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John Milton Facts
Like many Renaissance artists before him, Milton attempted to integrate Christian theology with classical modes. In his early poems, the poet narrator expresses a tension between vice and virtue, the latter invariably related to Protestantism. In Comus Milton may make ironic use of the Caroline court masque by elevating notions of purity and virtue over the conventions of court revelry and superstition. -
John Milton Facts
By the late 1650s, Milton was a proponent of monism or animist materialism, the notion that a single material substance which is "animate, self-active, and free" composes everything in the universe: from stones and trees and bodies to minds, souls, angels, and God. Milton devised this position to avoid the mind-body dualism of Plato and Descartes as well as the mechanistic determinism of Hobbes. -
John Milton Facts
Milton’s magnum opus, the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost, was composed by the blind and impoverished Milton from 1658 to 1664 (first edition) with small but significant revisions published in 1674 (second edition). As a blind poet, Milton dictated his verse to a series of aides in his employ. It reflects his personal despair at the failure of the Revolution, yet affirms an ultimate optimism in human potential. Milton encoded many references to his unyielding support for the "Good Old Cause" -
Lord Byron Facts
From birth, Byron suffered from a deformity of his right foot. Generally referred to as a "club foot", some modern medical experts maintain that it was a consequence of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), and others that it was a dysplasia, a failure of the bones to form properly. Whatever the cause, he was afflicted with a limp that caused him lifelong psychological and physical misery, aggravated by painful and pointless "medical treatment" in his childhood. -
William Godwin Facts
In 1793, while the French Revolution was in full swing, Godwin published his great work on political science, Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness. The first part of this book was largely a recap of Edmund Burke's A Vindication of Natural Society – an anarchist critique of the state. Godwin acknowledged the influence of Burke for this portion. -
Lord Byron Facts
While not at school or college, Byron lived with his mother at Burgage Manor in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, in some antagonism. While there, he cultivated friendships with Elizabeth Pigot and her brother, John, with whom he staged two plays for the entertainment of the community. -
William Godwin
In response to a treason trial of some of his fellow British Jacobins, among them Thomas Holcroft, Godwin wrote Cursory Strictures on the Charge Delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the Grand Jury, October 2, 1794 where he forcefully argued that the prosecution's concept of "constructive treason" allowed a judge to construe any behaviour as treasonous. It paved the way for a major, but mostly moral, victory for the Jacobins, as they were acquitted. -
William Godwin Facts
In his first edition of Political Justice Godwin included arguments favouring the possibility of "earthly immortality" (what would now be called physical immortality), but later editions of the book omitted this topic. Although the belief in such a possibility is consistent with his philosophy regarding perfectibility and human progress, he probably dropped the subject because of political expedience when he realized that it might discredit his other views. -
Genre Fact
Romanticism (or the Romantic era/Period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1840. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. -
Genre Fact
Romanticism validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. -
Genre Fact
Although romanticism was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities. -
Percy Bysshe Shelley Fact
Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from Oxford because of his necessity of atheism. -
Percy Bysshe Shelley Fact
Shelley runs off to Scotland with a 16-year-old student named Harriet Westbrook. Though he does not love Westbrook and disapproves of the idea of marriage, he likes the idea of "moulding a really noble soul into all that can make its nobleness useful and lovely." -
Lord Byron Facts
In 1812, Byron embarked on a well-publicised affair with the married Lady Caroline Lamb that shocked the British public. She had spurned the attention of the poet on their first meeting, subsequently giving Byron what became his lasting epitaph when she famously described him as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". This didn't prevent him from pursuing her. -
Publication Date
Percy Bysshe Shelley self-publishes the long poem "Queen Mab." It is an allegory for his political ideals. -
Percy Bysshe Shelley Fact
Shelley begins spending time at the home of the anarchist political philosopher William Godwin, whose ideas he admires. He meets Godwin's 16-year-old daughter Mary. Though Harriet is expecting their second child, he and Mary fall in love. -
Publication Date
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes "Ozymandias." -
Publication Date
Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes "Revolt of Islam," along with his wife's publication of "Frankenstein." -
Publication Date
The poem "The Cloud" is submitted for publication. It is published in the 1820 collection "Prometheus Unbound." -
Percy Bysshe Shelley Fact
Controversial in life, so in death. Following his death, the body of Shelley was cremated on a funeral pyre on the beach not far from where he drowned. A funeral befitting a Greek tragic hero. His heart was not consumed by the flames and was rescued by Edward Trelawny. There than followed an unseemly tussle between Mary Shelley and Leigh Hunt, who had acquired the heart. Mary finally obtained custody. She secreted the heart in a copy of Adonais, which she kept under her pillow.