Mark's Poetry Presentation

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? -

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Bio: Shelley was born August 4th 1792 in Sussex England. He was an influential romantic poet of the 19th century. Many of his poems advocated social reform, mainly from the ideals and beliefs of Christianity. Shelley was a devout atheist. Shelley died at sea in 1822 while sailing off the coast of Italy.

Thesis: Shelley uses aspects of nature to describe love and compare it with love in the human sense.

1.) Do you think the title is appropriate to the content of the poem ? If no why not ?
2.) To what extent does Shelley use aspects of nature to describe love ? Provide a specific example if you choose.
3.) What do you think the "spirit" symbolizes in line seven stanza one ? Is the spirit the esscence of love ?
4.) What do you think Shelley means by the lines "What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?" Is this a proclamation of Shelley's own troubled love life ?
5.) Knowing that Shelley is an atheist from the "Bio" section of this seminar why do you think he used such words as "Spirit" and "Heaven" in this poem ?
6.) How does the poem make you feel after reading it ?