Shelley's metaphysics: An assessment

Abstract

Shelley was an idealist by temperament. For him the creations of the mind were more important than the sensible world. Abstract ideas had a great hold on him. He believed that the ideal world or the world of the spirit is the only reality: all else is unreal. His idealistic tendencies were strengthened by his study of Plato and the Neo-Platonist philosophers. All his poetry is a yearning for the perfection of the ideal – perfect beauty, perfect love, and perfect liberty.