Percy Shelley was a poet of fiery politics who recognised the power of language to surprise and even shock. Across three centuries and around the globe, politicians and activists have turned to Shelley’s poetry for help furthering their political causes. With specific attention to poems like ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, ‘Song to the Men of England’, ‘England in 1819’, and ‘Ode to the West Wind’, as well as to critical prose pieces like ‘A Philosophical View of Reform’ and ‘A Defence of Poetry’, this chapter situates Shelley’s views on revolution and reform in their historical context and takes some tentative steps towards exploring why Shelley’s poems have so frequently been put to political purpose.

This chapter considers Percy Shelley’s multifaceted depictions in modern popular culture as indicative of his ever-evolving reception in mainstream popular culture: he is simultaneously a rebel and an aesthete, a revolutionary and a fop, an ultra-canonical poet and a countercultural icon. Appearances of Shelley’s works – and depictions of the poet himself – in such popular media as television, film, comic books, graphic novels, contemporary fiction, pop music, and even international events like the Olympic closing ceremonies speak both to Shelley’s continued cultural relevance and to the variety of ways in which that relevance has evolved in the two centuries since his lifetime.