Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Portrait of Shelley by Amelia Curran (1819)

Our author this month was a lyric poet known for works such as "Ode to the West Wind," "Ozymandias," and "Prometheus Unbound."  The featured selection is a work of prose entitled "A Defence of Poetry."  A response to fellow poet Thomas Love Peacock's "The Four Ages of Poetry," "A Defence of Poetry" was originally planned to have three parts but was never completed. Shelley's tragic and untimely death occurred when a violent storm picked up in the Gulf of Spezia and capsized the boat he was sailing in with a friend. 

"Funeral of Shelley" by Louis Edouard Fournier