Famous Authors (1996)

Genres - Education, Visual Arts  |   Sub-Genres - Biography, Literary Studies  |   Run Time - 30 min.  |   Countries - United States  |  
  • AllMovie Rating
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

Share on

Synopsis by Forrest Spencer

This documentary looks at the controversial life of the Nineteenth Century English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley's life included being expelled from Oxford for publishing a pamphlet on the necessity of atheism and his first major poem advocating social and political reform through the abolition of several established institutions, including the promotion of vegetarianism and free-love. Eventually some of his writings were considered too radical for distribution in England. He later married a woman by the name of Mary Godwin, both traveling extensively throughout Europe. Shelley continued his political writings, advocating changes in the electoral process and improvements of lower-class education. He died early in life, a victim of the sea; his wife later wrote the classic novel Frankenstein.

Characteristics

Keywords

literature, writing, atheism, free-love, supernatural, vegetarianism, fiction, novel