Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Let’s face it. In our complicated lives who really cares about nature and beauty? Marred by the pressures of responsibilities and expectations, most of us never stop and smell the roses nor do we stop and think about how simply wonderful the world is. However, Percy Shelley does. In his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” Shelley reflects upon the awesome power of beauty and his relation to it as a humble servant, one who cherishes it and respects it but will never hoard and control it. Projected in a rhyme scheme of ABBAACCADDEE for seven stanzas, Shelley explores the character of beauty, the role of beauty, and his relation to the spirit of beauty.

Intellectual beauty, what does Shelley mean by this? Is it inner beauty or something marvelous like a beautiful building? Actually it is neither. According to Shelley, intellectual beauty is a sudden realization, almost divine, of the splendor and greatness of our natural world. Understanding this concept is the first step the reader must take to understand the poem. As Shelley describes the nature of intellectual beauty in the first and second stanza, it will be important to know that beauty according to Shelley is not the beauty as we know it.

As stated earlier, Shelley devotes the first two stanzas, explaining the nature of beauty through similes. Shelley begins by personifying beauty as “The awful shadow if some unseen Power/ Floats thought unseen amongst us,—visiting/This various world with an inconstant wing” (1-3). Through words such as “shadow” and “visiting”, Shelley establishes beauty as a living entity. Doing so allows him to address beauty directly without trying to use round about means to talk about an abstract idea; Shelley brings down beauty to the level of humanity. F...

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...ve all human kind” (81-85). These lines are so beautiful that I cannot find the words to explain them! What a thought! Shelley has bestowed Beauty with the highest honor that human can give; the honor of worship. Shelley magnificently summarizes the whole effect of Beauty, “to fear himself, and love all human kind.” Just like that, the shadow of Beauty can make a being feel incredible while at the same time giving hope for humanity and that it may escape its trap of life.

Many of us can never hope to achieve such a connection with nature. According to Shelley, it is the highest ideal yet I know I will never get to fully know and appreciate it. I still wonder why Beauty was so graceful to Shelley. Nevertheless, our lies in the fact that few of us may attain the benediction of Beauty and therefore lead the rest of us to it, even if it is just for a few moments.