Oxford Inscriptions: Shelley Memorial, inside University College
The Shelley Memorial shows the body of the drowned poet Percy Bysshe Shelley sculpted in white Carrara marble. In front of him is the mourning Muse of Lyric Poetry, sculpted in bronze and resting on a broken lyre. The roof of the dome above is decorated with constellations.
The statue dates from 1893 and the poet's surname is inscribed below with a line from Stanza 42 of Shelley's Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats on each side:
IN DARKNESS / AND IN LIGHT |
SHELLEY |
HE IS MADE ONE / WITH NATURE |
The seven panels on the wall inscribed in gold leaf are modern and were added in 2002/3. The panel in the centre above the statue reads:
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
BORN AUG. 4. 1792.
DIED JULY 8. 1822.
The other six panels show the 40th and 52nd stanzas of Shelley's Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats
Stanza XL (three panels on the left)
HE HAS OUTSOARED THE SHADOW OF OUR NIGHT:
ENVY AND CALUMNY AND HATE AND PAIN,
AND THAT UNREST WHICH MEN MISCALL DELIGHT,CAN TOUCH HIM NOT AND TORTURE NOT AGAIN:
FROM THE CONTAGION OF THE WORLD’S SLOW STAIN
HE IS SECURE AND NOW CAN NEVER MOURNA HEART GROWN COLD, A HEAD GROWN GREY IN VAIN;
NOR, WHEN THE SPIRIT’S SELF HAS CEASED TO BURN,
WITH SPARKLESS ASHES LOAD AN UNLAMENTED URN.Stanza LII (three panels on the right)
THE ONE REMAINS, THE MANY CHANGE AND PASS;
HEAVEN’S LIGHT FOREVER SHINES, EARTH’S SHADOWS FLY;
LIFE, LIKE A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS,STAINS THE WHITE RADIANCE OF ETERNITY,
UNTIL DEATH TRAMPLES IT TO FRAGMENTS.—DIE,
IF THOU WOULDST BE WITH THAT WHICH THOU DOST SEEK!FOLLOW WHERE ALL IS FLED!—ROME’S AZURE SKY,
FLOWERS, RUINS, STATUES, MUSIC, WORDS, ARE WEAK
THE GLORY THEY TRANSFUSE WITH FITTING TRUTH TO SPEAK.
For more information see European Romanticism in Association: The Shelley Memorial
Percy Bysshe Shelley came up to University College, Oxford in 1810 but was expelled from the college on 25 March 1811 after refusing to disavow his authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. He drowned on 8 July 1822 at the age of 29 when sailing from Leghorn to San Terenzo, and his body was washed up ten days later near Viareggio. He was cremated, and his ashes were placed in the Protestant Ceremony in Rome.
This memorial was formally opened on 14 June 1893. It was sculpted by Edward Onslow Ford and commissioned by Shelley's daughter-in-law Jane, Lady Shelley. Her original plan was that it should be placed in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, but it was too large for the plot, so instead she offered the sculpture to University College in Oxford and donated £500 for the glass-topped building that houses it today. Designed by Basil Champneys, its dome can be seen behind the wall on the south side of the High Street that joins the the original college on the left and the new part on the right (built in 1842 on the site of a former inn that stood at 89 High Street):
The plaque to Robert Boyle that can be seen above on the wall facing the High Street is a reminder that his house once stood on the site of the Shelley Memorial. The detail below from J. M. W. Turner's painting of Oxford's High Street in 1809/10 shows the right-hand edge of the older part of University College, with workmen next door about to demolish Deep Hall.
