John Webster on the Campaign for a New Shelley Memorial in Oxford

A week or so ago, the K-SAA heard of a call for a new plaque to Percy Bysshe Shelley in Oxford. A public commemoration of Shelley's time in Oxford should be placed, writer John Webster suggests, on the Lloyds Bank building at the junction of Cornmarket Street and High Street. We got in touch with John to find out more about his new campaign, and his love for Shelley's writings.Percy Bysshe Shelley was famously sent down from Oxford University in March 1811 after just two terms as an undergraduate there. Why do you think it is important that Shelley is commemorated in the city of Oxford?I was walking down New Inn Hall St in Oxford and there’s an inscription marking the spot where John Wesley preached. I’m a member of the Oxford Humanist group and I thought ‘well why shouldn’t a humanist like Shelley also be commemorated’? Some kind of new memorial to Shelley and his launch of ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ would be a reminder that there is a tradition of unorthodoxy and critical thought in Britain. It would complement the Victorian statue in University College which is very much of its time, it would create additional interest for the many visitors to the city, and create awareness of a significant moment in Shelley’s life and also generate a kind of historical perspective on wider changes. I’m aware that these things are not straightforward and depend on consultation and collaboration but am just floating the idea and trying to gather support. There’s already been an article in the Oxford Mail and I’ve set up a Facebook page at where ‘Likes’ can be registered to show support.Shelley famously travelled widely in England and Europe - and there are several plaques marking his old lodgings. Why do you think plaques to famous authors are important to their modern readers?I think that anything which adds to ones historical knowledge of a location is great; they stimulate interest in past times and social realities, and add a level of understanding. My personal preference is for plaques – which in terms of thinking time, planning, execution etc are time-consuming and costly – with a performative as well as commemorative role. So I would love there to be an inspirational Shelley quotation included, that would give people a little reflective moment.A quote could for example be these lines from his Letter to Lord Ellenborough: ‘The time is rapidly approaching when the Muslim, the Jew, the Christian, the Deist and the Atheist shall live together in one community, equally sharing its benefits, and united in the bonds of charity and brotherly love’.Why are you a Shelleyan - why are you so drawn to Shelley and his writings?I think that last quote gives a part of the reason. Back in 1812 he was articulating something that looks very much attuned to contemporary multi-belief societies and expressing our social ideal. And that was articulated all the way back then! I think it was Walter Bagehot who wrote that Shelley had a transformative political and social vision, and I’ve always found that aspect of him quite heartening. There are obviously many temptations to despair in today’s world but he’s a reminder that difficult times can be navigated and ‘il buon tempo verra’.But maybe in that quote he’s also subtly raising what I think David Hume called ‘the problem of the others’ – the difficulty that religious belief systems have when faced with other beliefs that regard themselves as equally true as theirs! That’s the thing about Shelley, there are always wheels within wheels and new perspectives always arising.Other things: I like his essays and the broad sweep of understanding they often exhibit; the way he’s a window into the classical world - I never studied the classics in depth and when he refers to ‘Ixion’s wheel’ or ‘Actaeon’s hounds’ that’s spurred me on. Also his translations of The Symposium or Ion are fabulous. And Homer’s ‘Hymn to Mercury’….I should say too that back in the mid-1970s I began working on song versions of his lyrics, rarely taking whole poems but either editing them or grouping lyrics from different poems together by theme. I’ve written and recorded twelve in all and 40 years later am still working with them in new ways. Benjamin Zephaniah helped out by recording a narrative soundtrack to give context, and that’s been a CD and now features in a DVD that I’m showing extracts from to interested groups.The songs keep me thinking about Shelley, for example the recent events for the families affected by the Manchester bombing made me think of ‘Many a green isle needs must be/In the deep wide sea of misery’ which are included in one of my songs and just seem so pertinent and potentially helpful – written after the death of Shelley’s daughter Elena of course.Finally I keep wondering how ‘The Triumph of Life’ would have ended. I like to think he would have responded to the bleak portrayal of human life he had laid out with themes along the lines of words from his Lerici notebook: ‘The Spring does not rebel against the winter – it succeeds it. The dawn does not rebel against the night – it disperses it’.