England / UK: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), poet, radical, opium user. Bust by William Ordway Partridge (1861-1930)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy. Ozymandias remains one of the most influentail of English Orientalist poems ever written, along with Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan'.

Shelley used opium to alter his state of thinking and free his mind. Shelley took laudanum, according to letters he wrote, as well as biographies. Shelley believed opium created confusion for him between cause and effect, as well as between memory and forgetfulness. Shelley began experiencing body spasms and upon visiting his new doctor, Andrea Vacca Berlinghieri, he was warned to stop taking laudanum. Shelley did not heed the doctor's warning and continued to have spasms, haunting dreams, and confusions about reality. Opium both helped with Shelley's creativity and harmed his mental state.

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Pictures From History

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OPIUM