1
/
of
1
OGB
FLOWERS OF FANCY, Selected From the Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley
FLOWERS OF FANCY, Selected From the Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Regular price
$0.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$0.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
THE CLOUD.
This poem consists of a series of imaginative statements of simple facts in regard to clouds. Shelley describes the Cloud as if it had a personal existence of its own. In modern poetry, as a rule, natural objects are described in connection with human life, either as influencing it or for the teake of embodying or reflecting the feelings of the poet. It is, however, characteristic of Shelley's genius that he has the power and the tendency to enter into the imaginary life of natural objects, instead of making them enter into man's life. Of this power, "The Cloud" is the most perfect example. It describes the life of the Cloud as it might have been a million of years before man came on earth. The 'sanguine Sunrise' and the 'orbed Maiden,' the moon, who are the playmates of the Cloud, are pure elemental beings.
TO A SKYLARK.
This ode, the most popular and the most perfect of Shelley's lyrics, was written in the poet's twenty-ninth year, two years before his death. This poem and "The Cloud," says Mrs. Shelley, " were written as his mind prompted, listening to the carolling of the bird, aloft in the azure sky of Italy, or marking the cloud as it sped across the heavens, as he floated in his boat on the Thames." Describing the song of a skylark may be compared to an artist's attempt to paint a rainbow; yet in this attempt Shelley has not failed. He has tested to the uttermost the capacities of language, and has exhausted its resources in this wonderful ode. It is penetrated through and through with the spirit of the beautiful, and has more of high and pure poetic rapture than any other ode in existence. Wordsworth's "To a Skylark" and "To the Cuckoo" should be read with this poem for comparison.
ODE TO THE WEST WIND.
The emotion awakened by the approaching storm sets on fire other sleeping emotions in his heart, and the whole of his being bursts into flame around the first emotion. This is the manner of the genesis of all the noblest lyrics. He passes from magnificent . union of himself with Nature and magnificent realization of her storm and peace, to equally great self-description, and then mingles all nature and himself together, that he may sing of the restoration of mankind. There is no song in the whole of our literature more passionate, more penetrative, more full of the force by which the idea and its form are united in one creation.
THE SENSITIVE PLANT.
This is primarily a descriptive poem. The poet, with evident delight and exquisite power, produces his picture of the garden and its mistress, and enters into and sympathizes with the imagined life of the flowers. Secondarily, this concrete picture is symbolic of other things. The Sensitive Plant, with its isolation, its intensity, its yearnings, is Shelley himself. The lady of the garden is the mystical Spirit of Beauty "whose smile kindles the universe." The change which comes over the garden and the Sensitive Plant at the approach of winter typifies the evil and ugly side of things, — death and the other ills which quench the joy of life. The Conclusion (as the close of Adonais) suggests that this change is transitory or unreal, that the Spirit of Beauty abides, and that the soul of man does not altogether pass away at death, but is united to the one spirit which is eternal.
THE WITCH OF ATLAS
This poem is a piece of extravagant fantasy, to be silently enjoyed rather than studied seriously. In this poem Shelley's imagination, like a happy child, plays with the materials of poetry, surrounding itself with the things it loves best, and gloating over them as they lie strewn about in that apparent confusion of a child's play, so bewildering to outsiders of the practical world. The Witch is probably an incarnation of the Spirit of Beauty in a playful mood; but it would be idle to spend time in trying to interpret the beautiful fancies so wantonly woven together into any consistent myth. As a piece of delicate verse-writing in that most difficult of stanzas, the ottava rima, the poem, written in August, 1820, in three days, after an ascent of Monte Pellegrino from the Baths of San Giuliano, is an evidence of the perfect mastery of his art now attained by Shelley.
This poem consists of a series of imaginative statements of simple facts in regard to clouds. Shelley describes the Cloud as if it had a personal existence of its own. In modern poetry, as a rule, natural objects are described in connection with human life, either as influencing it or for the teake of embodying or reflecting the feelings of the poet. It is, however, characteristic of Shelley's genius that he has the power and the tendency to enter into the imaginary life of natural objects, instead of making them enter into man's life. Of this power, "The Cloud" is the most perfect example. It describes the life of the Cloud as it might have been a million of years before man came on earth. The 'sanguine Sunrise' and the 'orbed Maiden,' the moon, who are the playmates of the Cloud, are pure elemental beings.
TO A SKYLARK.
This ode, the most popular and the most perfect of Shelley's lyrics, was written in the poet's twenty-ninth year, two years before his death. This poem and "The Cloud," says Mrs. Shelley, " were written as his mind prompted, listening to the carolling of the bird, aloft in the azure sky of Italy, or marking the cloud as it sped across the heavens, as he floated in his boat on the Thames." Describing the song of a skylark may be compared to an artist's attempt to paint a rainbow; yet in this attempt Shelley has not failed. He has tested to the uttermost the capacities of language, and has exhausted its resources in this wonderful ode. It is penetrated through and through with the spirit of the beautiful, and has more of high and pure poetic rapture than any other ode in existence. Wordsworth's "To a Skylark" and "To the Cuckoo" should be read with this poem for comparison.
ODE TO THE WEST WIND.
The emotion awakened by the approaching storm sets on fire other sleeping emotions in his heart, and the whole of his being bursts into flame around the first emotion. This is the manner of the genesis of all the noblest lyrics. He passes from magnificent . union of himself with Nature and magnificent realization of her storm and peace, to equally great self-description, and then mingles all nature and himself together, that he may sing of the restoration of mankind. There is no song in the whole of our literature more passionate, more penetrative, more full of the force by which the idea and its form are united in one creation.
THE SENSITIVE PLANT.
This is primarily a descriptive poem. The poet, with evident delight and exquisite power, produces his picture of the garden and its mistress, and enters into and sympathizes with the imagined life of the flowers. Secondarily, this concrete picture is symbolic of other things. The Sensitive Plant, with its isolation, its intensity, its yearnings, is Shelley himself. The lady of the garden is the mystical Spirit of Beauty "whose smile kindles the universe." The change which comes over the garden and the Sensitive Plant at the approach of winter typifies the evil and ugly side of things, — death and the other ills which quench the joy of life. The Conclusion (as the close of Adonais) suggests that this change is transitory or unreal, that the Spirit of Beauty abides, and that the soul of man does not altogether pass away at death, but is united to the one spirit which is eternal.
THE WITCH OF ATLAS
This poem is a piece of extravagant fantasy, to be silently enjoyed rather than studied seriously. In this poem Shelley's imagination, like a happy child, plays with the materials of poetry, surrounding itself with the things it loves best, and gloating over them as they lie strewn about in that apparent confusion of a child's play, so bewildering to outsiders of the practical world. The Witch is probably an incarnation of the Spirit of Beauty in a playful mood; but it would be idle to spend time in trying to interpret the beautiful fancies so wantonly woven together into any consistent myth. As a piece of delicate verse-writing in that most difficult of stanzas, the ottava rima, the poem, written in August, 1820, in three days, after an ascent of Monte Pellegrino from the Baths of San Giuliano, is an evidence of the perfect mastery of his art now attained by Shelley.
Share
