On The Beauty In Shelley's Lyrical Poetry

Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most gifted lyrical poets in English literature, and even was hailed as the poet of poets. He is a man of wide knowledge and experience during his lifetime. He is a Platonist as well as a great idealist. The most outstanding feature in his poetry is its sheer beauty, especially in his lyrical poetry.Shelley's A Defence of poetry (1821) is largely an account of language of poetry and Shelley's aesthetic ideas. Some aesthetic theories are applied in the analysis of this thesis. On the basis of former studies, this thesis, through close reading, attempts to explore the aesthetic idea and quality of Beauty in Shelley's lyrical poetry,The main body of this thesis includes three chapters:Chapter One deals with the Beauty of music. In Shelley's lyrics, musicality in poetry is an essential element to show Beauty. The musical beauty are created through metrical rhythm, harmonious rhyme and experiment in stanzaic form, which is mainly produced for melodious sound and bring strongly musical effects.Chapter Two focuses on the Beauty of imagery, which functions as"soul"of poetry. This chapter discusses the images of color and light, images of swiftness and evanescence, and integrated sensuous images (i.e. synaesthetic imagery), not only bring about the sensuous enjoyment, but also spiritual power of sublimity.Chapter Three explores the Beauty of implicitness. Implicit language can inspire the reader's profound imagination, so as to appreciate the deep thought beyond the literal meaning. Shelley employs such certain rhetoric methods as metaphor, symbol and allusion to achieve the implicit effects.With the immense power of imagination, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who pursued poetic beauty throughout his whole life, used the musicality, image and rhetoric language to create a poetic world of Beauty in his poetry.