Beauty from Pain: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley was not afraid of being himself, regardless of controversy. He seemed to often be counter-cultural. My sense of him was that the people of his time had to choose whether to love or hate him, apathy towards him was unlikely. One of his first writings was The Necessity of Atheism, that pretty much summarizes him: gutsy and radical. He seems to live in his own idealistic version of reality. No matter how reproachable his behavior, he still managed to act without much hindrance. His first affair of the heart involved a sixteen year old girl named Harriet that he convinced to elope with him. Within a few years, they had a child and the sparks of the relationship had worn off; thus, Shelley moved onto Mary Wollstonecroft. Elopement with her happened shortly there after. In spite of his affair, he and Harriet still had a second child. His boldness shocked me when he asked Harriet if she wanted to join their group as a platonic sister. How can you ask your pretty much ex-wife to be like a sister to you? Percy paid alimony to Harriet but that was about the extent of his involvement with her. Mary miscarried her first child and suffered extreme depression after this. Using Byron's method, Percy coped by starting a new love interest. This whole swap was just outrageous. Percy experimented with Mary's stepsister Claire and Mary tried out one of Percy's college friends. Why on earth they thought this would repair things I do not know? Death and depression seemed to continue to follow this family. Mary's sister committed suicide. Also Harriet, whom was depressed by the rejection of Shelley, drowned herself. Call them optimists, but the Shelleys found the silver lining, because of Harriet's death, Mary and Percy could make their relationship official. I was astounded at the callousness of their actions. Percy's only heartache in the whole situation was that Harriet's children were not given to him. Fathers usually received custody but he lost the privilege. He wrote it off as that he was: "...an idealist persecuted by social and political injustice and despised by the world unable to appreciate his 'beautiful idealisms of moral excellence.'" (392) My only question is what moral excellence?
Percy suffered the losses of all but one child. Mary remained in depression and I could not really blame her. Still operating under Byron's method, Percy just started another love affair. In the end, Percy died in a shipwreck with his mistress's husband. That poor girl must have suffered!
My favorite work by Percy was To a Sky-Lark. It contains beautiful imagery of nature and the process of life. The ending stanzas stood out to me the most. "Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught; our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." (404) I believe Shelley is on target with this assessment. Blues and music by Kelly Clarkson would never have made it without the themes of pain and suffering. Our hearts are sensitive to pain and thus, the songs that epitomize our feelings are the dearest to our souls.
The other line worth mentioning says: "If we were things born not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near." (404) Beauty comes from pain. We truly cannot appreciate things unless we have lost them. Joy is beyond happiness, it is not defined by situation, thus, we do not know if we can have ever-present joy until trial comes. Percy experienced much pain and trial in his life, as we observed in his biography. I believe some of his pain was self-induced, but the loss of his children is devastating and beyond his control. One can assume that the one child that Percy and Mary watched enter adulthood was loved with more gratitude because of the loss of the other children. Children's value can be overlooked, but because of their sufferings, they truly valued their child. I think this attitude is admirable. Although I have many negative feelings towards Percy, I can certainly commend his attitude in regards to suffering.