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Shelley: A Tragic Romantic
A study in Fixed Stars
Traditional Astrologer Magazine; #6, Autumn 1994, pp.10-12

And when Sunset may breathe,
from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardours of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall
of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest,
on mine aëry nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

The Cloud,
Percy Byssche Shelley,
1792-1822.

Percy Shelley Portrait by Alfred Clint, 1819 - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley#/media/File:Percy_Bysshe_Shelley_by_Alfred_Clint.jpg
The fixed stars give great gifts, and elevate even from poverty to an extreme height of fortune, the seven planets do not so – William Lilly, Christian Astrology; (1647), p.621.

And so we expect that the great and famous have notable fixed star alignments in their horoscopes. Such is the case for Percy Bysshe Shelley, the Romantic Era poet who achieved fame and notoriety by his mix of revolutionary passion and artistic sensitivity. Born into wealth and attracting great fortune, Shelley also suffered many tragedies, including heartaches in love, periods of financial destitution, suicidal despondency, and the deaths of four children before his own death in a shipwreck at age 29. His eldest son would be killed shortly afterwards by being struck by a lightning bolt in a rainstorm.

Shelley lived a life of extremes and both the successes and sorrows are evident in his horoscope. The prominent fixed star alignments offer a good case study for demonstrating that fixed stars don’t exactly “give great gifts” but tend to augment and dramatise existing natal themes, making them more resonant with intensified swings. As Lilly goes on to remind us:

The fixed stars in angles give admirable preference; but if the planets do not together with that support it, usually it ends in calamity CA, p.621.
Percy Shelley horoscope

Shelley’s story

Born in 1792, the grandson of a British Baronet and the eldest son of a Member of Parliament, Shelley was raised in a politically stoked environment. He received an excellent education at Eton, then University College, Oxford, and developed a fascination for science, chemistry, philosophy, metaphysics, alchemy and the occult. Frail and sensitive of disposition but with a keen, independent mind, he suffered bullying at Eton for his alternative views but developed the confidence to stand against authority and air controversial ideas as a teenager. He was radical by nature and vocally cynical about the social expectations of Christianity, earning expulsion from university at the age of 19 after publishing the provocative pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism. His first major poem, Queen Mab, came two years later, a prelude to an illustrious career that flourished over the next eight years.

Refusing to submit to his father’s demands to apologise and secure a return to university, Shelley instead eloped with his first love, 16-year-old Harriet Grove, who bore him a daughter two years later. Both fathers cut off the finances of their errant children, so the circumstances around this first marriage were strained; Harriet left Shelley in 1814 while pregnant with his son – the heir to his fortune who would later be killed by a lightning strike at twelve years of age (chart).

At this time, Shelley became infatuated with 16-year-old Mary Godwin, daughter of his good friend and patron, William Godwin, who earned fame in her own right as the teenage author of the gothic novel Frankenstein. Godwin strongly disapproved and forbade the married Shelley to have any relationship with his daughter. Unable to bear the complexity of his emotions, Shelley attempted suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum – the attempt failed, and in July of 1814 Shelley and Mary eloped to Europe, taking along Mary’s step-sister, Claire. The trio returned in September of that year to avoid bailiffs after running up debts. Tragedy struck the following spring when Mary bore a daughter, Clara, who died after 13 days. She and Percy later had William, who died of malaria as a three-year-old, another daughter called Clara, who died of dysentery as a one-year-old and a final son, Percy, in 1819, the only child of Mary Shelley to survive infancy.

Mary Shelley horoscope
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Shelley’s second wife, best known as author of the Gothic novel Frankenstein (‘The Modern Prometheus’), 1818.
Lord Byron horoscope
Lord Byron: renowned poet (major figure of the Romantic movement) and close friend of Shelley, who visited him on the day he died.

In 1816 Shelley and Mary spent time with their friend and fellow poet, Lord Byron, in Geneva. Shelley almost drowned in a boating accident on September 8th, which prompted him to prepare his will and acted as a bizarre presage to tragic events yet to unfold. This was a very Saturnine year for three people marked by angular Saturns. 1816 was also an especially cold and gloomy year for the world – the ‘year without a summer’, which set the dark, ominous scene of Mary’s book as well as the ambience of Byron’s poem ‘Darkness’ which begins, “I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished”. Mary received the plot of her book as a night-vision at this time while Percy suffered nightmares and delusions. The desolate year ended with Shelley’s 20-year-old sister-in-law Fanny (who was infatuated with him) committing suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum, shortly before his 21-year-old wife Harriet, pregnant and abandoned, drowned herself in the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, London. Shelley married Mary three weeks later.

In 1818, Shelley, Mary, and Claire went to stay at Lord Byron’s villa in Italy. Claire now had a daughter, Allegra, fathered by Byron, who was being raised by the Shelley trio. Misfortune fell this year when the second daughter Clara died of dysentery in September. They moved to Venice for the sake of their son’s health, but he died nine months later.

Both Percy and Mary became severely depressed around this period, Mary reporting in August of 1819:

I begin my journal on Shelley’s birthday—We have now lived five years together and if all the events of the five years were blotted out I might be happy

Shelley was once again beset by creditors pressing him for payments; then tragedy struck again in April 1822 when Allegra, the 5-year-old daughter of Claire and Byron, died of typhus.

It was assumed that the strain of mediating between Claire and Byron to arrange the funeral of Allegra caused Shelley to suffer the fearful, stress-induced hallucinations he reported at the end of his life. In one vision he saw Allegra’s spirit rising from the sea to greet him. Shortly after, on 8th July 1822, Shelley and two friends sailed from a meeting with Byron when a sudden severe storm wrecked Shelley’s vessel and all three were drowned. Shelley’s body washed up on a nearby shore ten days later.

Natal analysis

The planetary configurations in Shelley’s nativity strike directly to the events of his life. The Saturn-Neptune opposition across the ascendant/descendant axis is an obvious signature of difficulties and sadness which, together with the 12th house Moon in Pisces, links to his morbid attraction to water. Even as a child, he was fascinated by water and spent long hours playing with model boats or sailing little notes in bottles.

Percy Shelley horoscope

The fixed stars Mesarthim and Sharatan of the constellation Aries rise in the chart at 0°Taurus17, and Taurus04 respectively. Their influence is destructive (of the nature of Mars & Saturn) and their sensitive placement on the ascendant enables the malefic influence of other stars to manifest as physical harm. The Saturn-Neptune opposition across the angles, describes Shelley as fragile and weak in constitution and slight of build. Ascendant ruler Venus adds to his effeminate appearance: he had long, curling hair and a “delicate almost feminine appearance”.1 Venus is in the terms of Mercury, which is closely tied to the ascendant and Saturn by trine: Shelley was tall, gaunt and walked with a stoop, classic features to be expected of Mercury aspecting Saturn on the ascendant.

Although in its house of its joy, ascendant-ruler Venus is badly afflicted: combust, peregrine and conjunct the violent fixed star Dubhe (of Ursa Major; nature: Mars), then at 12°Leo17. It makes an even more powerful conjunction with Acubens (nature: Saturn & Mercury) at 10°Leo44, because this star is within 1° of conjunction by latitude as well. Acubens is an unfortunate star on the southern claw of the Crab whose influence is associated with “malevolence and poison” as well as water-related disasters.2 Besides his own suicide attempt involving the use of poison, the death of at least two of his children was, in effect, the result of poisons entering their bodies.

A tendency to suffer misfortune through children is indicated by the afflicted 5th house ruler: the Moon – weak, peregrine and void of course in the 12th house; his children (and love affairs) became the source of sorrow and private grief. That he was able to convey the depth of his emotions through artistic expression was probably of small recompense to Shelley the man, but became the major accomplishment of Shelley the poet.

Public acclaim and professional achievement are marked by the position of the 10th-ruler, Saturn, on the ascendant. Saturn on the trine of 3rd-ruler Mercury shows a deep mind and a talent for articulating profound ideas, supporting his success as a political propagandist, writer and poet. Otherwise, Saturn is not especially dignified and, for one so young, would hardly denote the international renown Shelley garnered were it not for the ‘maximising’ effect of a cluster of beneficial fixed stars on his midheaven. Ascella (nature: Jupiter & Mercury) of Sagittarius, then at 10°Capricorn45, was close by longitude and latitude, promising good fortune and accomplishment in literary concerns. The benefic Venus/Mercury star Vega, from the artistic constellation Lyra, was closely conjunct his Midheaven at 12°Capricorn59, bringing refinement and idealism into his work. The closest star by longitude and latitude was Manubrium from the constellation Sagittarius, at 12°Capricorn06. Its influence combines the nature of the Sun and Mars, giving a passionate and dynamic flair to Shelley’s writing that made it simultaneously compelling and controversial. Several of his best works are satirical and harshly critical in tone and, true to his Sun-Uranus conjunction, he would never bow to convention. The 5th-ruler, Moon, sextile the MC, shows that poetry was an ideal vehicle for attracting public attention and professional success.

Percy Shelley - horoscope for time of drowning
Shelley - biwheel: birth and death

The manner of his death – drowning – is illustrated by many factors in this chart. Principally we expect this to be shown by the 8th-ruler, Jupiter, and certainly Jupiter is dangerously placed, besieged between the conjunctions of Mars and Neptune upon the descendant. Neptune is especially ominous because of its inconjunct aspect with the malefic South Node in the 12th house, particularly since this falls exactly on the martial fixed star Scheat of Pegasus, at 26°Pisces29. Scheat is one of the most notoriously malefic stars in the heavens, strongly associated with shipwreck and reputed to cause “extreme misfortune, murder, suicide and drowning”.3

Shelley died during his Saturn return while progressed Venus opposed the north node / Scheat conjunction, and transiting Mars, at 25°Virgo57 opposed it exactly from the south node. This repeated the configuration that occured in his earlier brush with death, when he almost died in a boating accident, which occurred with transiting Venus and Mars conjoined and opposing Scheat, at 26°Virgo48 and 25°Virgo42, respectively. His suicide attempt took place with Venus in square, at 27°Gemini01, and Saturn retrograding to a sextile of Scheat from 26°Capricorn56.

Shelley’s first wife’s suicide, which came to light on 10th December 1816, also occurred under a Jupiter-Mars conjunction (repeating the pattern in his nativity) which formed a tight trine to Scheat from 26°Scorpio59 and 28°Scorpio57, respectively. (This was a period of twin tradgedy: just weeks earlier, under a combust Mars return to his natal Mars, Mary’s 22-year-old sister Fanny committed suicide with an overdose of laudanum, unable to bear the all-round family stress and her unrequited infatuation for Shelley. His painful remorse over failing to respond to her pleas are evident in his ‘misery’ poem On Fanny Godwin).


On Fanny Godwin

Her voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery. Oh Misery,
This world is all too wide for thee.


Also of relevance to Shelley’s watery end is the fixed star Canopus, the second brightest star, of the ancient constellation Argo the Ship. Argo was once the largest constellation in the sky but has now been broken down into smaller components, with Canopus occupying the modern constellation Carina the ‘keel (of the ship)’. Canopus has an influence of the nature of Saturn and Jupiter and has always been linked to maritime and navigational matters – it is closely aligned by longitude with the brightest of all our stars, Sirius, the intemperate ‘dog star’ of Canis Major, the pair of them uniting on the cusp of Shelley’s 4th house, which signifies sunken and submerged things, as well as the end of life and the grave. As noted in my article on Canis Major, Sirius can bring great renown or great disturbance: “Its only reliable effect is to magnify the relevance of the issues it touches, with drama and heated passions typical of its influence”. The Sun, at 15° Cancer, was joined to the Canopus/Sirius/4th-cusp conjunction (opposing the cluster of stars on the MC) on the time of Shelley’s death, and the Moon in Pisces was translating by sextile between the trine of Neptune on the ascendant and Saturn within the 4th house.

Viewing the chart as a whole, no astrologer could miss the tragic, sensitive yet ‘on fire’ theme of this passionate, controversial young man who clearly felt at odds with his time and came to epitomise the revolutionary, idealistic spirit that swept the world artistically and intellectually during the Romantic Era of the late 18th century.


'The Funeral of Shelley' by Louis Edouard Fournier, 1889 - from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Louis_Edouard_Fournier_-_The_Funeral_of_Shelley_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg


‘The Funeral of Shelley’, oil painting by Louis Edouard Fournier, 1889 (source: Wikimedia)

Astrological report of Shelley’s death in Alan Leo’s ‘Modern Astrology: Astrologers’ Magazine’ vol III, August, 1892. (The time is 6:30 pm LMT, not 6:30 am shown in the graphic. This also refers to an incorrect birth time, which has since been reliably established - see astro.com for source notes).


More Natal Studies


Famous Natvities:

Aries|Taurus|Gemini|Cancer
Leo|Virgo|Libra|Scorpius
Sagittarius|Capricornus|Aquarius|Pisces



Notes & References:
1 Lesley Russell, Brief Biographies for Astrological Study, Arts 1; (Astrological Association, 1973), p.60.
2 Vivian Robson, Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology; (Cecil Palmer, 1923), p.116.
3 Ibid., p.206.
First published in the Traditional Astrologer Magazine; #6, Autumn 1994, pp.10-12.
© Deborah Houlding.