The famous “painted veil” which reveals life in line 1 can be a metaphor for many things: love (as described in line 8), death, or even truth (as described in the final line). Shelley is playing the role of a wise man giving us the famous warning: innocence and even ignorance may be the best path to stick with, since to be wise is to suffer. Life is an illusion, and most are clueless people who play along with the backdrop provided. The French Revolution of 1789 also generated hope and, in literature, innovative ways of expression. Poetry could be regarded as a form of expression for and about ordinary people, rather than being the preserve of a high-born well-educated elite. It was a time of experimentation in literature, marked by less conformist style and greater individuality. This term, devised after the ‘Romantic poets’, like Keats, Byron and Wordsworth, had died, describes broadly the period from about 1770 to 1830.
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