature, really. And his principled 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:54.300 refusal to conform to the school's brutal social 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:57.139 hierarchy. Biographers point to his aloofness, 00:03:57.180 --> 00:03:59.879 his... his general air of being different but 00:03:59.879 --> 00:04:02.340 the big one was his refusal to participate in 00:04:02.340 --> 00:04:04.439 fagging and for anyone not familiar with the 00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:06.939 term fagging is it's not just doing chores no 00:04:06.939 --> 00:04:10.400 no it was a deeply entrenched often brutal system 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.340 of servitude the older more powerful students 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:15.740 imposed it on the younger boys it was mandatory 00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:19.360 often humiliating personal service form of tyranny 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:23.160 a microcosm of it yes for shelley this fiercely 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:27.060 independent idealistic mind it was an intolerable 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:29.360 oppression. And his refusal wasn't laziness. 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:31.480 It was a radical political act of resistance, 00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:34.579 even as a teenager. The result of all this pressure, 00:04:34.699 --> 00:04:37.939 his peers just branded him Mad Shelley. And he 00:04:37.939 --> 00:04:41.379 was. He was prone to these sudden violent rages 00:04:41.379 --> 00:04:44.199 that were apparently terrifying to his schoolmates. 00:04:44.279 --> 00:04:46.199 He started having nightmares, hallucinations, 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.819 sleepwalking. Symptoms of real psychological 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:51.199 distress that would follow him really for the 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:53.060 rest of his life. And these eccentricities were 00:04:53.060 --> 00:04:56.199 just fueled by this deep, intense interest in 00:04:56.199 --> 00:04:58.399 science and the occult. This wasn't just passive 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:00.899 reading for him. No, it was action. He would 00:05:00.899 --> 00:05:02.959 subject his sisters to these terrifying experiments 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.850 during the holidays. Right? With gunpowder, acids, 00:05:06.050 --> 00:05:08.689 electricity. There are accounts of him blowing 00:05:08.689 --> 00:05:11.430 up a paling fence at school trying to raise spirits 00:05:11.430 --> 00:05:14.829 with occult rituals at Eton. He was chasing forbidden 00:05:14.829 --> 00:05:17.589 knowledge with this terrifying energy. But it 00:05:17.589 --> 00:05:21.050 wasn't all just explosions and ghosts. His radicalism 00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:22.910 was also being nurtured intellectually. Yes. 00:05:22.949 --> 00:05:25.810 In his senior years at Eton, a part -time teacher, 00:05:26.050 --> 00:05:28.449 a man named James Lind, he really encouraged 00:05:28.449 --> 00:05:31.129 this curiosity. He introduced Shelley not just 00:05:31.129 --> 00:05:34.290 to the occult, but to genuinely liberal and radical 00:05:34.290 --> 00:05:37.129 Enlightenment authors. And that led him to start 00:05:37.129 --> 00:05:40.810 studying Plato, idealist philosophy, on his own. 00:05:40.889 --> 00:05:42.689 So by the time he gets to University College 00:05:42.689 --> 00:05:46.629 Oxford in October 1810, he's already a published, 00:05:46.850 --> 00:05:49.649 if... unconventional literary figure. Right. 00:05:49.730 --> 00:05:51.949 He'd already published a Gothic novel, Testarazzi. 00:05:52.110 --> 00:05:54.470 A collaboration of poetry with his sister and 00:05:54.470 --> 00:05:57.029 another Gothic novel, St. Irvine. He arrives 00:05:57.029 --> 00:05:59.470 at Oxford already armed with a sharp pen and 00:05:59.470 --> 00:06:01.949 a very volatile mind. And once he's there, the 00:06:01.949 --> 00:06:04.290 traditional academic structure just holds zero 00:06:04.290 --> 00:06:07.139 interest for him. None whatsoever. He skipped 00:06:07.139 --> 00:06:09.959 most lectures. He preferred to spend hours reading 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:12.040 on his own and, of course, dedicating himself 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:14.720 to those volatile scientific experiments he set 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:17.339 up right there in his college room. And his political 00:06:17.339 --> 00:06:19.819 views just crystallized under the influence of 00:06:19.819 --> 00:06:22.180 his closest friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Hogg 00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:24.500 was another sharp, rebellious mind. And together, 00:06:24.579 --> 00:06:27.319 they quickly developed these genuinely dangerous, 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:30.879 anti -Christian and subversive political ideas. 00:06:31.420 --> 00:06:34.060 Ideas, we should note, that his father had specifically 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:36.769 warned. him against. Sir Timothy knew his son 00:06:36.769 --> 00:06:40.589 was a bit of a firebrand, but he completely underestimated 00:06:40.589 --> 00:06:42.689 the depth of his atheistic convictions. Which 00:06:42.689 --> 00:06:45.490 led directly to his downfall. In the winter of 00:06:45.490 --> 00:06:49.269 1810, 1811, he and Hogg, they co -author and 00:06:49.269 --> 00:06:51.889 privately publish a pamphlet that, well, it left 00:06:51.889 --> 00:06:53.990 nothing to the imagination. The Necessity of 00:06:53.990 --> 00:06:56.199 Atheism. And this is where Shelley proves he's 00:06:56.199 --> 00:06:58.860 more than just a thinker. He's an agitator. He 00:06:58.860 --> 00:07:01.319 doesn't hide it. He escalates the confrontation. 00:07:01.620 --> 00:07:04.360 How? He ensures the message gets out. He mails 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:06.779 copies directly to every single bishop and every 00:07:06.779 --> 00:07:09.240 head of college at Oxford. He literally forced 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:11.720 the institution's hand. That is just guaranteed 00:07:11.720 --> 00:07:14.220 to cause a confrontation, isn't it? He was called 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:16.879 before the college fellows and the dean. What 00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:19.160 exactly went down in that meeting? They asked 00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:22.660 him directly, did you write this? And his downfall 00:07:22.660 --> 00:07:24.759 wasn't based on the content of the pamphlet itself. 00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:28.000 Not really. It was based on his refusal to acknowledge 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:30.879 their authority. So he stood on principle. Absolute 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:34.220 intellectual freedom. He refused to confirm or 00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:37.540 deny authorship. And that refusal, that unforgivable 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:39.899 act of nonconformity to the college authorities, 00:07:40.180 --> 00:07:43.180 was grounds for immediate dismissal. On March 00:07:43.180 --> 00:07:46.879 25, 1811. Both he and Hogg were expelled. So 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:48.819 he didn't actually lose his place because he 00:07:48.819 --> 00:07:51.100 was an atheist. He lost it because he refused 00:07:51.100 --> 00:07:53.620 to answer a question. Exactly. It was a rejection 00:07:53.620 --> 00:07:56.139 of the institution's right to demand obedience 00:07:56.139 --> 00:07:59.079 and confession from him. And this decision, the 00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:01.360 expulsion, that was the point of no return with 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:03.600 his family. So Timothy was furious. Furious. 00:08:03.699 --> 00:08:06.060 He threatened to cut off all contact unless Shelley 00:08:06.060 --> 00:08:08.439 came home, submitted, and agreed to study under 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:11.199 tutors the family chose. Shelley's refusal was 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:13.620 instantaneous. He chose intellectual honesty 00:08:13.620 --> 00:08:15.800 and his... radical beliefs over his birthright 00:08:15.800 --> 00:08:18.240 and his financial security. So this brings us 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:20.879 to a really crucial phase. He's cut off from 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:23.120 his family, cut off from his entire expected 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:25.819 future, and he has to immediately start living 00:08:25.819 --> 00:08:28.600 this radical philosophical life he'd been talking 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:30.740 about. And instead of some kind of utopia, he 00:08:30.740 --> 00:08:35.179 finds just chaos. Yeah. And it began almost immediately 00:08:35.179 --> 00:08:38.340 with his spontaneous marriage to Harriet Westbrook. 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:41.580 Just months after his expulsion, August 1811, 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:45.340 he impulsively elopes to Scotland with a 16 -year 00:08:45.340 --> 00:08:48.580 -old Harriet. Which is just, it's astonishing 00:08:48.580 --> 00:08:51.100 when you remember that, philosophically, Shelley 00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:53.559 was fundamentally against the institution of 00:08:53.559 --> 00:08:55.639 marriage. He saw it as tyranny, right? As a property 00:08:55.639 --> 00:08:58.440 exchange. Yes. So why on earth does he go get 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:00.600 a marriage certificate? It seems like a massive 00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:03.139 contradiction right out of the gate. Was it just 00:09:03.139 --> 00:09:05.960 societal pressure trying to protect her reputation? 00:09:06.299 --> 00:09:08.799 Probably a combination of youthful impulse and, 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:11.320 yes, a desire to protect Harriet's reputation. 00:09:11.340 --> 00:09:14.240 But it just reveals this inherent difficulty 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:17.740 in translating radical philosophy into real world 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:19.840 action. And the consequences were immediate. 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:23.240 And entirely predictable. Both his father and 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:25.659 Harriet's father, a man named John Westbrook, 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.159 they cut off their allowances. And Shelley's 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:30.460 father viewed the match as a total disaster, 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:32.940 didn't he? Oh, completely. Sir Timothy felt his 00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:35.960 son had married entirely beneath him. Harriet's 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.480 father was a prosperous butcher, a tavern and 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.740 coffeehouse owner. He was in trade, not gentry. 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:44.279 Exactly. And this just compounded Shelley's social 00:09:44.279 --> 00:09:46.639 isolation. Now, he wasn't just a radical. He 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:49.080 was a pauper who had married into the wrong class. 00:09:49.340 --> 00:09:52.139 They're relying heavily on borrowed money. And 00:09:52.139 --> 00:09:55.860 almost instantly, they try to create this first 00:09:55.860 --> 00:09:58.779 chaotic experiment in communal living. He invites 00:09:58.779 --> 00:10:01.000 his dearest friend, Thomas Jefferson Ogg, to 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.259 live with them. Then Harriet's older sister, 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:05.480 Eliza, moves in as well. I mean, you can just 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:07.899 feel the emotional tinderbox being built. It 00:10:07.899 --> 00:10:10.399 sounds like an absolute powder keg. This attempt 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.200 to live out his ideals of free love, where intellectual 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:14.980 friendships are supposed to trump traditional 00:10:14.980 --> 00:10:17.340 marriage boundaries, it failed pretty quickly. 00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:20.419 Almost instantly. The whole experiment just fractures 00:10:20.419 --> 00:10:22.659 dramatically when Hogg attempts to seduce Harriet 00:10:22.659 --> 00:10:24.480 while Shelley is away trying to get money from 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:26.460 his father. Okay, now, a conventional husband 00:10:26.460 --> 00:10:28.639 would be livid. He'd end the marriage and the 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:32.259 friendship. How did Shelley, the great theorist 00:10:32.259 --> 00:10:35.289 of free love... react to that kind of betrayal. 00:10:35.570 --> 00:10:37.970 And this is where his radical theory just clashes 00:10:37.970 --> 00:10:41.009 violently with raw human emotion. Despite the 00:10:41.009 --> 00:10:43.950 immense trauma Harriet suffered, she was genuinely 00:10:43.950 --> 00:10:46.870 hurt and disturbed by this. Shelley sticking 00:10:46.870 --> 00:10:49.629 rigidly to his theories against jealousy and 00:10:49.629 --> 00:10:52.750 exclusivity later forgives Hogg. He forgives 00:10:52.750 --> 00:10:55.350 him. and insists on continuing their friendship. 00:10:55.509 --> 00:10:57.850 He believed jealousy was just a destructive social 00:10:57.850 --> 00:11:00.870 construct, not natural emotion, and he refused 00:11:00.870 --> 00:11:02.789 to let it contaminate his intellectual union 00:11:02.789 --> 00:11:05.970 with Hogg. This dedication to theory over the 00:11:05.970 --> 00:11:08.509 immediate emotional reality was a recurring and, 00:11:08.549 --> 00:11:11.110 frankly, tragic flaw. So in the middle of this 00:11:11.110 --> 00:11:13.730 domestic storm, he completely shifts gears and 00:11:13.730 --> 00:11:16.830 dives headfirst into political activism. In 1812, 00:11:17.049 --> 00:11:19.330 he and Harriet travel to Dublin. Why Dublin? 00:11:19.549 --> 00:11:22.279 Why there specifically? Dublin was a hotbed of 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:24.820 political tension, and he went there with a mission 00:11:24.820 --> 00:11:27.840 to actively distribute two political tracks he 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:30.980 had written. An address to the Irish people and 00:11:30.980 --> 00:11:33.460 proposals for an association of philanthropists. 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:35.740 And he wasn't just publishing from afar. You 00:11:35.740 --> 00:11:38.559 have to picture this. He was on the street handing 00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:41.419 out pamphlets himself. What was the core message 00:11:41.419 --> 00:11:43.960 he was trying to push in Ireland? It was explosive. 00:11:45.370 --> 00:11:48.570 comprehensive he was calling for catholic emancipation 00:11:48.570 --> 00:11:51.750 for the repeal of the acts of union between britain 00:11:51.750 --> 00:11:54.429 and ireland and for a direct end to the poverty 00:11:54.429 --> 00:11:57.730 and oppression of the irish poor but and this 00:11:57.730 --> 00:11:59.990 is a really crucial nuance that connects to his 00:11:59.990 --> 00:12:03.230 later non -violence theory he explicitly warned 00:12:03.230 --> 00:12:06.070 against a violent revolution he did he stated 00:12:06.070 --> 00:12:08.710 and i'm quoting here i do not wish to see things 00:12:08.710 --> 00:12:10.830 change now because it cannot be done without 00:12:10.830 --> 00:12:13.580 violence He had learned from the chaotic aftermath 00:12:13.580 --> 00:12:16.539 of the French Revolution. He feared that violence 00:12:16.539 --> 00:12:18.919 would just lead to military despotism, which 00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:21.720 he saw as the greater long -term tyranny. But 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:24.000 even with those cautionary words, his public 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:26.620 activism brought immediate, unwanted attention 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:28.850 from the English government. placed under surveillance 00:12:28.850 --> 00:12:31.149 almost immediately. They had to flee Linmouth 00:12:31.149 --> 00:12:33.690 and Devon after his 15 -year -old Irish servant 00:12:33.690 --> 00:12:36.049 was arrested just for distributing his pamphlets, 00:12:36.190 --> 00:12:38.750 including this radical text called the Declaration 00:12:38.750 --> 00:12:41.789 of Rights. So he was forced to see the real world 00:12:41.789 --> 00:12:44.669 risk his beliefs pose, not just to himself, but 00:12:44.669 --> 00:12:47.289 to everyone around him. Right. And yet, this 00:12:47.289 --> 00:12:50.110 period of intense political activity, it produces 00:12:50.110 --> 00:12:54.710 his first major long poem, Queen Mab, in 1813. 00:12:55.309 --> 00:12:57.509 Was this poem just a summary of all his political 00:12:57.509 --> 00:13:01.250 ideas? It was a privately published utopian allegory, 00:13:01.250 --> 00:13:03.570 but its real significance is in the prose notes 00:13:03.570 --> 00:13:05.610 that came with it. These notes were basically 00:13:05.610 --> 00:13:08.269 a complete revolutionary manifesto. What do they 00:13:08.269 --> 00:13:11.330 cover? Everything. Virulent atheism, radical 00:13:11.330 --> 00:13:14.950 republicanism, free love, and notably vegetarianism. 00:13:15.070 --> 00:13:17.710 It was a comprehensive blueprint for overthrowing 00:13:17.710 --> 00:13:19.950 the establishment socially and politically. And 00:13:19.950 --> 00:13:22.549 publishing it in a private edition of 250 copies 00:13:22.549 --> 00:13:25.070 was a necessary shield against prosecution. A 00:13:25.070 --> 00:13:27.669 very real and immediate risk of prosecution for 00:13:27.669 --> 00:13:31.190 seditious and religious libel. So by 1814, that 00:13:31.190 --> 00:13:35.080 chaotic first marriage is just collapsing. He 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:37.820 resents Harriet's sister, Eliza. He's finding 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:40.360 emotional connection outside the marriage. But 00:13:40.360 --> 00:13:42.399 the real emotional earthquake happens when he 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:45.120 starts visiting his intellectual idol, William 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:48.090 Godwin, almost daily. Shelley saw Godwin, the 00:13:48.090 --> 00:13:51.049 famous philosopher, as a kind of spiritual father. 00:13:51.450 --> 00:13:54.230 But he soon became captivated by Godwin's 16 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:56.950 -year -old daughter, Mary. Mary Godwin. Her mother 00:13:56.950 --> 00:13:59.269 was the late pioneering feminist philosopher, 00:13:59.549 --> 00:14:03.029 Mary Wollstonecraft. So Mary was, in a sense, 00:14:03.090 --> 00:14:05.409 radical aristocracy herself. She absolutely was. 00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:07.370 And the famous story, the height of romantic 00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:09.470 drama, is that they declared their love for each 00:14:09.470 --> 00:14:11.490 other at her mother's gravesite. It's just, you 00:14:11.490 --> 00:14:14.289 can't make that up. And the drama only escalated. 00:14:14.649 --> 00:14:16.509 Shelley confessed to Godwin that he was going 00:14:16.509 --> 00:14:18.610 to leave Harriet, who was pregnant with her second 00:14:18.610 --> 00:14:20.490 child at the time, and live openly with Mary. 00:14:20.669 --> 00:14:22.470 And Godwin, the great philosopher of free love, 00:14:22.549 --> 00:14:24.830 was horrified by the practical reality of it. 00:14:24.850 --> 00:14:26.730 He immediately banned Shelley from his house. 00:14:27.009 --> 00:14:31.450 But they defied him. On July 28, 1814, they fled 00:14:31.450 --> 00:14:34.309 to Europe. And they took Mary's stepsister, Claire 00:14:34.309 --> 00:14:36.889 Claremont, with them. Claire would become another 00:14:36.889 --> 00:14:38.950 permanent fixture in their tumultuous lives. 00:14:39.149 --> 00:14:42.330 And this elopement caused immediate and devastating 00:14:42.330 --> 00:14:45.070 social fallout. It was twofold, right. First, 00:14:45.230 --> 00:14:47.570 they were broke. Completely. Shelley spent the 00:14:47.570 --> 00:14:50.549 next few months literally dodging debt collectors 00:14:50.549 --> 00:14:53.049 and bailiffs. Even after his grandfather died 00:14:53.049 --> 00:14:56.210 and he inherited a substantial estate, the financial 00:14:56.210 --> 00:14:59.029 settlements took over a year to process. And 00:14:59.029 --> 00:15:01.789 second, the public scandal was just immense. 00:15:02.269 --> 00:15:04.950 Rumors were flying that Godwin, desperate for 00:15:04.950 --> 00:15:08.110 money, had basically sold his daughters to Shelley. 00:15:08.269 --> 00:15:10.929 It tarnished both their reputations permanently. 00:15:11.210 --> 00:15:13.700 And the emotional price kept being paid. During 00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:16.279 this time, Mary gave birth prematurely to a baby 00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:19.600 girl who only lived for 10 days, and this plunged 00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:22.159 Mary into a deep, sustained depression. This 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:25.530 depression, combined with Shelley's... continued 00:15:25.530 --> 00:15:28.330 adherence to his free love theories led to even 00:15:28.330 --> 00:15:30.570 more bizarre and emotionally damaging situations. 00:15:30.870 --> 00:15:33.549 Thomas Jefferson Hogg temporarily moved back 00:15:33.549 --> 00:15:36.110 into the household. It is highly likely, based 00:15:36.110 --> 00:15:37.889 on letters and later confessions from Claire, 00:15:38.009 --> 00:15:39.850 that Shelley was having a sexual relationship 00:15:39.850 --> 00:15:43.090 with Claremont at this time. And, incredibly, 00:15:43.370 --> 00:15:46.450 there is strong biographical evidence that Shelley 00:15:46.450 --> 00:15:48.789 actually encouraged a sexual relationship between 00:15:48.789 --> 00:15:51.509 Hogg and Mary as well. Wait, he encouraged his 00:15:51.509 --> 00:15:53.919 wife to be intimate with his friend? I mean, 00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:56.899 how did that complex arrangement, this attempt 00:15:56.899 --> 00:16:00.419 to live out this lofty ideal, actually work on 00:16:00.419 --> 00:16:02.980 a day -to -day emotional level? It was a disaster. 00:16:03.259 --> 00:16:05.559 Yeah. I mean, it was an absolute disaster. Shelley 00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:08.019 truly believed that open, non -exclusive affection, 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:11.139 free of jealousy was the ideal state. But for 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.960 Mary, who was grieving her lost child, and for 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:16.200 Harriet, who was dealing with abandonment, it 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:18.659 just created immense emotional instability and 00:16:18.659 --> 00:16:21.039 trauma. They were trying to be hyper -rational 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:22.950 in a deeply irrational environment. emotional 00:16:22.950 --> 00:16:25.450 world, and their closest relationships were the 00:16:25.450 --> 00:16:27.769 collateral damage. This volatility then leads 00:16:27.769 --> 00:16:30.610 us to that infamous summer of 1816, the Geneva 00:16:30.610 --> 00:16:33.350 meeting with Lord Byron. Right. Claremont, who 00:16:33.350 --> 00:16:35.470 had followed them, had already initiated a sexual 00:16:35.470 --> 00:16:37.309 relationship with Byron and was now pregnant 00:16:37.309 --> 00:16:39.970 with his child, Allegra. The famous Diodati gathering. 00:16:40.210 --> 00:16:42.730 They rented a house near Byron's villa. They 00:16:42.730 --> 00:16:44.850 spent nights discussing literature, science, 00:16:45.049 --> 00:16:47.710 the supernatural. A peak of intellectual excitement. 00:16:48.110 --> 00:16:50.769 But also a low point for Shelley's mental stability. 00:16:51.340 --> 00:16:53.840 What happened? One night, while Byron was reciting 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.279 a poem by Coleridge, Shelley suffered a severe 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:59.539 panic attack. He had vivid hallucinations, reportedly 00:16:59.539 --> 00:17:01.899 screaming about seeing a vision of Mary with 00:17:01.899 --> 00:17:04.559 eyes in her nipples. Wow. It just reflects the 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:07.200 intense psychological strain he was under. Yet 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:09.579 in that same atmosphere of intellectual ferment 00:17:09.579 --> 00:17:12.680 and psychological breakdown, Mary has the productive 00:17:12.680 --> 00:17:16.380 vision, a dream, that inspires her to write Frankenstein. 00:17:17.069 --> 00:17:19.990 The darkness of his reality was fueling her gothic 00:17:19.990 --> 00:17:23.230 imagination. And 1816 just ended in a series 00:17:23.230 --> 00:17:26.650 of absolute tragedies. Mary's half -sister, Fanny 00:17:26.650 --> 00:17:29.609 Imlay, committed suicide in October. Godwin believed 00:17:29.609 --> 00:17:31.950 she had been secretly in love with Shelley. And 00:17:31.950 --> 00:17:34.890 then in December, his estranged first wife, Harriet. 00:17:35.210 --> 00:17:37.769 Pregnant and abandoned by a new lover, she tragically 00:17:37.769 --> 00:17:39.990 drowned herself in the Serpentine River in London. 00:17:40.230 --> 00:17:42.930 The sequence is just brutal. Harriet's death 00:17:42.930 --> 00:17:45.069 finally allowed Shelley to legally marry Mary 00:17:45.069 --> 00:17:48.720 Godwin on December 30. of 1816. He did this primarily 00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:51.339 to legitimize their relationship in society's 00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:54.039 eyes, but strategically it was so he could try 00:17:54.039 --> 00:17:56.339 and get custody of his two living children by 00:17:56.339 --> 00:17:59.000 Harriet. But even a legal marriage didn't protect 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.519 him. The court of chancery denied him custody 00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:03.920 of his children. What was the specific legal 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.500 rationale for that? The court cited his proven 00:18:06.500 --> 00:18:09.059 history of atheism and his abandonment of Harriet 00:18:09.059 --> 00:18:12.109 for Mary without cause. This is the ultimate 00:18:12.109 --> 00:18:14.170 proof that the state viewed his philosophical 00:18:14.170 --> 00:18:17.869 defiance, his free love theories, his atheistic 00:18:17.869 --> 00:18:20.589 publications as disqualifying him from being 00:18:20.589 --> 00:18:23.910 a father. His refusal to conform had cost him 00:18:23.910 --> 00:18:26.769 his own children. So their social and legal standing 00:18:26.769 --> 00:18:28.890 in England is just completely destroyed. They're 00:18:28.890 --> 00:18:31.829 under this constant threat of scandal, of surveillance. 00:18:32.150 --> 00:18:34.750 So the Shelleys, along with Claire, They permanently 00:18:34.750 --> 00:18:37.769 left England in March 1818. A necessary self 00:18:37.769 --> 00:18:40.349 -exile. Both to escape what he called the tyranny 00:18:40.349 --> 00:18:42.450 civil and religious of Britain and also to find 00:18:42.450 --> 00:18:44.450 a better climate for his chronic lung complaint, 00:18:44.549 --> 00:18:47.250 which was likely tuberculosis. They arrive in 00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:49.190 Italy and this immediately kicks off an astonishing 00:18:49.190 --> 00:18:51.930 period of creative genius. It's really the zenith 00:18:51.930 --> 00:18:54.670 of his poetic career. But it was still framed 00:18:54.670 --> 00:18:57.470 by continuous personal tragedy. It's almost as 00:18:57.470 --> 00:19:00.490 if his genius required suffering as fuel. That 00:19:00.490 --> 00:19:03.250 analogy is tragically apt, isn't it? Just six 00:19:03.250 --> 00:19:05.950 months after they arrive, September 1818, their 00:19:05.950 --> 00:19:08.609 daughter Clara dies in Venice. This was the second 00:19:08.609 --> 00:19:11.130 child Mary had lost. And it plunged her into 00:19:11.130 --> 00:19:13.890 a long, deep period of depression and emotional 00:19:13.890 --> 00:19:16.670 estrangement from Shelley. Biographers really 00:19:16.670 --> 00:19:18.829 suggest she never fully recovered her prior affection 00:19:18.829 --> 00:19:21.130 for him after this loss. And it is immediately 00:19:21.130 --> 00:19:24.309 after this, in Naples, that one of the most persistent 00:19:24.309 --> 00:19:27.069 and genuinely bizarre mysteries of Shelley's 00:19:27.069 --> 00:19:30.250 life happens. The case of Elena Adelaide Shelley. 00:19:30.509 --> 00:19:34.029 Yes. In December 1818, Shelley registers the 00:19:34.029 --> 00:19:37.250 birth and baptism of a baby girl, Elena Adelaide 00:19:37.250 --> 00:19:40.349 Shelley. But he falsely names Mary as the mother. 00:19:40.549 --> 00:19:42.650 The sheer deception of that act. I mean, the 00:19:42.650 --> 00:19:45.990 outright lie on official documents. It goes against 00:19:45.990 --> 00:19:48.109 his core principle of intellectual honesty. This 00:19:48.109 --> 00:19:50.230 is the man who got expelled from Oxford for refusing 00:19:50.230 --> 00:19:51.970 to lie. And now he's putting a lie on a birth 00:19:51.970 --> 00:19:55.069 certificate. So why the deceit? And whose child 00:19:55.069 --> 00:19:57.329 was this, really? The truth is still debated, 00:19:57.430 --> 00:20:00.569 isn't it? It is. But the theories are dark. And 00:20:00.569 --> 00:20:02.589 they reveal the extent of the emotional void 00:20:02.589 --> 00:20:05.690 he was trying to fill. Was she adopted to console 00:20:05.690 --> 00:20:08.990 the grieving Mary? Did he believe he had a secret 00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:11.490 love child? Biographers have floated possibilities 00:20:11.490 --> 00:20:15.589 ranging from her being his child by Claire Claremont 00:20:15.589 --> 00:20:18.789 or his servant Elise Foggy. Or maybe the child 00:20:18.789 --> 00:20:22.589 of some mysterious lady he had met. But the crucial 00:20:22.589 --> 00:20:25.130 point isn't just the parentage. It's what happened 00:20:25.130 --> 00:20:28.170 to her. Regardless of who the mother was, Shelley 00:20:28.170 --> 00:20:30.809 left Elena with Italian carers the very next 00:20:30.809 --> 00:20:34.150 day, and she died two years later in 1820. Exactly. 00:20:34.369 --> 00:20:37.710 This secretive, dishonest act, followed by abandonment, 00:20:37.769 --> 00:20:40.049 it just highlights the depth of depression and 00:20:40.049 --> 00:20:41.710 emotional strain he must have been experiencing. 00:20:42.299 --> 00:20:44.259 There's a theory that this whole situation was 00:20:44.259 --> 00:20:46.160 rooted in a blackmail attempt against Shelley, 00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:48.619 which would explain the secrecy. He was desperately 00:20:48.619 --> 00:20:50.460 trying to maintain some outward appearance of 00:20:50.460 --> 00:20:52.839 order while his inner life was just fragmenting. 00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:55.180 And despite all this chaos, despite being physically 00:20:55.180 --> 00:20:57.339 unwell, he's likely suffering from nephritis 00:20:57.339 --> 00:21:00.359 and tuberculosis. The time he spent in Rome in 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:03.019 1819 produced this incredible burst of creativity, 00:21:03.339 --> 00:21:06.799 the Rome Trilogy. Indeed. He begins with Julian 00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:09.680 and Medallo, which is this intensely autobiographical 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:13.160 poem that explores his complex, almost adversarial 00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:15.799 relationship with Byron. It's a public analysis 00:21:15.799 --> 00:21:18.460 of his own personal crises. Then came Prometheus 00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:22.380 Unbound. A massive four -act lyrical drama. It's 00:21:22.380 --> 00:21:24.339 considered one of his definitive statements on 00:21:24.339 --> 00:21:26.720 revolutionary hope. Let's talk about Prometheus 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:29.400 Unbound for a moment. What's the central, enduring 00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:32.769 message of a work that takes on this myth? of 00:21:32.769 --> 00:21:35.230 a titan chained to a rock shelley completely 00:21:35.230 --> 00:21:38.369 repurposes the classical myth it's a profound 00:21:38.369 --> 00:21:41.769 utopian allegory about the triumph of human benevolence 00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:45.089 over tyranny and superstition prometheus who 00:21:45.089 --> 00:21:47.710 symbolizes humanity and intellect is ultimately 00:21:47.710 --> 00:21:50.730 freed not by force but by moral resilience and 00:21:50.730 --> 00:21:53.009 the power of love and hope so it's the poetic 00:21:53.009 --> 00:21:55.650 embodiment of his ideal society a world redeemed 00:21:55.650 --> 00:21:57.950 not by violence but by intellectual and ethical 00:21:57.950 --> 00:21:59.829 awakening and then the third part of the trilogy 00:21:59.829 --> 00:22:02.950 the chenchi which was surprisingly a huge commercial 00:22:02.950 --> 00:22:05.470 success for him in his lifetime. It was. It's 00:22:05.470 --> 00:22:08.289 a verse drama based on this horrific, true Renaissance 00:22:08.289 --> 00:22:10.890 story of Beatrice Chenchi. It involves rape, 00:22:11.029 --> 00:22:14.309 murder, and incest. And while his other great 00:22:14.309 --> 00:22:17.609 works barely sold 250 copies, the Chenchis went 00:22:17.609 --> 00:22:20.529 to two authorized editions. It tapped into the 00:22:20.529 --> 00:22:23.299 public's taste for Gothic tragedy. It did, but 00:22:23.299 --> 00:22:25.619 it also allowed Shelley to explore his consistent 00:22:25.619 --> 00:22:28.900 preoccupation, righteous rebellion against absolute 00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:32.359 corrupt power. But before the high of that success 00:22:32.359 --> 00:22:34.660 could really register, the personal suffering 00:22:34.660 --> 00:22:38.210 returned. In June 1819, his three -year -old 00:22:38.210 --> 00:22:41.529 son, William, died, probably of malaria. This 00:22:41.529 --> 00:22:43.670 was the third child Mary had lost. And it was 00:22:43.670 --> 00:22:45.829 just crushing. This deepened Mary's depression 00:22:45.829 --> 00:22:48.089 to a point of near -total emotional collapse. 00:22:48.430 --> 00:22:50.890 This is the period when she wrote that devastatingly 00:22:50.890 --> 00:22:52.910 bitter quote that just captures the absolute 00:22:52.910 --> 00:22:55.289 ruin of their personal life. What was it? We 00:22:55.289 --> 00:22:57.349 have now lived five years together, and if all 00:22:57.349 --> 00:22:59.230 the events of the five years were blotted out, 00:22:59.309 --> 00:23:02.349 I might be happy. Wow. That's not just grief. 00:23:02.549 --> 00:23:05.549 That is an assessment of total failure in their 00:23:05.549 --> 00:23:07.569 attempt to build an ideal life together. And 00:23:07.569 --> 00:23:10.230 that failure, the collapse of his private utopia, 00:23:10.349 --> 00:23:13.170 seems to be the final catalyst that shifted his 00:23:13.170 --> 00:23:15.529 genius entirely back toward public prophecy. 00:23:15.990 --> 00:23:19.349 In September 1819, he gets the news of the Peterloo 00:23:19.349 --> 00:23:22.789 Massacre. Right, in Manchester. A brutal moment 00:23:22.789 --> 00:23:25.690 of state violence. Peaceful protesters demanding 00:23:25.690 --> 00:23:27.849 parliamentary reform were attacked by cavalry. 00:23:28.109 --> 00:23:31.420 Many deaths. many injuries shelly was in livorno 00:23:31.420 --> 00:23:33.759 when he heard the news and he just channeled 00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:36.380 his profound rage and grief into the mask of 00:23:36.380 --> 00:23:38.680 anarchy within two weeks this political ballot 00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:41.920 is so immediate so raw Why was it considered 00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:43.859 so incredibly dangerous at the time? Because 00:23:43.859 --> 00:23:46.339 it was a direct, visceral condemnation of the 00:23:46.339 --> 00:23:49.099 government. He lists key figures like Lord Catheray 00:23:49.099 --> 00:23:51.559 and Lord Eldon and calls them murder and hypocrisy. 00:23:51.660 --> 00:23:54.160 His friend Lee Hunt was so terrified of being 00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:56.680 prosecuted for seditious libel that he refused 00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:59.680 to publish it until 1832, a decade after Shelley's 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:01.180 death. It just shows that Shelley's political 00:24:01.180 --> 00:24:04.519 poetry was an abstract art for him. It was criminal 00:24:04.519 --> 00:24:07.880 propaganda. It was a weapon. And yet in the same 00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:12.000 incredibly fraught year, 1819, he pens the Ode 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.500 to the West Wind, a work that just encapsulates 00:24:14.500 --> 00:24:16.900 all his hope, his despair, and his revolutionary 00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:20.299 desire in one perfect lyrical package. It's a 00:24:20.299 --> 00:24:23.299 masterpiece. It marries his political fire with 00:24:23.299 --> 00:24:25.980 this profound understanding of nature's cyclical 00:24:25.980 --> 00:24:28.319 power. And when he asks the West Wind to scatter 00:24:28.319 --> 00:24:31.599 his words among mankind and ends with that famous 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.920 unforgettable conclusion. A wind. If winter comes, 00:24:35.059 --> 00:24:37.319 can spring be far behind? He is talking about 00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:39.559 political revolution. He's saying that the current 00:24:39.559 --> 00:24:42.180 season of despair and state tyranny must inevitably 00:24:42.180 --> 00:24:45.299 lead to renewal. It is revolutionary hope encased 00:24:45.299 --> 00:24:47.720 in sheer beauty. And we can't overlook Ozymandias 00:24:47.720 --> 00:24:50.940 from 1818. He wrote this short, devastating sonnet 00:24:50.940 --> 00:24:52.700 as part of a friendly competition with a friend, 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:55.700 Horace Smith. How does this little poem capture 00:24:55.700 --> 00:24:58.160 the core of his anti -tyranny philosophy? It 00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:00.559 captures the absolute futility of colossal power 00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:03.119 over time. A traveler finds a shattered statue 00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:05.619 in the desert. The inscription boasts, My name 00:25:05.619 --> 00:25:08.160 is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, 00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:10.359 ye mighty, and despair. But immediately after 00:25:10.359 --> 00:25:13.400 that boast, the poem says, Nothing beside remains. 00:25:13.720 --> 00:25:16.420 It's brilliant. The mighty king is telling people 00:25:16.420 --> 00:25:19.539 to despair in his works. But the despair is caused 00:25:19.539 --> 00:25:22.670 by the lack of works. by the rubble and the empty 00:25:22.670 --> 00:25:25.490 sand. Exactly. It's a timeless warning to every 00:25:25.490 --> 00:25:28.609 tyrant, every absolute government. Your power, 00:25:28.650 --> 00:25:31.269 no matter how immense now, will ultimately be 00:25:31.269 --> 00:25:34.730 reduced to sand and ruin. It's a perfect articulation 00:25:34.730 --> 00:25:38.029 of his unwavering skepticism. As his life wound 00:25:38.029 --> 00:25:40.829 down, his creative energy just remained relentless. 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:45.180 After the death of John Keats in 1821, whom Shelley 00:25:45.180 --> 00:25:46.900 had invited to stay with him in Pisa, Shelley, 00:25:47.019 --> 00:25:49.700 wrote Adonais. Which the critic Harold Bloom 00:25:49.700 --> 00:25:52.119 called one of the major pastoral elegies in the 00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:53.799 English language. And just for you listening, 00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:57.400 a pastoral elegy is a formal poem mourning a 00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:00.150 friend's death. often placing them in this idealized 00:26:00.150 --> 00:26:02.289 natural setting. And Shelley uses that form to 00:26:02.289 --> 00:26:04.529 lament Keats' death, but he quickly transforms 00:26:04.529 --> 00:26:06.829 the grief into an attack on the savage critics 00:26:06.829 --> 00:26:09.470 he believed killed Keats, and then he elevates 00:26:09.470 --> 00:26:11.529 Keats into an immortal part of nature itself. 00:26:11.869 --> 00:26:14.630 It's a powerful fusion of grief and radical social 00:26:14.630 --> 00:26:16.970 critique. Shelley also used this time to write 00:26:16.970 --> 00:26:19.589 his most critical piece of literary theory, A 00:26:19.589 --> 00:26:24.250 Defense of Poetry, in 1821. This essay, unpublished 00:26:24.250 --> 00:26:27.029 in his lifetime, is arguably his most crucial 00:26:27.029 --> 00:26:30.349 contribution to intellectual discourse. It contains 00:26:30.349 --> 00:26:33.839 that extraordinary, electrifying line. Poets 00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:36.119 are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. 00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:38.519 That is such a massive claim. What did he mean 00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:41.119 by that? That poets are more important than parliaments? 00:26:41.339 --> 00:26:44.039 He argued that legislators and politicians, they 00:26:44.039 --> 00:26:47.200 just codify existing social morals and laws. 00:26:47.460 --> 00:26:50.299 But poets, by appealing to the human imagination, 00:26:50.660 --> 00:26:53.799 feeling, and creativity, they unconsciously shape 00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:56.740 the very emotional and ethical foundations upon 00:26:56.740 --> 00:26:59.250 which future laws are built. So they plant the 00:26:59.250 --> 00:27:02.029 seeds of moral and social change long before 00:27:02.029 --> 00:27:04.390 the politicians even know a shift is happening. 00:27:04.549 --> 00:27:06.609 It is the purest statement of his belief in the 00:27:06.609 --> 00:27:08.930 transformative political power of imaginative 00:27:08.930 --> 00:27:11.460 art. During his final years, he moved to Pisa, 00:27:11.579 --> 00:27:13.799 forming the Pisan Circle with Byron and others. 00:27:13.960 --> 00:27:15.740 But even that intellectual community couldn't 00:27:15.740 --> 00:27:18.359 stop the personal chaos. He became intensely 00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:20.619 infatuated with Jane Williams, who was living 00:27:20.619 --> 00:27:22.759 nearby with her partner, Edward Williams. And 00:27:22.759 --> 00:27:24.980 this infatuation, which led to these beautiful 00:27:24.980 --> 00:27:28.039 late lyrical poems like With the Guitar to Jane, 00:27:28.240 --> 00:27:30.680 certainly caused increasing emotional tension 00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:33.599 between Shelley and Mary. It reflected his constant 00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:35.900 spiritual quest for what he called the ideal 00:27:35.900 --> 00:27:39.630 other, an epistachydion, a soul. out of his soul. 00:27:39.890 --> 00:27:42.970 And this intense, slightly despairing search 00:27:42.970 --> 00:27:46.450 for impossible perfection, it culminates in his 00:27:46.450 --> 00:27:49.490 final unfinished work, The Triumph of Life in 00:27:49.490 --> 00:27:53.089 1822. This poem is a profound reflection on the 00:27:53.089 --> 00:27:55.529 crushing power of the conventional world fame, 00:27:55.710 --> 00:27:58.910 power, morality over the individual spirit. It's 00:27:58.910 --> 00:28:01.369 a very dark contrast to the optimism of Prometheus 00:28:01.369 --> 00:28:04.589 Unbound. Harold Bloom called it the most despairing 00:28:04.589 --> 00:28:06.910 poem he wrote. It really shows a man defeated 00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:08.789 by the weight of personal tragedy and social 00:28:08.789 --> 00:28:10.930 rejection, just struggling to hold on to his 00:28:10.930 --> 00:28:13.289 idealism. We've seen how Shelley's life was just 00:28:13.289 --> 00:28:15.990 dictated by his principles, often at a huge personal 00:28:15.990 --> 00:28:18.250 cost. Let's really dedicate some time to his 00:28:18.250 --> 00:28:20.710 uncompromising philosophical creed, because he 00:28:20.710 --> 00:28:22.869 wasn't just a poet. He was, as you said, a philosophical 00:28:22.869 --> 00:28:25.849 combatant. He weaponized poetry to attack the 00:28:25.849 --> 00:28:27.650 social and religious foundations of the British 00:28:27.650 --> 00:28:30.789 state. And his core identity was undeniably that 00:28:30.789 --> 00:28:33.430 of an avowed atheist. He was deeply influenced 00:28:33.430 --> 00:28:35.829 by materialist thinkers. from the French Enlightenment 00:28:35.829 --> 00:28:38.730 like Holbeck. For Shelley, the issue was never 00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:41.509 just about whether God existed. No, it was political. 00:28:41.769 --> 00:28:44.009 It was completely political. He viewed organized 00:28:44.009 --> 00:28:47.529 religion as inextricably linked to state power, 00:28:47.829 --> 00:28:50.990 aristocratic privilege, social oppression. So 00:28:50.990 --> 00:28:53.769 for him, attacking the church was attacking the 00:28:53.769 --> 00:28:56.910 state. Which made his atheism inherently seditious 00:28:56.910 --> 00:28:59.670 in early 19th century England. We saw the legal 00:28:59.670 --> 00:29:02.089 dangers right away with his expulsion from Oxford. 00:29:02.309 --> 00:29:04.740 But what about later? The danger. was constant. 00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:07.500 His sustained attacks on the priesthood and established 00:29:07.500 --> 00:29:10.519 religion in the notes to Queen Mab were so incendiary 00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:12.599 that they resulted in two separate prosecutions 00:29:12.599 --> 00:29:16.619 in 1821. The Society for the Suppression of Vice. 00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:18.700 This was a private organization dedicated to 00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:21.059 enforcing morality, and they saw Shelley as a 00:29:21.059 --> 00:29:23.279 direct threat to public order. He was literally 00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:25.380 practicing his philosophy under the constant 00:29:25.380 --> 00:29:27.160 threat of going to prison for religious libel. 00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:30.039 And this rejection of established religion and 00:29:30.039 --> 00:29:32.960 social conformity, it extended directly to the 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:35.339 institution institution of marriage. This leads 00:29:35.339 --> 00:29:37.960 to his controversial and personally destructive 00:29:37.960 --> 00:29:41.599 advocacy of free love. Shelley's concept of free 00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:43.279 love, and this is important, it wasn't about 00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:46.220 hedonism. It was based on the philosophical premises 00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:49.539 of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. It 00:29:49.539 --> 00:29:51.619 argued that human connection should be based 00:29:51.619 --> 00:29:54.839 purely on spontaneous mutual affection. Not on 00:29:54.839 --> 00:29:57.319 economic contracts or religious ceremony. Exactly. 00:29:57.319 --> 00:30:00.059 He saw traditional marriage as a form of social 00:30:00.059 --> 00:30:03.140 and financial slavery that just stifled individual 00:30:03.140 --> 00:30:05.359 liberty. Let's look at the specific language 00:30:05.359 --> 00:30:08.220 he used in the notes for Queen Mab. He didn't 00:30:08.220 --> 00:30:10.380 just criticize marriage. He tore it down. He 00:30:10.380 --> 00:30:13.960 called it a system studiously hostile to human 00:30:13.960 --> 00:30:16.220 happiness. He was particularly concerned with 00:30:16.220 --> 00:30:18.319 the effect it had on children. He argued that 00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:21.019 kids born into unhappy or forced marriages are 00:30:21.019 --> 00:30:24.019 nursed in a systematic school of ill humor, violence 00:30:24.019 --> 00:30:26.720 and falsehood. So he believed that forcing two 00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:28.799 people to stay together when the love had died 00:30:28.799 --> 00:30:31.539 just created this toxic domestic environment 00:30:31.539 --> 00:30:33.920 that perpetuated corruption and misery in the 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:36.660 next generation. Right. His ideal was a relationship 00:30:36.660 --> 00:30:39.059 based purely on the duration of mutual love. 00:30:39.529 --> 00:30:42.210 Did he think this would lead to rampant promiscuity, 00:30:42.349 --> 00:30:44.130 which is what his conservative detractors were 00:30:44.130 --> 00:30:46.769 always claiming? He absolutely denied that. He 00:30:46.769 --> 00:30:49.470 argued that if sexual connection were based purely 00:30:49.470 --> 00:30:52.890 on affection, it would lead to more stable, honest 00:30:52.890 --> 00:30:55.769 and moral unions because people would only engage 00:30:55.769 --> 00:30:58.930 when they felt genuine, enduring love. He thought 00:30:58.930 --> 00:31:01.289 the lack of freedom, the enforcement of unhappy 00:31:01.289 --> 00:31:04.589 unions was what truly led to moral decay. But. 00:31:04.960 --> 00:31:07.259 as we've already discussed. His attempts to apply 00:31:07.259 --> 00:31:09.980 this personally, the communal living, the attempted 00:31:09.980 --> 00:31:12.240 relationships between Hogg and Harriet, Hogg 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:15.380 and Mary, it caused immense human cost and trauma. 00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:18.220 How do we reconcile the beautiful ideal with 00:31:18.220 --> 00:31:20.880 the ugly, practical fallout? That is the central 00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.819 dilemma of Shelley's life. He was a radical idealist 00:31:23.819 --> 00:31:25.940 who believed human nature was perfectible and 00:31:25.940 --> 00:31:28.220 would naturally choose love and generosity if 00:31:28.220 --> 00:31:30.619 tyranny was removed. But he failed to account 00:31:30.619 --> 00:31:32.880 for the deeply ingrained psychological effects 00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:35.539 of social conditioning, jealousy, possessiveness, 00:31:35.779 --> 00:31:38.180 grief, that his theories couldn't just magically 00:31:38.180 --> 00:31:40.619 erase. His personal life became the laboratory 00:31:40.619 --> 00:31:43.240 where his ideals were tested. And ultimately 00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:46.440 failed. And that failure contributes directly 00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:49.210 to the despair we see in his later poetry. OK, 00:31:49.250 --> 00:31:51.630 let's move to the third major pillar of his creed, 00:31:51.650 --> 00:31:54.509 his development of nonviolent resistance theory, 00:31:54.670 --> 00:31:57.490 which has had this profound long term global 00:31:57.490 --> 00:32:00.150 influence. His position on violence was complex. 00:32:00.369 --> 00:32:02.930 It was directly forged by his study of the French 00:32:02.930 --> 00:32:05.509 Revolution. He believed that even successful 00:32:05.509 --> 00:32:08.769 revolutionary violence was often self -defeating. 00:32:08.789 --> 00:32:10.690 Because it just replaced one tyranny with another. 00:32:10.890 --> 00:32:13.940 Usually a military despotism. Yeah. So his preferred 00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:16.319 method was intellectual and ethical resistance. 00:32:16.660 --> 00:32:18.799 And we saw this really early on, didn't we? His, 00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:23.220 an address to the Irish people in 1812 was explicit 00:32:23.220 --> 00:32:25.480 in its caution against force. Yes, he stated 00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:28.200 clearly that no change, however good, is worth 00:32:28.200 --> 00:32:30.859 achieving if it requires force. He was arguing 00:32:30.859 --> 00:32:33.759 for a moral victory, a change of heart and mind, 00:32:33.779 --> 00:32:36.740 not a military coup. But he wasn't a total pacifist. 00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:39.240 He seemed to make exceptions when armed force 00:32:39.240 --> 00:32:41.880 was used to suppress the national will. That's 00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:45.259 the pragmatism in him. He conceded that insurrection 00:32:45.259 --> 00:32:48.240 was the last resort of resistance if armed force 00:32:48.240 --> 00:32:50.500 was being used to explicitly counteract the will 00:32:50.500 --> 00:32:53.299 of a nation. This is why he could simultaneously 00:32:53.299 --> 00:32:56.500 condemn Peterloo but support armed rebellions 00:32:56.500 --> 00:32:59.079 against absolute monarchies like the uprisings 00:32:59.079 --> 00:33:02.740 in Spain in 1820 or Greece in 1821. So he drew 00:33:02.740 --> 00:33:05.339 a line between offensive violence, which he opposed, 00:33:05.579 --> 00:33:08.900 and defensive resistance against established 00:33:08.900 --> 00:33:12.519 despotism. Exactly. But his most enduring legacy 00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:14.960 in this area comes from The Mask of Anarchy, 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:17.319 written right after the Peterloo Massacre. That 00:33:17.319 --> 00:33:20.940 poem is a pure, powerful call to collective nonviolent 00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:23.759 action. Scholars now widely consider it perhaps 00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:26.000 the first modern statement of the principle of 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.970 nonviolent resistance. The Palm urges the victims 00:33:28.970 --> 00:33:31.390 of state violence to refuse to fight back, to 00:33:31.390 --> 00:33:33.069 maintain their moral high ground, and to allow 00:33:33.069 --> 00:33:35.849 the state's violence to be exposed. Rely on public 00:33:35.849 --> 00:33:38.029 opinion and moral pressure. And this doctrine 00:33:38.029 --> 00:33:40.410 connects him directly, if indirectly, to global 00:33:40.410 --> 00:33:43.349 change. It does. While the connection is complex, 00:33:43.470 --> 00:33:45.630 it probably runs from Shelley to Henry David 00:33:45.630 --> 00:33:47.890 Thoreau's civil disobedience, and then from Thoreau 00:33:47.890 --> 00:33:50.519 to Mahatma Gandhi. The philosophical blueprint 00:33:50.519 --> 00:33:53.359 for modern civil resistance can absolutely be 00:33:53.359 --> 00:33:56.079 traced back to those powerful stanzas he wrote 00:33:56.079 --> 00:33:58.319 in response to Peter Liu. Finally, we have to 00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:01.140 touch on a key ethical component of his creed 00:34:01.140 --> 00:34:04.549 that is so surprisingly modern. His deep commitment 00:34:04.549 --> 00:34:07.569 to vegetarianism. Shelley converted to a vegetable 00:34:07.569 --> 00:34:11.389 diet in early March 1812. He sustained it with 00:34:11.389 --> 00:34:13.590 only occasional lapses for the rest of his life. 00:34:13.670 --> 00:34:15.829 And this wasn't some trendy health kick. It was 00:34:15.829 --> 00:34:18.429 a profound philosophical stance. Influenced by 00:34:18.429 --> 00:34:20.929 classical authors like Pythagoras, but also by 00:34:20.929 --> 00:34:22.989 contemporary proponents. Right, like John Frank 00:34:22.989 --> 00:34:25.710 Newton. But what makes him a true pioneer is 00:34:25.710 --> 00:34:28.349 the rigor he applied to the practice, especially 00:34:28.349 --> 00:34:31.250 in his essay, A Vindication of Natural Diet. 00:34:31.349 --> 00:34:34.099 What were his arguments? Very contemporary. Strikingly 00:34:34.099 --> 00:34:36.960 so. Yes, he cited the spiritual and health benefits 00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:40.019 and alleviating animal suffering, the ethics 00:34:40.019 --> 00:34:43.099 of cruelty. But he also applied political and 00:34:43.099 --> 00:34:46.260 economic logic. He focused on the sheer inefficiency 00:34:46.260 --> 00:34:48.800 of agricultural land use required for animal 00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:51.000 husbandry compared to growing plants. So he was 00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:53.300 making an early proto -environmental and economic 00:34:53.300 --> 00:34:57.219 justice argument. Precisely. He argued that the 00:34:57.219 --> 00:34:59.960 commercialization of animal food production worsened 00:34:59.960 --> 00:35:02.880 economic inequality. It consumed resources. that 00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:05.300 could otherwise feed the poor, and it ensured 00:35:05.300 --> 00:35:07.400 the land was inefficiently managed for profit, 00:35:07.539 --> 00:35:10.900 not for sustenance. For Shelley, your diet was 00:35:10.900 --> 00:35:13.559 a fundamental ethical and political issue linked 00:35:13.559 --> 00:35:16.230 directly to the social structure. And this was 00:35:16.230 --> 00:35:18.750 a theory that had concrete, practical results. 00:35:19.110 --> 00:35:21.570 Absolutely. His advocacy directly inspired the 00:35:21.570 --> 00:35:23.510 founding of the Vegetarian Society in England 00:35:23.510 --> 00:35:27.190 in 1847, and it influenced the lifelong vegetarianism 00:35:27.190 --> 00:35:29.429 of major public intellectuals, including George 00:35:29.429 --> 00:35:32.250 Bernard Shaw. It just demonstrates that Shelley's 00:35:32.250 --> 00:35:34.550 radical ideas were durable. They transformed 00:35:34.550 --> 00:35:37.329 from philosophical tracts into real -world social 00:35:37.329 --> 00:35:39.869 movements decades after he died. The life of 00:35:39.869 --> 00:35:42.690 this brilliant, frantic, and uncompromising radical 00:35:42.690 --> 00:35:46.090 came to its sudden, dramatic... and tragic end 00:35:46.090 --> 00:35:51.550 at sea. He was just 29. On July 8, 1822, Shelley, 00:35:51.750 --> 00:35:53.949 his friend Edward Williams, and their boat boy 00:35:53.949 --> 00:35:56.590 set sail from Livorno, heading back to Larisi. 00:35:57.269 --> 00:36:00.809 They were on the Don Juan, a small, open boat 00:36:00.809 --> 00:36:03.389 that was custom -built for Shelley. What caused 00:36:03.389 --> 00:36:06.260 the wreck? Was it just the storm? Or was there 00:36:06.260 --> 00:36:08.380 something more sinister, as was rumored? The 00:36:08.380 --> 00:36:10.900 boat was lost just a few hours later in a severe 00:36:10.900 --> 00:36:13.420 storm. And while Mary Shelley would later cling 00:36:13.420 --> 00:36:15.719 to the belief that the boat had a defect or that 00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:17.820 they were intentionally run down, it was most 00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:20.280 likely a lethal combination of the terrible weather 00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:22.619 and the crew's poor seamanship. Unfortunately, 00:36:22.719 --> 00:36:25.039 yes. Shelley and Williams, despite their love 00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:27.780 for sailing, were notably poor sailors. Ten days 00:36:27.780 --> 00:36:31.019 later, his badly decomposed body washed ashore 00:36:31.019 --> 00:36:34.199 near Viraggio. How was he identified? Edward 00:36:34.199 --> 00:36:36.239 Trelawney, who organized the search, was able 00:36:36.239 --> 00:36:38.579 to identify the body from the clothing, and in 00:36:38.579 --> 00:36:40.619 a moment that just perfectly fuses the personal 00:36:40.619 --> 00:36:43.239 and the poetic, by a small volume of John Keats' 00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:46.019 Lamia found tucked into his jacket pocket. Keats. 00:36:46.980 --> 00:36:50.139 The poet Shelley had both admired and elegized 00:36:50.139 --> 00:36:53.380 in Adonais. He was literally with him at the 00:36:53.380 --> 00:36:55.920 moment of his death. Now we arrive at that macabre 00:36:55.920 --> 00:36:58.860 aftermath that really solidified. The Shelley 00:36:58.860 --> 00:37:01.199 legend, the cremation on the beach. Why did they 00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:03.380 have to burn his body? Strict Italian quarantine 00:37:03.380 --> 00:37:05.199 laws, right, to prevent the spread of disease. 00:37:05.380 --> 00:37:08.059 Exactly. Bodies washed ashore often had to be 00:37:08.059 --> 00:37:10.960 cremated immediately where they were found. Trelawney 00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:13.019 arranged for the cremation on the beach near 00:37:13.019 --> 00:37:16.739 Via Reggio. It was this intensely powerful, almost 00:37:16.739 --> 00:37:20.320 pagan scene witnessed by Byron and Lee Hunt. 00:37:20.579 --> 00:37:23.440 And this brings us to the famous, bizarre legend 00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:26.500 of the heart that refused to burn. Yes. The story 00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:29.119 goes that Shelley's presumed heart, the organ 00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:32.639 at least, resisted the intense fire and was retrieved 00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:34.639 from the ashes by Trelawney. There's scientific 00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:36.780 speculation about that, isn't there? Yes, that 00:37:36.780 --> 00:37:39.039 it was either his liver or perhaps a heart that 00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:41.039 had been calcified from an earlier tubercular 00:37:41.039 --> 00:37:42.860 infection, which would make it more resistant 00:37:42.860 --> 00:37:46.639 to the flames. So Trelawney retrieves this scorched 00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:48.440 relic. What happens to it? Does he give it to 00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:50.849 Mary? Not right away, which caused yet another 00:37:50.849 --> 00:37:53.750 emotional battle. Trelawney initially gave the 00:37:53.750 --> 00:37:56.170 organ to Lee Hunt, who preserved it in spirits 00:37:56.170 --> 00:37:59.190 of wine. Mary Shelley had to fight intensely 00:37:59.190 --> 00:38:01.690 for the return of her husband's remains. Hunt 00:38:01.690 --> 00:38:03.750 famously refused to relinquish it until much 00:38:03.750 --> 00:38:06.289 later. And his ashes. They were eventually buried 00:38:06.289 --> 00:38:08.789 in the Protestant cemetery of Rome, bearing the 00:38:08.789 --> 00:38:11.570 poignant Latin inscription, Cordium Heart of 00:38:11.570 --> 00:38:14.449 Hearts, and those evocative lines from Shakespeare's 00:38:14.449 --> 00:38:17.530 The Tempest. Nothing of him that doth fade, but 00:38:17.530 --> 00:38:20.820 doth suffer a sea change. into something rich 00:38:20.820 --> 00:38:24.280 and strange. That imagery of sea change, of transformation, 00:38:24.579 --> 00:38:27.079 was such a powerful contrast to the immediate 00:38:27.079 --> 00:38:29.699 brutal hostility his death was met with back 00:38:29.699 --> 00:38:32.039 in Tory England. The establishment's hatred was 00:38:32.039 --> 00:38:35.059 just palpable. The Tory London newspaper, The 00:38:35.059 --> 00:38:37.699 Courier, printed an editorial that summed it 00:38:37.699 --> 00:38:40.940 all up with appalling bluntness. Shelley, the 00:38:40.940 --> 00:38:43.199 writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned. 00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:46.139 Now he knows whether there is God or no. Wow. 00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:49.000 It just shows that even in death, he was perceived 00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:51.599 as a danger, an infidel who deserved divine retribution. 00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.159 And despite that hostility and the fact that 00:38:54.159 --> 00:38:56.739 he sold poorly in his lifetime, we're talking 00:38:56.739 --> 00:39:00.260 average editions of only 250 copies, his poetry 00:39:00.260 --> 00:39:03.179 quickly gained traction posthumously. But in 00:39:03.179 --> 00:39:06.400 very specific circles. Crucially, yes. His work 00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:09.619 became immensely popular in radical and reformist 00:39:09.619 --> 00:39:12.860 circles. It was adopted by the Owenists, who 00:39:12.860 --> 00:39:15.260 were early British socialists, and the Chartists, 00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:17.940 who were campaigning fiercely for working class 00:39:17.940 --> 00:39:21.360 political reform. They saw his work not as abstract 00:39:21.360 --> 00:39:24.440 literature, but as a practical political rallying 00:39:24.440 --> 00:39:27.639 cry. But his transition into the literary mainstream, 00:39:27.980 --> 00:39:30.489 that seems to have been heavily mediated. mostly 00:39:30.489 --> 00:39:32.889 by his own wife, Mary Shelley. That's a highly 00:39:32.889 --> 00:39:35.929 contested but widely accepted point among biographers. 00:39:36.329 --> 00:39:38.610 Mary Shelley, in her attempts to establish his 00:39:38.610 --> 00:39:40.809 reputation and ensure his survival in the conservative 00:39:40.809 --> 00:39:43.449 literary world, heavily edited his poems for 00:39:43.449 --> 00:39:46.449 publication in 1824 and again in 1839. What was 00:39:46.449 --> 00:39:49.570 she cutting out? She was intentionally downplaying 00:39:49.570 --> 00:39:52.409 or removing his most aggressively radical political 00:39:52.409 --> 00:39:56.110 and religious ideas. She was sanitizing his legacy. 00:39:56.369 --> 00:39:59.489 She chose to emphasize his pure, ethereal... 00:39:59.530 --> 00:40:02.550 the side of him that wrote beautiful odes over 00:40:02.550 --> 00:40:04.789 the fiery political agitator who wrote The Mask 00:40:04.789 --> 00:40:08.230 of Anarchy. And this sanitization, in turn, shaped 00:40:08.230 --> 00:40:10.269 how subsequent generations of critics viewed 00:40:10.269 --> 00:40:13.250 him. It absolutely did. It set the stage for 00:40:13.250 --> 00:40:16.570 much of the 20th century critical debate. Influential 00:40:16.570 --> 00:40:18.869 modernists like T .S. Eliot and F .R. Leavis, 00:40:18.949 --> 00:40:21.190 they often focused on what they saw as stylistic 00:40:21.190 --> 00:40:23.909 flaws or just found his radical ideas repellent. 00:40:23.989 --> 00:40:26.369 Which all solidified into Matthew Arnold's famous 00:40:26.369 --> 00:40:29.309 backhanded compliment that Shelley was a beautiful 00:40:29.309 --> 00:40:31.889 and ineffectual angel. But wait, how can someone 00:40:31.889 --> 00:40:34.289 who inspired Marx and Gandhi be described as 00:40:34.289 --> 00:40:36.949 ineffectual? Isn't that a profound misreading 00:40:36.949 --> 00:40:39.110 based on the very version of Shelley that Mary 00:40:39.110 --> 00:40:42.780 presented? It's precisely that. Arnold's reading 00:40:42.780 --> 00:40:46.199 focuses on the lyrical, ethereal Shelley, the 00:40:46.199 --> 00:40:49.099 one detached from harsh political reality. He 00:40:49.099 --> 00:40:52.360 missed the profound, tangible influence. Fortunately, 00:40:52.559 --> 00:40:54.440 the critical tide has completely reversed since 00:40:54.440 --> 00:40:57.860 the 1960s. Modern scholarship now acknowledges 00:40:57.860 --> 00:41:00.599 his full complexity. They celebrate him as... 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:03.900 A superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, 00:41:04.019 --> 00:41:06.380 and surely one of the most advanced skeptical 00:41:06.380 --> 00:41:09.739 intellects ever to write a poem, they've reintegrated 00:41:09.739 --> 00:41:12.480 the political mind with the lyrical genius. Speaking 00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:14.840 of complex literary connections, we have to address 00:41:14.840 --> 00:41:17.820 the long -running Frankenstein controversy. Given 00:41:17.820 --> 00:41:20.360 the intense intellectual ferment and shared trauma 00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:23.039 of their lives, how much did Percy Bysshe Shelley 00:41:23.039 --> 00:41:25.940 actually influence Mary's novel? This is a major 00:41:25.940 --> 00:41:28.599 area of scholarly contention. Some researchers 00:41:28.599 --> 00:41:30.980 like Charlie Robinson have analyzed the original 00:41:30.980 --> 00:41:33.460 manuscripts and argue that Shelley's contributions, 00:41:33.860 --> 00:41:36.599 his editing, his revisions, his suggestions were 00:41:36.599 --> 00:41:39.039 so extensive that he should be considered a genuine 00:41:39.039 --> 00:41:41.519 collaborator. They believe he helped shape some 00:41:41.519 --> 00:41:44.480 of the novel's philosophical density. Yes. But 00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:46.519 the opposing view argues that while he provided 00:41:46.519 --> 00:41:49.460 numerous corrections, his work was no more than 00:41:49.460 --> 00:41:51.820 what a good, high -level line editor would provide 00:41:51.820 --> 00:41:54.960 today. They argue the novel's core vision, the 00:41:54.960 --> 00:41:57.519 critique of patriarchal science, the psychological 00:41:57.519 --> 00:42:00.190 horror that remained Mary's own. But regardless 00:42:00.190 --> 00:42:02.789 of the final percentage, it's undeniable that 00:42:02.789 --> 00:42:04.989 the intense intellectual and emotional atmosphere 00:42:04.989 --> 00:42:08.469 he created was the perfect catalyst for Frankenstein's 00:42:08.469 --> 00:42:11.210 creation. And finally, a century after his death, 00:42:11.349 --> 00:42:13.250 you get organizations like the Keats Shelley 00:42:13.250 --> 00:42:16.570 Memorial Association, founded in 1903. They now 00:42:16.570 --> 00:42:18.809 maintain his grave. They run the Keats Shelley 00:42:18.809 --> 00:42:21.389 Memorial House in Rome. It's a recognition that 00:42:21.389 --> 00:42:23.590 despite all the attempts to silence him, the 00:42:23.590 --> 00:42:26.489 profound power of the romantic movement he helped 00:42:26.489 --> 00:42:29.539 define could not be extinguished. Hashtag hashtag 00:42:29.539 --> 00:42:32.179 outro. Percy Buscelli packed the lifetime of 00:42:32.179 --> 00:42:35.139 rebellion into just 29 years, dying before his 00:42:35.139 --> 00:42:38.079 work was truly recognized. He is the ultimate 00:42:38.079 --> 00:42:41.239 romantic paradox. A sensitive, ethereal lyric 00:42:41.239 --> 00:42:43.840 poet obsessed with purity and beauty. Who was 00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:46.900 simultaneously a revolutionary political agitator, 00:42:46.980 --> 00:42:50.619 a public atheist, and a social radical who suffered 00:42:50.619 --> 00:42:53.679 severe personal crises and continuous persecution 00:42:53.679 --> 00:42:57.079 for his refusal to conform. He was forcing his 00:42:57.079 --> 00:43:00.300 world to confront ideas that were simply unthinkable 00:43:00.300 --> 00:43:03.639 at the time. Nonviolent resistance, anti -clericalism, 00:43:03.780 --> 00:43:07.059 free love, proto -environmentalism. Two centuries 00:43:07.059 --> 00:43:09.159 before they became part of the accepted discourse. 00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:11.679 And he played the ultimate price for that nonconformity. 00:43:11.719 --> 00:43:14.099 He lost his family, his fortune, and his social 00:43:14.099 --> 00:43:16.579 standing. And remember the historical irony here. 00:43:17.039 --> 00:43:19.679 Shelley died believing his revolutionary poetry 00:43:19.679 --> 00:43:23.179 had ultimately failed to impact the world. Mostly 00:43:23.179 --> 00:43:25.440 because so many of his core political works, 00:43:25.539 --> 00:43:28.260 like The Mask of Anarchy and A Defense of Poetry, 00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:30.780 were suppressed or unpublished in his lifetime 00:43:30.780 --> 00:43:33.639 out of fear of sedition. But those ideas didn't 00:43:33.639 --> 00:43:36.340 just vanish. They persisted as a blueprint, later 00:43:36.340 --> 00:43:38.880 armed and deployed by revolutionary figures across 00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:41.349 the globe. The knowledge you've gained today 00:43:41.349 --> 00:43:43.789 is knowing that the fire he faced for his radicalism 00:43:43.789 --> 00:43:46.250 was the very crucible that forged the foundations 00:43:46.250 --> 00:43:48.650 of global movements. And that raises an important 00:43:48.650 --> 00:43:50.769 final question for you, the listener, to carry 00:43:50.769 --> 00:43:53.789 forward. Shelley's most fundamental nonconformities, 00:43:53.829 --> 00:43:56.510 his atheism, his views on marriage, were seen 00:43:56.510 --> 00:43:58.610 as madness. They were cause for his expulsion 00:43:58.610 --> 00:44:01.329 and for the loss of his children. so what radical 00:44:01.329 --> 00:44:03.250 beliefs do you hold today that are persecuted 00:44:03.250 --> 00:44:05.829 dismissed or maybe just ridiculed by the establishment 00:44:05.829 --> 00:44:09.369 now but may a century from now become the necessary 00:44:09.369 --> 00:44:12.010 foundational principles for world -changing political 00:44:12.010 --> 00:44:14.849 and ethical movements the poet's job after all 00:44:14.849 --> 00:44:16.489 is to be the trumpet of a prophecy