The Triumph of Life

The Triumph of Life is the last major work that Percy Bysshe Shelley composed, and it ends in the middle of a sentence. This unfinished poem has four complete sections, and the beginning of a fifth section.

Section 1 Analysis

Lines 1-40 function as an introduction to Shelley’s long narrative poem. The imagery in the opening stanzas focuses on sunrise. This moment is emphasized through the alliteration (using words that begin with the same letter) of “s.” This letter appears at the beginning of several words, including sun: “Swift as a spirit hastening to his task / Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth / Rejoicing in his splendor” (Lines 1-3). Sun is part of the alliteration, as well as consonance (repeated consonant sounds), of these lines. The letter “s” also appears in the words “hastening” and “task” (Line 1), which further emphasizes the transformative moment of sunrise. The sun’s importance can also be seen in its capitalization in Line 2. Sun, and light, are symbols of life’s power and presence.

The speaker, usually read as the poet (Shelley) himself, introduces other features of nature in the beginning stanzas. Sunrise occurs over a wooded mountain near an ocean. The specific region is indicated by “Apennine” (Line 26), which is a mountain in Italy, where Shelley lived. The ocean near the mountains is also emphasized in the repetition of the capitalized word “Ocean,” which appears in Lines 7, 16, and 38. This conveys that Italy, as a peninsula, is surrounded by seas.

Trees and flowers are also established as important symbolic features in this section. The speaker describes how “[a]ll flowers in field or forest […] unclose / Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day” (Lines 9-10). Flowers opening to the sun shows its power, and their personification foreshadows how people are mesmerized by the chariot of life in the next section. This harmonious moment is described with olfactory (the sense of smell) details. The scent of the flowers is metaphorically (compared indirectly) described as incense. The phrase “[s]winging their censers” (Line 11) evokes religious imagery, calling to mind church services and funeral processions where incense is swung in censers. Shelley, as an atheist, places the site of worship and wonder in nature rather than in a church.

The speaker is introduced as not being in harmony with the natural world around him. He is troubled by “thoughts which must remain untold” (Line 21) that kept him up all night. This can be contrasted with how the flowers wake after sleeping (open their petals). The speaker is adjacent to nature, stretching under “an old chestnut” (Line 25) tree as the sun rises. However, he soon leaves the natural world for the supernatural. In the moment when the darkness, or “Deep” (Line 27), is blotted out by the sun, the speaker enters a “strange trance” (Line 29). He stops perceiving life on the mountain and has a vision of a processional, or parade. After being “[b]athed in the same cold dew” (Line 35) as the flowers, he starts reacting to things that are not on the mountain but in his mind. Most of the next sections of the poem explore his “[v]ision” (Line 40). After Line 40, he transitions from the description of the Italian mountains to a fantastical chariot on parade. 

Section 2 Analysis

Lines 41-175 are a description of the processional that the speaker sees in his vision, or “waking dream” (Line 42). At first, he sees the “public way” (43), or street, where the parade occurs. Then, he sees the crowd, which he describes metaphorically as a “great stream” (Line 44). This metaphor is part of the motif of the river of forgetfulness (Lethe). The speaker notices that none of the people “seemed to know / Whither he went, or whence he came, or why” (Lines 47-48). They move without memory or cognition. The people are described with the simile (direct comparison) of “leaves of summer’s bier” (Line 51). Shelley alludes to (references) how poets such as Dante, Homer, and Virgil refer to the dead as fallen leaves with this simile.

The crowd of the dead is diverse in various ways, including age. In the processional, there are members of “[o]ld age and youth, manhood and infancy” (Line 52). This is a memento mori, or reminder that death comes for people of all ages. The leveling power of death is also included in the image of “trodden worms” (Line 57) . The image of worms eating the corpses of all people, regardless of their age or status, appears in many works of literature, such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Shelley alludes to this poetic tradition.

Then, he describes how the dead have diverse reactions to shadows. Their own shadows represent “death” (Line 59), and they are either drawn to it or repelled by it. They also react in various ways to the shadows made by nature—by clouds and birds. For instance, the people in the processional “shunned the shadows” (Line 63). This characterizes them as having power, or at least free will, to interact with the shadows as they please. Those on the path often don’t have sensory experiences of nature. They can’t hear the “melodious dew” (Line 67) of the fountains or feel the breeze in the forest. This reflects how the speaker has a vision while he is looking at nature—the transcendental is layered on top of the natural.

The speaker notices how the crowd becomes wilder as a chariot approaches. It is introduced with light imagery. The light emanating from the chariot is compared to the light of the moon, and this simile includes the moon’s changing phases, describing them as a mother and infant. Both the moon and the chariot have “a cold glare” (Line 77). Light imagery is central in Shelley’s descriptions of Life’s triumphal chariot, or parade car. The chariot is introduced in a stanza filled with more alliteration of the letter “s,” connecting it to the sun through the repeated “s” sound, as well as the moon through the following simile: “So came a chariot on the silent storm / Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape / So sate within a one who years deform” (Lines 86-88). Seven words in this stanza begin with “s.”

The light, however, is accompanied by darkness. The darkness can be seen in the charioteer’s “dusky hood and double cape / Crouching within the shadow of a tomb” (Lines 89-90). This implies that life, which is being celebrated in the processional, has both light and dark elements. In other words, life is accompanied by death, seen in the gravesite imagery of shadow and tomb. The shadow imagery is developed when Shelley capitalizes shadow in “Janus-visaged Shadow” (Line 94). Janus is a Roman god with four heads. The speaker notes how all of the heads of the charioteer are blindfolded, which also develops the imagery of darkness “tempering the light” (Line 93). The verb temper means to dilute, such as adding water to wine. As light is accompanied by darkness, life is accompanied by death.

In addition to describing the chariot as ill-guided due to the blindness of the charioteer, the speaker turns his attention to describing the crowd around the chariot. He compares their “maniac dance” (Line 110) to the processionals that occurred in “Imperial Rome” (Line 113). Both the historic Roman processionals and the speaker’s vision of life’s processional have captives who are chained to the chariot. In the vision, the captives have experienced many seasons. The seasonal imagery includes the “fruit and flower” (Line 124) produced until the “great winter” (Line 126). The age of the captives is represented by seeing many seasons before dying. Death is equated with winter, which comes for the famous and the non-famous alike.

Then, the speaker describes those who could not be conquered. These “sacred few” (Line 128) are associated with light imagery. They “touched the world with living flame / Fled back like eagles to their native noon” (Lines 130-31). This fiery imagery can be contrasted with the “icy cold” (Line 78) light of the chariot. Those who are not life’s captives burn brightly and are associated with the sun at noon. This fiery imagery develops how these few refuse to take religious or royal power. Those few who escape life’s traps include people from “Athens and Jerusalem” (Line 134), such as Socrates and Jesus.

Next, the speaker looks away from the captives and turns his attention to the dancers. Those who are “tortured by the agonizing pleasure, / Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun” (Lines 143-44). This is an allusion to Dante’s Inferno: the winds that torture the people who committed the sin of lust in the second circle of hell. The ecstatic dancers also allude to the maenads in Greek myth. One scholar refers to the dancers accompanying the chariot of life as “Life’s Maenadic triumph” (Abbey, Lloyd. “Apocalyptic Scepticism: The Imagery of Shelley’s ‘The Triumph of Life.” JSTOR, 1978). One quality that the Greek ecstatic dancers and Shelley’s dancers share is their wildness. Shelley repeatedly uses the term “wild” (Lines 138, 142, 149) to describe them. Also, their loose “streaming hair” (Line 147) places them in the ecstatic realm of dance, opposed to the realm of ballerinas, who wear their hair in buns.

Shelley again uses light imagery to connect the dancers with the chariot. They dance around “her who dims the Sun” (Line 148) and Shelley uses a simile that compares the dancers with moths around a flame. The dancers, like moths, are harmed by the flame—the chariot of life—that they move around. The “fiery band which held / Their natures, snaps” (Lines 157-58). Shelley uses the simile of a lightning storm to describe the shock of this. However, he can’t find where these dancers fall. Their disappearance is compared to the disappearance of the ocean when tides change. This simile connects the rain of the lightning storm with the water of the ocean, developing the water imagery. The duality of water and fire can be compared to the duality of light and dark in the chariot.

This section ends with the old people who trail behind the younger dancers. Like the youths, they “shake their grey hair” (Line 166). However, their hair flips and other movements are slower than the movements of the young dancers. They pursue the “car of light” (Line 68) in shade and “ghastly shadows” (Line 171). Again, the duality of light and dark is developed. However, like the charioteer, the old dancers are associated with coldness: “frost in these performs what fire in those” (Line 175). Youth and old age are part of a duality that can be compared to light and dark.

Section 3 Analysis  

Lines 176-295 contain the beginning of a dialogue between the speaker and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, who died before Shelley was born, is presented as a “grim Feature” (Line 190), or a shade. This ghostly being is similar to Dante’s guide in the Inferno: Virgil. At first, Rousseau’s shade blends in with its surroundings and appears to be an “old root” (Line 181) in “the hill side” (Line 182). This arboreal imagery can be connected with the “old chestnut” (Line 25) that the speaker stretches under in the first section of the poem. Both the poet and Rousseau are introduced in relation to old trees. This is the beginning of a parallel between Shelley’s vision of the processional, prior to talking to Rousseau, and the narrative that Rousseau shares with him in the poem: “Shelley and Rousseau are giving us two perspectives on the same sunrise, the same day, and the same visionary experience” (Abbey). They are both witnesses to the chariot of life moving through the forest, or the “progress of the pageant” (Line 93). Rather than join in the dance, the poet and Rousseau act as witnesses of the event.

Rousseau answers some questions that Shelley asks in this section. The first question Shelley asks, not knowing that anyone is there, is about the chariot: “Whose shape is that within the car?” (Line 178). Rousseau replies, “Life” (Line 180). After this unexpected introduction to the figure in the chariot (also called a car), Shelley asks for the shade’s name, and Rousseau introduces himself. Shelley’s audience for The Triumph of Life is people familiar with the writings of Rousseau, a well-known philosopher and autobiographer.

Next, Shelley asks about “those who are chained to the car” (Line 208). The list that Rousseau provides can be compared to the lists of people that Dante places in hell. Rousseau starts off broadly, with categories of people, before listing specific individuals. Categories are conveyed through the metonyms (associations) of official headgear with the position they represent: “they who wore / Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreathes of light” (Lines 209-10). These are, respectively, the hats worn by bishops, warriors, kings, and sages.

Then, Shelley asks Rousseau about a specific individual in the crowd, which is Napoleon Bonaparte. He is referred to as “[t]he Child of a fierce hour” (Line 217). Then, his life’s ambitions are compared to an eagle flying up the mountain and a climber falling off the mountain. Rousseau’s discussion of Napoleon’s interactions with “the world” (Line 218) causes the speaker to think about the “great world” (Line 226), as well as concepts of power, will, and goodness. These are Shelley’s interpretations of and reflections on Rousseau’s philosophical writings. Other specific individuals listed are the writer Voltaire, King Frederic II of Prussia, Immanuel Kant, Czarina Catherine II, and Leopold II of Belgium (Lines 235-36). These are political and religious leaders, as well as writers, who were conquered by life.

Then, Rousseau explains that he was conquered by his heart. It cannot be tempered, or diluted, by “tears nor infamy nor now the tomb” (Line 242). This contrasts with how the light is tempered (mixed) with darkness in the previous section. When Shelley first sees the chariot, a “faint aetherial gloom [was] / Tempering the light” (Lines 92-93). Rousseau is a shade with fewer dualities than the chariot of life. However, this leads Shelley and Rousseau into discussing The Dualities of Life, specifically the old and the new. Shelley doesn’t privilege things that are new over things that are old, and Rousseau asserts that there are always new things that “[r]ise on the bubble” (Line 249). The bubble imagery here adds to the motif of watery imagery, which includes the river of forgetfulness (Lethe) and the “melodious dew” (Line 67) around the forest in previous sections.

Rousseau returns to listing those who are chained to the chariot. Some are named outright, such as the philosopher Plato, and others are referenced in allusions. For instance, “[t]he tutor and his pupil” (Line 261) are Aristotle and Alexander the Great. This kind of allusion demonstrates how Shelley’s intended audience is familiar with philosophy. The power of the heart, or love, is again emphasized in the discussion of philosophers: “Life [...] Conquered the heart by love, which gold or pain / Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not” (Lines 257-59). This repetition emphasizes the importance of love. Rousseau describes Aristotle’s philosophy in terms of conquering ideas of other people.

Next, Rousseau focuses on Francis Bacon, whose scientific thinking is “[l]ike lightning out of darkness” (Line 270). This lightning simile can be connected to a lightning simile in the previous section: “[T]wo clouds into one vale impelled / That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle” (Lines 155-56). While the mountain lightning describes how irrational dancers (passionate maenads) fell in the processional, the lightning used in the simile about Bacon encouraged testing rational hypotheses. The lightning in the two examples is another duality of life. Rousseau describes how Bacon’s lightning reveals truths, or “treasure of the secrets” (Line 273). This description includes the Proteus myth and caves. Caves not only appear in Bacon’s writings, but also in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590). Shelley writes for an audience who would pick up on the allusions to both authors.

Then, Rousseau contrasts himself with ancient Greek poets. The “great bards of old” (Line 274), including Homer, write about passion, but are temperate in their own lives. This develops the motif of tempering, building upon the tempering of light in previous stanzas. Rousseau says he “suffered what [he] wrote, or viler pain!” (Line 279). He feels the passion that he writes about, unlike the ancient Greeks, who separated themselves from their writing. The speaker assures Rousseau that his sins are minor compared to those who are chained to the chariot of life. Shelley lists more captives, including Julius Caesar, Constantine, Gregory VII, and popes named John. Some of the captives of life’s chariot also appear in Petrarch’s “Triumph of Fame,” including Caesar and Plato. This allusion demonstrates the influence that Petrarch had on Shelley. Shelley uses imagery of light and shadow to describe the impact these people had on the world—their shadows obscure the sun, developing the symbolism of light as truth. This section ends as Rousseau asserts that he is committed to the act of creation rather than destruction, which sets him apart from the captives.

Section 4 Analysis

This section, containing Lines 296-543, is focused on Rousseau’s experience of the chariot of life, which mirrors Shelley’s perception of it. When Shelley asks Rousseau, “Whence camest thou and whither goest thou? / How did thy course begin [...] and why?” (Lines 296-97), Rousseau agrees to answer the questions that he can. In the second section, Shelley stretched in the mountain forest at sunrise. In this section, Rousseau sleeps “[u]nder a mountain” (Line 312) during an April day. This implies that they are in a similar, if not the same, location. Rousseau describes a river whose “sound which all who hear must needs forget / All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love, / Which they had known before that hour of rest” (Lines 318-20). This river of forgetting alludes to the river Lethe from Greek mythology. The Lethe was in the underworld, around the cave, and Rousseau describes the river as flowing from a “cavern high and deep” (Line 313). Both are able to eliminate a person’s memories. Rousseau lists examples of memories that the river can erase, such as a mother forgetting her dead child and a king forgetting he was overthrown by his rival. These examples support his claim that he does not remember what happened before he slept under the mountain.

Then, Rousseau, like Shelley in Section 2, describes seeing a bright light as he walks through the woods. This section develops the symbolism of light. The chariot of life is made “[o]f light diviner than the Sun” (Line 338). Here, light represents holiness. The sun’s light “burned on the waters of the well that glowed / like gold” (Lines 346-47). Light reflected in water often symbolizes mortality. Then, Rousseau describes “[a] shape all light” (Line 352) within the sun’s light. This shape is given the pronouns she/her and distributes liquids. Water and light come together to create “Iris” (Line 357), which is a rainbow, when she throws out water from one hand. Her other hand contains a “crystal glass / Mantling with bright Nepenthe” (Lines 368-69). This is a reference to Milton’s Comus, where the titular character gives out “liquor in a crystal glass” (Milton, John. Comus. Project Gutenberg, 2006. Line 65). This liquor is a drug of forgetting. Shelley also references Homer’s writings about Helen giving Telemachus this same liquid drug. Crystal refracts light, creating a rainbow, like the water she sprinkles. Also, the liquid in the glass is connected to the river of forgetting, as the “shape all light” (Line 352) bends over the river and touches it with her hair while holding the glass.

Next, Rousseau describes the dancing feet of the “shape all light” (Line 352). She interacts with various elements with her feet, including water, air, and light. Her feet seem to walk on the river’s foamy waves and “glide along / The airs that roughened the moist amethyst, / Or the slant morning beams” (Lines 371-73). She is ethereal and hovering in a fantastic way. The natural world provides the soundtrack for her dance. The music comes from the “leaves and winds and waves and birds and bees” (Line 376). Her dance is also described as inducing memory loss; dance can be compared to the drug in her crystal glass or the river. In this case, she does not hover, but rather tramples on the thoughts of her audience, extinguishing them. The “embers [and] fires” (Lines 387-88) she tramples in the simile represent thoughts, developing the fire aspect of the poem’s light symbolism. This leads into a duality of life, specifically light and dark. Her act of extinguishing thoughts by dancing on them is compared to day replacing night. This simile recalls the sunrise in the first section of the poem.

Then, Rousseau asks the woman the kinds of questions that Shelley asked him. He wants her to “[s]hew whence I came, and where I am, and why—” (Line 398). She offers him the crystal glass and tells him to drink. His rising from the ground to accept her offer is compared to a lily opening in the morning sun. The effects of the drug are described as first turning his brain to sand, then as inducing a vision. Rousseau uses a simile of a wolf pursuing deer to describe how the vision comes to him. This can be compared with how Shelley’s vision comes over him in the first section of the poem. Rousseau sees a light similar to sunrise: “As veil by veil the silent splendour drops / From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite / Of sunrise ere it strikes the mountain tops” (Lines 413-15). This references the symbolism of Lucifer as the light-bearer and the morning star (Venus). The sun obscuring the morning star is compared to how the light of the chariot of life obscures the “shape all light” (Line 352). Light is also compared to the scent of a flower (a jonquil) and the song of a “Brescian shepherd” (Line 422). These are examples of synesthesia, where an experience is conveyed through an unusual sense.

Rousseau tracks the “shape” (Line 425) along the river as he walks through the forest. He compares the shape to a silent ghost and the sun on a cloudy day. The silent shape is contrasted with the loud chariot of life moving through the forest, developing a duality of life. It has “savage music, stunning music” (Line 435). Rousseau, like Shelley, compares the chariot of life and its crowd to a processional after a war. There is a rainbow (Iris) of victory over the chariot and the wild earth below it. The light symbolism is developed through the chariot’s light being so bright that no shadows can be cast by natural elements like stones and leaves. This can be contrasted with the light and shadow duality of life that appears at various moments earlier in the poem. The dancers around the chariot are compared to pieces of dust in a sunbeam.

Like Shelley in the second section, Rousseau describes the various people around the chariot. Some play in the grass and ignore the chariot while others are so entranced by the chariot that they cannot look away. Their inaction leads to a reinstatement of the light and dark duality of life. Once the chariot gets far enough past them, they are shaded by the mountain. The circling of the active dancers around the chariot are compared to clouds circling the moon. This simile is contained within a larger simile that compares the crowd to “bubbles on an eddying flood” (Line 458). Rousseau joins this flood of dancers. He distinguishes himself from shadows, solitude, the river Lethe, and “the phantom of that early form” (Line 464). After this list of things that he is not, he describes plunging into the “cold light” (Line 468) given off by the chariot. This develops the association of light with water.

Rousseau then describes phantoms flying around a forest grove. This is a “wonder worthy of the rhyme” (Line 471), or poetry, of Dante. Again, Shelley assumes his audience to be familiar with Dante’s Divine Comedy with this allusion. He takes a moment to discuss the importance and immutability of love in Dante’s work. Then, Rousseau continues his description of the phantoms, which includes a simile comparing them to bats in the sun, developing the light and dark duality of life. This theme is furthered developed by how some of the phantoms “did fling / Shadows of shadows” (Lines 487-88). This can be compared with the “shape all light” (Line 352) within the light of the chariot of life, in that both images contain smaller elements of darkness and light within larger elements. Several similes are used to further describe the actions of the phantoms. They are compared to the flying, dancing, and chattering of eaglets, elves, and apes. As in Lines 209-10, metonymy is used to describe positions of power. The phantoms “upon the tiar / Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played / Within the crown” (Lines 496-98). The tiar represents the power of the pope, and the crown represents the power of the king.  

Rousseau continues to describe the different phantoms. Some are interested in “old anatomies” (Line 500), or skeletons, that “worms did monarchize” (Line 504). This is an allusion to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, when the titular character says, “A certain / convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your / only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and / we fat ourselves for maggots” (Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Open Source Shakespeare). This allusion develops the idea that death eliminates the power structures found in life. Some of Rousseau’s descriptions of the phantoms mirror Shelley’s descriptions of the processional in Section 2. Both use the imagery of “gnats” (Lines 46 and 508) and “leaves” (Lines 51 and 528). Additionally, Rousseau uses watery similes to describe some phantoms, comparing them to melting snowflakes and tears. This develops the water motif that runs throughout the poem.

Next, Rousseau describes how aspects of life leave the phantoms. Their beauty, strength, and freshness “fell off like dust” (Line 521). This is a duality of life—it is accompanied by death. When one dies, they no longer have the “grace / Of life” (Lines 522-23). The shadows are similar to the aspects of themselves and each other. They are shaped by the light of the chariot. This process is described with the simile of sun shaping clouds, continuing the light symbolism. The light of life symbolically shows its power over the phantoms. Rousseau’s discussion of the “shadows” (Line 528) mirrors Shelley’s discussion of the “shadows” (Line 63) in Section 2.

At the end of Section 4, Rousseau describes the ending of the day. The “day / Was old” (Lines 538). As the day ends, the followers of the chariot die or grow weary of the manic dance. They fall “by the way side” (Line 541), near where Rousseau is talking with Shelley. This completes the cycle that began with the sunrise in Section 1.

Section 5 Analysis

Shelley only completed five lines in this section: Lines 544-48. As Rousseau and Shelley look at the passing chariot of life, Shelley asks, “Then, what is Life?” (Line 544). Rousseau’s answer is cut off in the middle of a line: “Happy those for whom the fold / Of” (Lines 547-48). This sentence fragment remains unclear, as Shelley died before completing The Triumph of Life.