Reading Response #3

      Author W.B. Yeats expresses his opinions on the well-known works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, in his critical essay, “The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry. In his essay, Yeats talks about Shelley being too apprehensive to push his arguments about his views on political regeneration and how the poet intertwines great poetry with great rhetoric thought full of sensitivity. Not only does Yeats talk about those two main topics, he also talked about Shelley being a revolutionist and how he wanted to be a metaphysician. Before Shelley discovered his deepest thoughts, he wrote a poem, “Queen Mab”, where he was “less anxious to change men’s beliefs” (Yeats, The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry). In Yeats’ eyes Shelley acknowledges over and over again that those who have “pure desire and universal love” (Yeats, The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry) are happy in the midst of oppression. This connects to the idea of being too apprehensive because Shelley did not believe that change of society can bring beauty among people without rejuvenation of people’s hearts. However, he did have the chance to change the minds of many readers, but was again, too timid to push his own arguments. While in “Mont Blanc”, Shelley uses the poem as an analogy to establish that the soul has its foundation in “the secret strength of things which governs thoughts, and to the infinite dome of heaven is as a law” (Yeats, The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry). The idea from “Mont Blanc” ties in with the idea of Shelley intertwining great poetry with his rhetoric thoughts full of sensitivity because he states that the soul comes from within us, he discusses this in another one of his poems, “Julian and Maddalo”, saying, “The soul is powerless and can only toll our thoughts and our desires to meet below round the rent heart and pray” (Yeats, The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry). Shelley is being sensitive about the soul in a way that he can reply like the makers of all religions have replied. Going back to “Mont Blanc” Shelley uses it to personify amoral power, which prepares for the big rhetoric question. Towards the end of his essay, Yeats expresses that Shelley had reawakened, in himself, the age of faith; although there were times where he would doubt himself, going back to being apprehensive, just like the saints doubted themselves.  

          Even though Shelley had doubts about his own beliefs, what really impressed me the most was that he still went on to be a very well known Romantic poet. His poems mainly talk about how mankind is connected with nature, and how nature can be a symbol of mankind. For example, in “Mont Blanc” the mountain represented power, and in “Love’s Philosophy” he explains that nothing in the world is single and it is surrounded by divine things. When reading his poems, it does not seem like he had doubted himself in the first place. It seemed like his main ideas in each one of his poems were written with great confidence and pride because the tone of the poem does not sound like Shelley was in doubt at all.  I feel that when Shelley uses some of his philosophical beliefs, his background of being a revolutionist and an almost metaphysician plays a part in some if his work, especially in “Mont Blanc” when Shelley discusses his philosophy on perception. There were two different views in the poem, the individual mind and the universal mind, each having a different view of the world and humans. In my eyes, he includes the two views to help us have a bigger understanding of his beliefs and to put a new perspective about nature into our minds. Nature means a lot to the Romantic poets, in fact, they use it as a kind of meditation.  As for Shelley, he uses nature as a symbol of humans, for example he uses pine trees as human values, a Ravine as an emblem of the universal mind, and of course Mont Blanc as a symbol of power. By relating nature to human characteristics, the analogies can teach us a lot about ourselves and how we are affecting the world. After reading this article Yeats had put a whole new idea about Shelley in my mind and he had taught me some things I did not know about Shelley. He is truly one of the greatest Romantic poets.