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.