Percy Bysshe Shelley

His best-known poems include Ozymandias and Ode to the West Wind, while Prometheus Unbound is a major verse drama. He spent his final years in Italy with his wife, the writer Mary Shelley, and maintained a literary friendship with Lord Byron. His poetry combines contemplation of nature with hopes for changing the world, and his prose addresses poetry’s purpose. He drowned at twenty-nine, leaving a lasting place in English poetry and debates about the poet’s role.