Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Percy Shelley was a young writer who was very talented; he was one of the most radical visionary of the romantics. His poetry carried revolutionary ideas through the century; along with William Blake, he was a celebrity in the youth culture of the 1960 (P1702). Born into a conservative aristocrat family; grandchild of a wealthy landowner and son of a member of the parliament, Shelley was a star to the radical press and an infamy to the conservative press. He later married Mary who was the daughter of his hero William Godwin.

In the Mask of Anarchy, Shelley wrote against the political system that existed in England, he opened his readers’ eyes and rebelled them against the anarchy. “As I lay asleep in Italy, there came a voice from the sea, and with great power it forth led me, to talk in the vision of poesy” (P1711). Here Shelley said that the sea encourage him to talk about the injustice going on in the form of poetry. Shelley denounced murders, fraud, the hypocrisy that existed in church, the masquerade played by bishop and lawyers and last the anarchy. He describe the king as a mean person who ride on a horse splashed with blood; meaning a lot of precious stuff on the horse which came form the sweat of the poor. The king of England had an attitude that said “I am God, and king and Law!” (P1712) “Thou are God, and Law, and King! We have waited, weak and lone… our purses are empty, our swords are cold” (P1713) I think here Shelley told the king (anarchy) that they nation has waited a long time, that they are tired, people are poor and weak, it is time for glory and gold; time for a change. “Men of England, heirs of glory’ heroes of unwritten story, nursing of one mother, hopes of her and one another, rise like lions after slumber, shake your chains to earth…ye are may, they are few.” (P171510 Here, Shelley motivated the people of England by calling them: the fruits of glory, he said that they will be stories written about them where they will be heroes if they fight for what is rightfully theirs. He called them to get up and fight like lions, that the people affected by the bad system are many and that the people doing the anarchy are few. I think Shelley was really convincing in this poem, that people who read it that time took his advice and took action; because England today is exactly what he wanted it to be: great nation with glorious children with heroic great grand parents.
“Tis to see your children weak, with their mother pine and peak, when the winter winds are bleak, they are dying whilst I speak.” (P1715) Anyone in the audience then who read this will be infuriated because it was so true. He said that their children were weak from hunger I believed, that they live in a cold house where they had no money to put windows or heat. He also finished by saying that their children were dying from poverty as he spoke. “ Tis to hunger for such diet, as the rich man in his riot, cast to the fat dogs that lie surfeiting beneath his eyes.” (P1715) he said, you are dying from hunger, not eating when you want; he referred to forced diet when the rich man dogs (not one dog but many) are full and fat. (He is basically telling them in the eyes of the rich those dogs are better than human beings)Shelley reminded me of reading Thomas Paine and specially Mary Woolstonecraft, because of the way that they based their arguments on facts and truth, to open people eyes. Those authors really had impacts on the radical changes that happened in the world: emancipation of people, balancing conservatism and democracy, respect of human beings as a whole. I think those authors are called romantics because they based their views on real events, talked about them in different ways in order to reach the audience, responses to each other views for example Paine, Woolstonecraft against Burke. It is like they are in love with the same subjects (nature, political system, social injustice)