Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was one of the leading poets of the English Romantic movement, born in Sussex, England, and educated at Eton and Oxford, from which he was expelled for co-writing a pamphlet on atheism. His radical political and social views — opposition to tyranny, organised religion, and marriage as an institution — ran through both his life and his verse, making him a controversial figure among his contemporaries even as fellow writers privately admired his craftsmanship.

Shelley belonged to the younger generation of Romantics alongside John Keats and Lord Byron, with whom he was closely acquainted; his second wife was Mary Shelley, author of «Frankenstein». His poetry combines visionary idealism with formal mastery, ranging from the political fury of «The Masque of Anarchy» to the meditative lyricism of «Ode to the West Wind» and «Love’s Philosophy», and the biting irony of the sonnet «Ozymandias», still one of the most quoted poems in the English language.

He died young, drowning off the coast of Italy in 1822, but his influence on later poets and on the Romantic canon has been lasting. His work is remembered for its lyrical intensity, its engagement with nature as a mirror of human emotion, and its uncompromising idealism about liberty and reform.