We shall have to look back a little and trace the intellectual history of Shelley before we can understand why he is a revolutionary. Rationalism of the eighteenth century was an important factor. The eighteenth century was an age of prose, social – mindedness and reason—the age of Voltaire, Newton, Adam Smith, Swift, Fielding, Lessing, … Read more
Shelley believed in a Soul of the Universe, a Spirit in which all things live and move and have their being which, as one feels in the Prometheus, is unable, inconceivable even to man, for “the deep truth is imageless.” His most passionate desire was not, as was Browning’s, for an increased and ennobled individuality, … Read more
Shelley does not commit himself to definite pantheism anywhere. But there are passages which seem to come near to pantheism. He often conceives of a Spirit diffused through, and permeating the universe — a Spirit that seems also to impel human thoughts. Shelley pays homage to such a Spirit in his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. … Read more