A Defence of Poetry

Percy Bysshe Shelley is considered one of the greatest English Romantic poets. He was born on August 4, 1792, in his family home of Field Place in England. Shelley’s middle name, Bysshe, comes from his grandfather, whose wealthy estates and parliament seat he was in line to inherit as the eldest son. He began attending Eton College at age 12. There, Shelley began writing and published his first works in 1810.

In the fall of that year, Shelley started attending Oxford University, where he met his good friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Shelley published the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism, which caused him and Hogg to be expelled from Oxford in March 1811. If the two friends had disavowed the pamphlet and rededicated themselves to Christianity, they may have been reinstated, but Shelley refused. He was financially cut off for two years until he came of age to receive his inheritance from his grandfather.

In August 1811, Shelley experienced a whirlwind romance and eloped with Harriet Westbrook, the intelligent and well-read daughter of a successful coffee house owner. Early in 1812, the couple moved to Dublin and then Wales, where Shelley wrote revolutionary political pamphlets, arguing for freedom and more individual rights for Irish Catholics.