Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ode to the West Wind, Frankenstein Co-Author, Romantic Poet
The Radical Leo Poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from Oxford for writing a pamphlet on the necessity of atheism — which is the most Leo possible start to a literary career. He then married Mary Godwin (who became Mary Shelley), wrote some of English literature’s greatest poetry, drowned in a storm off the Italian coast at 29, and became immortal.
Leo Legacy
- Ode to the West Wind: 1819 — one of English literature’s great lyric poems
- Prometheus Unbound: His masterpiece — Shelley’s vision of human liberation from tyranny
- Political pamphlets: Expelled from Oxford for atheist pamphlet — radical to his core
- Wife Mary Shelley: His relationship with Mary Godwin produced two of literature’s greatest minds
Shelley’s Leo life was so fully lived at such velocity that 29 years was enough for immortality.
“The soul’s joy lies in doing.”