Philosophy of Love in Shelley's Poetry

PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE IN SHELLEY’S POETRY

K. NAGARAJA RAO, M. A.
Jawahar Bharati, Kavali

Shelley, whose lot it was to taste only the bitter fruit of life had felt a sense of personal isolation. The world appeared to him, to be full of exploitation and selfishness and he found oppression and tyranny raging everywhere. Shelley hoped for a better world, where there would be liberty, equality and fraternity and according to Shelley the way to have a heaven on earth is only through man’s practising love. Love is the panacea that can cure all the evils of mankind.

Henry S. Salt in his book on Shelley, quotes the following lines:

“Where is that divine spirit of Love
Brooding like benediction o’er Shelley’s lyrics unrivalled.”

A brief examination of Shelley’s poems will bring home the point.

“Epipsychidion” which means “soul within soul” is the poem written after Shelley felt drawn towards Emilia Viviana. Shelley felt that every soul would naturally seek its prototype or counterpart and in the poem he writes of his imaginative flight with Viviana. It is not simply a union of bodies, but a triumphant union of souls.

“We shall become the same……One spirit within two frames. Yet ever inconsumable.”

The poem which is closed with the words “I am Love’s” is not merely the expression of the poet’s worshipping Emily, but it is beyond that. The words explain the intensity with which Shelley held the concept of love dear to his heart and how he wanted to seek shelter in Love. That which he lacked in life and which he had been badly in need of; he considers himself to be its embodiment.

“Prometheus unbound” the magnum opus of Shelley’s writings, one can say, is a tribute to the chastening power of love. Asia, considered to be the symbol of platonic love must be reunited to Prometheus, who represents the mind of man. Asia’s realising her love is a turning point in the play because only “at that moment “Spirits set forth in chariots, drawn by winged horses to conquer the sky” (Bowra). Love and reason are to be united and then only the fall of the tyrant Jupiter can be brought about.

Asia, who stands for the ideal love is eulogized. She is the “Life of Life” and “Lamp of Earth!” “where’er thou movest...Its dim shapes all clad with brightness.”

Man remains “Sceptreless, free uncircumscribed...tribeless and nationless.” Shelley seems to be visualising the day when all the barriers that divide man from man and nation from nation are broken. Only when Love is enthroned in the hearts of human beings, the day may not be far off when all the men in the world consider themselves brothers.

A. J. Strong, writing on the picture of Millenium presented in “Prometheus unbound” writes, “Man has been liberated, not by the conscious and calculating process of reason, but by the cosmic and spontaneous operation of Love.”

“Fate, time, occasion, chance and change, to these
All things are subject but eternal Love.”
(“Prometheus unbound”)

Shelley’s heart which was burning with love, burnt with rage at the Peterloo Massacre. Several worker, who had assembled peacefully at Manchester were charged upon by the Cavalry. It is this incident which made Shelley compose “The Mask of Anarchy.” The people’s poet extols the workers to promote the stoic virtue of passive resistance, so ably preached and demonstrated of its efficacy by Gandhi.

Even if the oppressors intervene, the people are to

“With folded arms...Look upon them as they slay .
Till their rage has died away
Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their checks.”

But a closer observation of the concluding lines of the poem

“Rise like lions after slumber
Shake off the chains that have fallen on you
Ye are many, they are few”

may make one wonder whether Shelley is true to his preaching passive resistance. Herein one may cut a via media policy and state that the poet extolled the workers to fight exploitation and tyranny and that he pleaded for rebellion, to overthrow the old order only when it became absolutely necessary.

K. N. Cameron in his introduction to Shelley, points out, “In regard to the existing situation in England, the thing to do is to work first for the reform of parliament, peacefully if possible, by revolution if necessary, and then use the democratic base thus obtained as a step toward a republican and eventually an egalitarian society.”

Shelley, one might notice, preaches the principles taught by Jesus Christ, though at the time of writing “Queen Mab”, he did not have a high opinion of Christ and his teachings. Shelley stressed the teachings like “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you.” Like Christ, Shelley also must have wished “No living creature to suffer.” Shelley was opposed to taking revenge and doing wrong. We must be prepared to bury the errors of the past and we must develop love and forgiveness. Herein lies the seeds for the progress of wisdom. In “Hellas”, he says, “But pay the broken shrine again, Love for hate and tears for blood.”

The earthly kings use force and power. In Shelley’s view, the revolution of force had failed miserably and it should be followed by a revolution of love. “Ozymandias” boasts that he is the king of kings and asks others to give up the hope of achieving greatness similar to his.

“Look on my works ye mighty and despair.” But ironically enough, the traveller says “Nothing remains” around the statue except boundless desert. Shelley seems to be suggesting, that the achievements of emperors are short-lived and that the true benefactors of mankind are prophets like Jesus and Mohammad. In this context, another poem of Shelley “The Triumph of Life” deserves mention. Shelley means that the opportunists and seekers of self- knowledge like Napoleon and Rousseau were all enslaved by death.

“All but the sacred few who could not tame
Their spirits; to the conquerors”

and Christ is certainly one of “the sacred few.”

In “Queen Mab”, Shelley’s love for the workers is revealed. He saw that the working class has exploited by the capitalist class. He condemned commerce which had forced the workers to sell their labour power to the highest bidder on the capitalist labour market.

In Shelley’s words the slaves are “scarce living pulleys of a dead machine.” Shelley also says that slavery is nothing but modern wage slavery.

“ ’T is to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs……” (“The Mask of Anarchy”)

Commenting on these lines, Manfred Wojcik in his essay on “In Defence of Shelley” states that “In 1819 Shelley expressed poetically what Marx and Engels were to define with scientific precision almost thirty years later in the “Manifesto of Communist Party.”

The Word “Love” appears to be almost interchangeable, in Shelley’s thought, with Wisdom, Nature, God or Beauty and True love leads to higher beauty. It is also the One “that remains, the many change and pass.” (“Adonais”) Love is light and it is life. In “Cenci” Beatrice feels sorry that she is cut off

“From the only world I know
From light and life, and love.”

The whole world, according to Shelley, is a manifestation of divine life and an attestation to the Divine Love.

“The one spirit’s plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense World.”

The Deity, often, is also the spirit of Love, with whom the poet would commune.

“Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all
We can desire, O Love.” (“Prince Athanase”)

Thus God is Love and vice versa.

Shelley hated hatred in any form; he loved the workers and attacked the feudal tyranny in the “Mask of Anarchy.” Since he believed that Keats’ death was hastened by the hostile criticism in the “Quarterly Review”, he attacked the Tory reviewing system, calling the “Quarterly Reviewer”, “a nameless worm” and “a noteless blot on a remembered name.”

Thus, Shelley who wrote in the preface to Alastor that those who do not love their fellow-beings, “live unfortunate lives and prepare for their old age miserable lives...They are morally dead”, (delivered the message of love and he lived as if to love and live were one.