1. When the Lamp is Shattered Percy Bysshe Shelley “A beautiful but ineffectual angel” – Matthew Arnold

2. The Facts NAME: Percy Bysshe Shelley D.O.B: 4 th August 1792 BIRTH PLACE: Field Place, Horsham England DIED: 8 th July 1822 OCCUPATION: Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist LITERARY MOVEMENT: Romanticism INFLUENCES: John Milton INFLUENCED: William Butler Yeats, Jan Kasprowicz, Alfred Nobel, Gregory Corso

3. Personal Life Eldest of seven children – 5 sisters and 1 brother Home educated by Reverend Evan Edwards By and large a “happy and contented childhood spent largely on country pursuits such as fishing and hunting.” 1804 – Shelley goes to Eton College, subjected to daily mob torment, called “Shelley- baits” and mocked for his “high-pitched, cracked soprano” of a voice”  Marries Harriet Westbrook, 1811. Later, in 1814, he abandons his pregnant wife and child to run away with Mary, whom he marries in 1816, following the suicide of Harriet Westbrook. 1822 – Shelley drowns in a sudden storm while sailing back from Livorno to Lerici. Prior to this, Shelley claimed to have met his doppelgänger, foreboding his own death.

4. Stuff about Shelley that Laura finds cool... Expelled from Oxford for producing a pamphlet called, “The Necessity of Atheism” Wrote a poem called, “Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things”, a long, strident anti-monarchical and anti-war poem in 1811. He wrote several essays on the subject of Vegetarianism, writing that eating meat is “subversive to the peace of human society.” Strong advocate for social justice of the lower classes, having witnessed many of the same mistreatments occurring in domestication and slaughtering animals, and became a fighter for the rights of all living creatures. Shelley’s uncompromising idealism, combined with strong disapproving voice made him an authoritative figure, admired by C.S Lewis, Karl Marx amongst other very cool people...... Such as GANDHI! Whose passive resistance was influenced by Shelley’s non-violence in protest and political action. Ghandi is known to quote Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy He was unrecognised in his lifetime, earning around £40 for his writing over the duration of his entire life.

5. When the Lamp is Shattered When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead - When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute - No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled To endure what it once possessed. O Love! who bewailest The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee, As the storms rock the ravens on high; Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

6. When the Lamp is Shattered – Stanza 1 The poem was written shortly after Shelley lost the love of a woman who was dear to him. It deals with a theme that is romantic in it’s literal sense, that life is changed for the worst when love is gone, describing the loss of love as the shattering of a lamp, a broken lute and a faded rainbow amongst others and how he has Lost his ecstatic poetic creativity in losing her love.

7. When the Lamp is Shattered – Stanza 2 Shelley goes on to say that just as the music of the lute cannot survive without a lute to be played, and just as the splendour of a flicker of light from a lamp cannot survive should the lamp be broken, love is dead when she is gone, his poetic creativity no longer. The “heart’s echoes render No song when the spirit is dead.”

8. When the Lamp is Shattered – Stanza 2 The poet goes on to say that being in love is like building a bird’s nest – where love is the initial leaves which form the foundation. Shelley then goes on to say that despite the fact that a leaf is fragile, when combined with the support of another, like the leaves together form the nest, “the weak one is singled to endure what it once possessed”.

9. When the Lamp is Shattered – Stanza 3 The final stanza suggests that one knows the trouble that they will endure when they fall in love (“It’s passions will rock thee”). The poet suggests that when all is lost, as he has lost everything in losing his lover, “reason” will “mock thee”, as one knows that “passions will rock thee”, just like sun is the “bright reason” that mocks a “wintry sky”, before the wintry sky chases away the sun, and then the leaves will fall down from those nests, when the wind (or difficult times) present themselves.

10. Percy starts out by giving us examples of things that extinguish once their source is destroyed, then he relates those to the hearts music and the spirit of it's occupant. By saying that without spirit the heart only sings sad and sombre songs. The last two octaves he's saying that love will help two hearts mingle, then move on to another weak heart and love must again endure it's journey ("to endure what it once possessed"). Percy then questions why love, who expresses sorrow for the frail things, would choose the frailest heart to reside in. He then goes on to say that love will rock the heart, like a storm rocks a raven and that, as mentioned in a previous slide, “reason” will mock love, and will chase it away like a wintry sky chases away the sun, from every nest the support will fall out and love will be left naked and embarrassed at the worst of times. When the Lamp is Shattered – Summary

11. When the Lamp is Shattered – stuff to remember Exclamation – “Oh, love!” - Desperation, sighing. Lots of reference to nature – rainbow, birds nest. 4 octaves No reference to the actual woman, just to his loss of poetic creativity Very observant and base level. If the lute is broken, it will not play. If the song of his heart cannot sing, he will not create beautiful poetry. “No song but sad dirges” – sounds like a dirge, no long vowel sounds – ugly vowels.