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PhilosophyA Defence of Poetry and Other EssaysPercy Bysshe ShelleyA Defence of Poetry and Other Essays

A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays

Percy Bysshe Shelley

PhilosophyEnglish
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Is poetry useless in an age of science and industry? Percy Bysshe Shelley answers his friend Thomas Love Peacock, who had playfully argued that poetry was a…

Catalogue details

Author
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Category
Philosophy
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

Is poetry useless in an age of science and industry? Percy Bysshe Shelley answers his friend Thomas Love Peacock, who had playfully argued that poetry was a relic of barbarous times, with a passionate defence. Poetry, he says, is the expression of the imagination; it awakens and enlarges the mind, teaches us to put ourselves in the place of others, which is the root of morality, and lies behind every great change in society. He ends with his famous claim that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world'.

Context and significance

Shelley wrote the Defence in 1821, a year before he drowned in Italy, and it was published only in 1840. This volume also contains some of his other essays. Compare Coleridge's Biographia Literaria and Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads.

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