The Secular Spectrum
His father, a Member of Parliament with no sense of humor, worked out a deal with Oxford to let Percy back in. All he had to do was publicly renounce his atheism. Pfft, said Shelley, or poetic words to that effect — at which point he was permanently expelled.
Without an Oxford degree, Shelley was forced to settle for becoming one of the finest poets in the history of the English language.
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