In conclusion, Percy Bysshe Shelley had a lifetime of adventures from which
he was able to form naive and romantic opinions, which undertone his poems.
For example, he feels that love can conquer all obstacles, including
distance, like Julian and Maddalo and Arethusa, fear of inferiority, as in "I
fear thy kisses, gentle maiden", and even death, as in The Dirge. Shelley
also laces his political poems with his romanticist views. He shows his
support for a tyrant who tried to conquer the known world twice in Napoleon,
as in Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte; he attempts to stir
emotions towards socialism in Song to the Men of England; and he attempted to
smite the Congress of Vienna, which for a while brought order and stability
back to Europe, in The Mask of Anarchy. He also had what as considered naive
views on the sciences, which admittedly are now known to be true. He shows
that all bodies operate under the same principle in Prometheus Unbound; shows
how rain is made, indirectly by God, directly by clouds, not the other way as
one in the 18th or 19th century might argue, in Ode to the West Wind; and he
explained from where the sun’s "rays" are coming, and again disproved the
notion that God directly poured them into the Earth, in his Notes to Queen
Mab. Thus, Shelley undertones his poetry with the naive views of life he held
during his lifetime.
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