Concetti Chiave
- Shelley's inspiration is driven by an ideal beauty synonymous with ideal goodness, yearning for its earthly presence and reflecting either disillusionment or hope for regeneration through beauty.
- His works often express a disdain for societal institutions he believes cause human suffering, as seen in "Queen Mab" and "The Revolt of Islam."
- In "Prometheus Unbound," Shelley uses allegory to depict humanity's struggle against tyranny, with Prometheus symbolizing humanity and Jupiter representing evil forces.
- Shelley believed in the potential return of a golden age, yet personal setbacks and the perceived futility of his efforts infused his nature poetry with melancholy.
- His connection to nature offers solace, as he finds eternal beauty and spiritual continuity in it, echoing Platonic influences in works like "Adonais."
Shelley: inspiration
The essence of Shelley's inspiration is a keep perception of ideal beauty, which is practically synonymous for him with ideal goodness, and a passionate yearning for its being brought to dwell upon the earth. His poems accordingly reflect either the poet's failure to find in this world the incarnation of his dream or his hatred of all the institutions which - a disciple of Rousseau, through Godwin,- he holds responsible for the miserable state of mankind Queen Mab, The Revolt of Islam) or the hope that man may be regenerated by the worship of beauty; In the preface to Prometheus Unbound, Shelley sayd: " My purpose has been... to familiarize poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware that, until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they would bear the harvest of his happiness". In Prometheus Unbound, which may be called an allegorical tragedy, Prometheus, the "forethinker" stands for agonized humanity as against the despotic forces of the world embodied in Jupiter, the source of all evil, while Demogorgon, whose breath in the enthusiasm that inspires prophets and reformers, symbolizes eternal love.Shelley never doubted that the golden age might one day be restored; yet, as he realized that his efforts were for the time useless and his private live was blighted, a feeling of despondency took hold him. There rings throughout his poems of nature a deep note of melancholy. He implores the west wind to help him out his misery: O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!/I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! The song of the skylark itself reawakens his slumbering grief. But Nature hears his call: he absorbs himself in her loveliness. Beauty is eternal: the one spirit which permeates and sustains the world cannot die. Our own life is transient; it is a shadow and a dream (Adonais). The influence of Platonism is clearly discernible in several passages of this poem.
Domande da interrogazione
- ¿Cuál es la esencia de la inspiración de Shelley según el texto?
- ¿Cómo refleja Shelley su visión del mundo en sus poemas?
- ¿Qué simboliza Prometeo en "Prometheus Unbound" y cuál es su propósito según Shelley?
La esencia de la inspiración de Shelley es una percepción aguda de la belleza ideal, que para él es prácticamente sinónima de la bondad ideal, y un anhelo apasionado de que esta belleza habite en la tierra.
Shelley refleja en sus poemas su fracaso al no encontrar en este mundo la encarnación de su sueño o su odio hacia las instituciones que considera responsables del estado miserable de la humanidad, así como su esperanza de que el hombre pueda regenerarse mediante la adoración de la belleza.
En "Prometheus Unbound", Prometeo simboliza a la humanidad agonizante frente a las fuerzas despóticas del mundo, representadas por Júpiter. El propósito de Shelley es familiarizar a los lectores poéticos con idealismos hermosos de excelencia moral.
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