Percy Bysshe Shelley belonged to the second, younger generation of Romantic dudes and dudettes, along with Lord Byron. He was really inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, and he held some pretty revolutionary social and political views. He spent a lot of time hopping around Europe with his brilliant wife, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. But the poor guy died at the age of 30 while sailing off the coast of Italy. How…romantic?

Prometheus Unbound (1820)

Shelley's most famous as the author of Prometheus Unbound. It's a play that was written to be read, not performed. We, as readers, are supposed to use our imaginations to envision it all. What do you expect when there are characters like "Asia" and "Ocean" in there?

The play is based on the famous Greek myth, which tells the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to bring it to humanity and was punished by being tied to a rock and tortured for, like, forever.

Mont Blanc (1817)

Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps, and Shelley wrote this poem in honor of the mountain and the landscape surrounding it in the Chamonix valley in France. He was traveling through the region when he wrote it, and in it Shelley gives us a great description of a "sublime" experience. How can you not experience the sublime when you're surrounded by the Alps?

Chew on This

The Romantics loved to write odes in praise of nature. Here's Percy Bysshe Shelley praising the wind in "Ode to the West Wind."

We told you the Romantics have a thing for ancient ruins. Check out Percy Bysshe Shelley's reflections on time in his poem "Ozymandias," about the ruins of an ancient Egyptian statue.