Peter Bell the Third

Peter Bell the Third is a fierce mock-epic that turns one man's stupidity into a savage comedy of religion, politics, and literary ambition. In a mock-dedication and prologue, the poem ridicules Peter Bell as the very emblem of dullness while parodying epic grandeur, theological certainty, and claims to poetic immortality. From the start, heaven, hell, and fame are treated with the same irreverent seriousness. Peter is split into unstable selves, then carried through a grotesque afterlife where fear, piety, and self-deception shape his fate. The Devil appears as an ordinary social force, and Hell becomes a biting mirror of London life, crowded with lawyers, politicians, financiers, hypocrites, and social corruption. Yet amid the satire, Peter's imagination awakens: a poet's vision stirs him toward beauty, memory, and creative power, and he begins to write verse drawn from rural life and natural feeling. His brief rise is followed by vicious reviews, careerist compromise, and a final plunge into moral emptiness. As Peter gains status through corruption, his dullness spreads like a contagion, deadening households, readers, and even the landscape itself. Darkly comic and relentlessly irreverent, the poem satirizes damnation, criticism, ambition, and the social forces that turn spiritual vacancy into public success. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

Percy Bysshe Shelley est né en Angleterre en 1792.Suite à la publication d'écrits révolutionnaires, il fuit son pays en 1818. Il s'installe alors en Italie, où il écrira ses plus belles oeuvres. Il meurt en 1822 dans le naufrage de son voilier.