• ISBN13: 9788126920150
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: Atlantic
• Publication Date: June 27, 2015
• Pages: 88
• Original Price: INR 150.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 120 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Classics

A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays contains Shelley's famous claim that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world". Shelley's argument for poetry is written within the context of Romanticism. The book showcases Shelley's aesthetic philosophy accentuating his opinion that poetry brings about moral good. It exercises and expands the imagination, and the imagination is the source of sympathy, compassion, and love, which rest on the ability to project oneself into the position of another person. Poetry, according to Shelley, enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight. It strengthens the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man. The book which has been read with interest and enthusiasm ever since its first publication in 1891, contains Shelley's views on love, on a future state, on punishment of death, besides speculations on metaphysics and morals, and the nature of virtue. There is also an essay on the literature, the arts, and the manners of the Athenians, and an essay on "The Symposium" of Plato.

P.B. Shelley (1792–1822), was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regraded as among the finer lyric and philosophical poets in the English language, and one of the more influential. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death. He was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love, etc.