The Mask of Anarchy is a political poem written in 1819 (see 1819 in poetry) by Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron. The novelist Mary Shelley was his second wife following the Peterloo Massacre The Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 gathered at a meeting to demand the reform of parliamentary representation of that year. In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving socio-political goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence.[1]
The poem was not published during Shelley's lifetime and didn't appear in print until 1832 (see 1832 in poetry), with a preface by Leigh Hunt Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, Middlesex, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA. His father, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his mother, a merchant's daughter and a devout Quaker, had been forced to come to Britain because of their loyalist sympathies during the American War of Independence. Hunt's father took holy orders,.[2]
Shelley begins his poem with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time "God, and King, and Law" - and he then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action: "Let a great assembley be, of the feerless and the free". The crowd at this gathering is met by armed soldiers, but the protestors do not raise an arm against their assailants:
- "Stand ye calm and resolute,
- Like a forest close and mute,
- With folded arms and looks which are
- Weapons of unvanquished war.
- And if then the tyrants dare,
- Let them ride among you there,
- Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,
- What they like, that let them do.
- With folded arms and steady eyes,
- And little fear, and less surprise
- Look upon them as they slay
- Till their rage has died away
- Then they will return with shame
- To the place from which they came,
- And the blood thus shed will speak
- In hot blushes on their cheek.
- Rise like Lions after slumber
- In unvanquishable number,
- Shake your chains to earth like dew
- Which in sleep had fallen on you-
- Ye are many — they are few" [1]
Shelley elaborates on the psychological consequences of violence met with pacifism. The guilty soldiers he says, will return shamefully to society, where "blood thus shed will speak/In hot air blushes on their cheek". Women will point out the murderers on the streets, their former friends will shun them, and honorable soldiers will turn away from those responsible for the massacre, "ashamed of such base company". A version was taken up by Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in his essay Civil Disobedience Civil Disobedience is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his, and later by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Hindi: मोहनदास करमचंद गाँधी, Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી, pronounced [moːɦən̪d̪aːs kərəmʨən̪d̪ ɡaːn̪d̪ʱiː] ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian in his doctrine of Satyagraha Satyagraha is a philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance developed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as "Mahatma" Gandhi). Gandhi deployed satyagraha in the Indian independence movement and also during his earlier struggles in South Africa. Satyagraha theory influenced Nelson Mandela's struggle in South Africa under.[1] Gandhi's passive resistance was influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action.[3] It is known that Gandhi would often quote Shelley's Masque of Anarchy to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India.[4][1]
The poem mentions several members of Lord Liverpool's government by name: the Foreign Secretary, Castlereagh who appears as a mask worn by Murder, the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, PC was a British statesman, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804 whose guise is taken by Hypocrisy Hypocrisy is the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one's actions. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie, and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon PC KC FRS FSA was a British barrister and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1801 and 1806 and again between 1807 and 1827 whose ermine gown is worn by Fraud The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent "discoveries", e.g. in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain. Led by Anarchy The tumult of the English Civil War led to the term to be taken up in political philosophy.[citation needed] Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647:, a skeleton with a crown, they try to take over England The area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant, but are slain by a mysterious armored figure who arises from a mist. The maiden Hope Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, revived, then calls to the people of England:
- "Men of England, heirs of Glory,
- Heroes of unwritten story,
- Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
- Hopes of her, and one another;
- What is Freedom? Ye can tell
- That which Slavery is too well,
- For its very name has grown
- To an echo of your own
- Let a vast assembly be,
- And with great solemnity
- Declare with measured words, that ye
- Are, as God has made ye, free!
- The old laws of England--they
- Whose reverend heads with age are grey,
- Children of a wiser day;
- And whose solemn voice must be
- Thine own echo--Liberty!
- Rise like Lions after slumber
- In unvanquishable number,
- Shake your chains to earth like dew
- Which in sleep had fallen on you-
- Ye are many — they are few"
Political authors and campaigners such as Richard Holmes, Paul Foot Paul Mackintosh Foot was a British investigative journalist, political campaigner, author, and long-time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He was the grandson of Isaac Foot, who had been a Liberal MP, and the son of Hugh Foot (who was the last Governor of Cyprus and, as Lord Caradon, the British Ambassador to the United Nations from 1964 among others describe it as "the greatest political poem ever written in English".[5][6]
Notes
- ^ a b c d http://www.morrissociety.org/JWMS/SP94.10.4.Nichols.pdf
- ^ Cox, Michael, editor, The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6
- ^ Thomas Weber, "Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor," Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Thomas Weber, "Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor," Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 28.
- ^ Richard Holmes (2003 (1st ed. 1974)). Shelley: The Pursuit. New York Review of Books. pp. 532. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 1590170377. http://books.google.com/books?id=_dC8_eLftKwC&pg=PA532.
- ^ Paul Foot Paul Mackintosh Foot was a British investigative journalist, political campaigner, author, and long-time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He was the grandson of Isaac Foot, who had been a Liberal MP, and the son of Hugh Foot (who was the last Governor of Cyprus and, as Lord Caradon, the British Ambassador to the United Nations from 1964 (March–April 2006). "Shelley: Trumpet of Prophecy". International Socialist Review The International Socialist Review is the name of three socialist magazines/periodicals published in the United States. The focus of articles cover a broad range of approaches, from historical, to political, to economic, from a left-wing perspective. There have so far been three publications of this name, with little direct continuity (46). http://www.isreview.org/issues/46/shelley.shtml.
External links
Categories: Civil disobedience Categories: Activism by method | Anarchist theory | Nonviolence | Protests by type | Pacifism Categories: Peace | Nonviolence | Core issues in ethics | Political theories | Peace movements | Nonviolence Categories: Conflict process | Activism by method | Ethical schools and movements | Behavior | Core issues in ethics | Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley Categories: Works by Percy Bysshe Shelley | English poems | Poetry by author | 1819 works Categories: Works by year | 1819 | 1810s works | Political history of England |
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