Effects Of "Peripheral Situation" On P.B.Shelley And His Works

Shelley is traditionally regarded as one great romantic poet with great talent. While, what mainly affected Shelley's creation and his development? How are these effects embodied in his works? Why would Shelley's radical and revolutionary writing style in the first period change into lyric and romantic one at last? After long-term studies and in order to response questions mentioned above, in this paper I adopt the theory named "peripheral situation" proposed in "Philosopher Among Philosophers" by Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) who was a Germany existentialist. Through elaborative biographical analyses, this paper, argues that changes and developments both in Shelley's life and works are mainly affected by "peripheral situation". This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter elaborately expresses the effects of "peripheral situation" on Shelley in his early creative periods (1792-1813). This kind of influence can be easily found in his famous works: The Necessity of Atheism (1811), and Queen Mab (1813). Through analyses of Shelley's creative process and thoughts about these two works, the first chapter will illustrate that after suffering from "peripheral situation", Shelley was gradually growing up from a student to a revolutionary poet. Then the second chapter discusses the effects of "peripheral situation" on Shelly from 1813 to 1816. In this period, Shelley's writing style gradually changed from revolutionary into lyric. The change was obviously shown in his poems at that time, such as, Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and so on. In order to identify this kind of view, this chapter will mainly analyze the...