Poetry, Art and Civilization Today: Reflections on Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry"

July 8, 2022, marked the 200th anniversary of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s tragic drowning in the Bay of Lerici, Italy, at the age of 31. However, before he died Shelley left the world with one of the most impassioned and timeless defences of poetry ever composed. At a time in which Western civilization appears almost rudderless—with virtually no vision …