Book Description

Excerpt from Anecdote Biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley Of all the poets who have illustrated the Literature of England, there is no one whose life presents so many difficulties to the biographer as Percy Bysshe Shelley. Every poet, even the humblest, differs in some respects from the majority of mankind, - at any rate, he is more impressionable than his prosaic brethren, and more easily influenced by the spirit which possesses him. The outward facts of his life arc easily ascertained, and their arrangement in an orderly manner requires no great skill. What requires the greatest skill is the detection and interpretation of the spiritual facts of his life, the motives which actuated him, which guided him to goodness, and which drove him to evil; the angelic impulses by which he soared, the demoniac impulses by which he sank, - in a word, the thorough understanding of his heart, his mind, his genius. The ideal poetic biographer, when he comes, will be a poet who is more than a poet. He does not exist at present. What does exist is the average biographer, whose self-imposed mission is to convince his readers that his hero was either the best or worst of men. Yesterday he was Dr. Griswold, to-day he is Mr. Ingram, to-marrow he will be - who? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.