Ooty: The world of birds, especially the avian songsters, has been a major influence on poetic minds. The English literary world knows how the famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was moved by the melodies of the birds. As the 223rd birth anniversary of Shelley falls on Tuesday (August, 4), Dr P. J. Vasanthan, ace bird watcher, remembers “Shelly-Sky Lark” connection to pay him tributes.
According to bird watchers, larks play a significant ecological role too. “Sound of vernal showers, On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken’d flowers-All that ever was Joyous and clear and freshthy music doth surpass” - these verses in the poem “To a Skylark” penned by P. B. Shelley, a major second generation English Romantic poet, dramatist, essayist and novelist, revealed the lark’s influence on him and also reflected the fact that larks with their extravagant melodies have ensured their place in literature, Dr Vasanthan said.
Shelley and his friends John Keats and Lord Byron along with the founders of Romantic Age in English Literature, Coleridge and Wordsworth are collectively known as “The Big Five” of romanticism, he said. “Shelly completed this work in 1820 in Italy after having lost his son and infant daughter.
The poem with 21 stanzas is quite unique as it contains five lines to each stanza, the first four lines comprising three beats each and the last with twice the number,” he said. The inspiration for this poem seems to be the sight of a skylark in singing flight while taking an evening walk through the countryside near Livorno, along with his spouse, Mary Shelley, best known for her horror novel, Frankenstein, Dr Vasanthan said.
In this poem, Shelley addresses the skylark as a “blithe spirit” and not as a bird, for its song comes from Heaven. The song of the skylark is composed of pure joy as its heart pours forth “profuse strains of unpremeditated art”, he observed. At the end of the poem, Shelley entreats the bird to teach him at least half of its gladness in a way that the same may pour out of his lips for the benefit of humanity at large, Dr Vasanthan said.
