Romanticism and Nonviolence: Percy Bysshe Shelley Exhumed

Abstract

This paper posits that in his prose and poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley (an English poet of the Romantic period) articulates both the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence as a response to oppression, repression and marginalisation. It also contends that although his theory significantly impacted the formation of the philosophies and socio-political campaigns of later nonviolence activists, especially the Indian Civil Rights Activist Mahatma Gandhi, Shelley has not been sufficiently credited for the ground-breaking political philosophy of nonviolence. This article thus explores Shelley’s philosophy of nonviolence in his poetry, prose, dramas and pamphlets. It compares the nonviolence philosophies of Gandhi and Shelley and brings out Shelley’s unquestionable influence on Mahatma Gandhi. The article raises questions about why Shelley was not credited with the philosophy of nonviolence and suggests possible reasons for this apparent near lack of global consideration for the English Romantic poet despite his pioneering the philosophy. Having proceeded thus and upon thorough academic investigation, the article irresistibly concludes that contrary to popular socio-political opinion, Percy Bysshe Shelley is the unrivalled father of nonviolence as an ethical and pragmatic philosophy for socio-political mutation. By this study, Shelley is given his rightful position in matters of nonviolence and thus exhumed as a poet-philosopher whose philosophy has outlived his existence and practised to date by activists to press for reform.