ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -"Unacknowledged Legislators of the World": The Poetry and Politics of Percy Shelley. Shelley’s assertion that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” is the clearest illustration of his belief that imaginative practice and political activism were inextricably intertwined.

Detailed explanation-2: -Shelley in his famous essay, A Defence of Poetry, made the given statement.

Detailed explanation-3: -Poets are able to inspire the masses along with bringing the revolution for social change. They inspire the government for the societal development. But they are highly unacknowledged because their impact on society is not reflected directly. Society is also ignorant for their contribution in social development.

Detailed explanation-4: -’Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’ is one of the best-known and most frequently quoted lines from the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), but, like John Donne’s ‘no man is an island’, it doesn’t come from a poem but from a work of prose.

Detailed explanation-5: -Shelley tries to contradict this and claims that “Poets are unacknowledged legislators of the world”. (This view is close to Petőfi’s idea of the poet as the leader of the people.) He sees the poet as a prophet who can see more than the average human beings.