For centuries, it has been the artists who pursue the active
role in political discourse, in one form or another: the Folk artists of the
late 1950s through the ‘60s; The Beats in the late 1940s through the ‘50s; even
back to the Greek dramatists. During the politically charged atmosphere
following the Enlightenment, there emerged a pool of writers – fueled by the
turmoil of the French Revolution and empowered with the budding philosophy of The Rights of Man – who would take up
the banner and use their voices, their words, to reject accepted social systems
such as religion, spirituality, and politics. The Mask of Anarchy, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819, is an
occasional poem written about what became known as The Peterloo Massacre. However,
Shelley understood that the political nature of the poem, as well as certain aspects
which could be considered libelous, and therefore, didn’t publish the poem
until 1832. Much has been written about the political philosophies of the
Romantics, Shelley not withstanding; much of the criticism tends to point out
that these political philosophies are often idealistic and fanciful.
Consequently, The Mask of Anarchy
tends to draw negative criticism for being a politically sophomoric and almost
juvenile treatise on a specific event in English history. On the other hand, if
the critic digs deeper into The Mask of
Anarchy – analyzes the structure, takes into account the historical
implications, and compares it to other works of the time – he will find that
Shelley’s use of common language, uses of literary devices, and overall
depiction of the event all lend themselves to readers better understanding the
society in which they live, no matter the time period.
Shelley’s Structure
To better understand the aim of The Mask of Anarchy, readers must
closely examine the structure Shelley constructs for them. The firm foundation
of the text lies in the ninety-two stanzas that comprise it. The majority of
these stanzas are in quatrain, written in seven metrical feet; there are, however,eight
stanzas comprised of five lines each. Upon closer inspection, and taken
individually, each of the quatrains is set with a rhyme scheme of AABB; Shelley
does break this rhyme scheme with seven stanzas where all four lines rhyme:
‘Tis
to see your children weak
With
their mothers pine and peak
When
the winter winds are bleak, --
They
are dying whilst I speak. (lines 168-71)
These breaks in the rhyme help to differentiate between main
themes in the poem, while the eight stanzas of five lines act, almost, as a
refrain. Also on the subject of rhyme, in stanza forty-nine Shelley employs a
clever use of internal rhyme combined with the end rhyme; it is almost as if
Shelley is toying with his reader while not actually speaking down to him. Shelley
also employs the idea of topos
throughout the entirety of The Mask of
Anarchy. Through the repetition of ideas such as “Law/Lawyers” and
“Priests” and “Kings” – as well as the repetition of phrases like “Thou art
God, and Law, and King!” and “Ye are many, they are few” – Shelley draws
attention to the central tenets he wishes the reader to heed.
The most
frequently used structural devices Shelley chooses to employ are
personification, symbolism, and allusion. Shelley's employment of these,
however, is interesting – especially in the case of personification. The ideas
of Murder, Fraud, Hypocrisy, and Anarchy almost supersede the personalities of
those they represent (Franta, 778), and in doing so, Shelley sets up a timeless
verse which can be read and applied by any reader. However, not all of the
symbols he chooses to use are as inter-changeable. Some of the symbols become
archaisms over time; many modern readers wouldn’t recognize the use of
“Morning” in line 114 to symbolize the planet Venus. Likewise, line 151 reads
“Rise, like Lions after slumber” (Longman, 788): the Lion has long been used as
the symbol for Great Britain, yet another symbol many modern readers might
overlook. It is in Shelley’s employment of allusion which allows The Mask of Anarchy to both be relevant
to its own time period, as well as to transcend time and become accessible to
readers throughout the ages. Contemporaries of Shelley would understand who
Castlereagh, Eldon, and Sidmouth were; in lines ninety through ninety-four, the
allusion to George III and his disease would not have been lost. All of these,
however, are references modern readers wouldn’t be able to comprehend without
the use of editorial footnotes. On the other hand, Shelley does utilize Biblical
allusions that transmit easier to future generations. Lines thirty through
thirty-seven liken the guise of Anarchy to that of Death, one of the four
horsemen of the Apocalypse:
Last
came Anarchy: he rode
On
a white horse splashed with blood;
He
was pale even to the lips
Like
Death in the Apocalypse. (785)
Employing a deeper analysis to the text, readers and critics
alike will note that Shelley is using the poetic voice to highlight a system he
sees as flawed in its placement of “select few over the many”; an opinion, one
might argue, Shelley has the foresight to see as a continuum. Andrew Frantan
describes it best when he writes “As Shelley sees it, poetry is a process
defined as much by its transmission from one generation to the next as the
immediate circumstances that govern its production and reception” (766). As
stated above, The Mask of Anarchy is
an occasional poem, yet being such, it should not be dismissed as a writer’s
outpouring of anger over the situation. The fact that Shelley didn’t publish
the poem until thirteen years after the event shows a bit of foresight Shelley
had as to the reception of the piece, and thus ensuring its longevity.
Shelley’s Place in
History
It is clear what inspires the writing
of The Mask of Anarchy, Shelley tells
his readers in the subtitle of the piece that it was “Written on the Occasion
of the Massacre at Manchester.” Yet, readers might ask themselves what caused
this event to transpire in the first place. To fully understand Peterloo, and
the outrage it caused, a full survey of the age needs to be considered. This
was a time of turmoil, not simply in Great Britain, but all over the Western
Hemisphere.
The
late-eighteenth century, as with most of the Enlightenment, was a time of
exploration into what it meant to be. Consequently, when people began to
question what it means to exist, they also start to ask why their stations are
what they are. Therefore, beginning as early as 1776, readers begin to see the
political changes that would lead to the formation of the Romantic era. It was
in 1776 Thomas Paine wrote his treatise Common
Sense which would help the framers of the United States of America draft
The Declaration of Independence. A short thirteen years and ten days later, The
Bastille fell in France. Citizens all over Europe and in the Anglo-Saxon
colonies would begin to start questioning their rights as citizens. This is
ultimately what leads to the Peterloo incident.
With the power struggle happening between
the classes, Shelley very well may have realized that reception of his work
might not have been as warm as he would have liked it. Knowing this, and
knowing the power of verse over prose, he then selects the poem to speak on his
behalf. Shelley was well aware of how the setting for publication affected the
message. Franta relates this by stating:
Moreover if poetry’s longevity – the
sense in which poems outlive
both their authors and their first
readers – might initially look like a
way of conveying political messages
to future readers (for whom
they would be obsolete), it is better
understood as a way of
imaginatively occupying a future
unbound by the terms of
present conflicts. (ibid., 766-7)
I think Shelley carefully chose the form of poetry, as well
as waiting thirteen years to publish it, specifically because of the situation
Franta writes about; had The Mask of
Anarchy been immediately published, prints would have been pulled and both
Shelley and his publisher would have faced strict fines and possibly
imprisonment.
Regardless
of when or how Shelley chose to publish the poem, he does not lighten his
critique of the social system one bit. As stated above, Shelley takes on not
only three lords, but the King of England, himself. It is, however, Parliament
who suffers Shelley’s wrath the most. One of the harshest indictments comes in stanzas
twenty and twenty-one:
For
[Anarchy] knew the Palaces
Of
our Kings were rightly his;
His
thesceptre, crown, and globe,
And
the gold-inwoven robe.
So
he sent his slaves before
To
seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And
was proceeding with intent
To
meet his pensioned Parliament. (786)
Here is Shelley, blatantly decreeing that the members of
Parliament are all corrupt and up for sale to the highest bidder. Earlier in the piece, Shelley challenges and
satirizes the idea of inheritable titles. In lines forty-four and forty-five when
he pens “Waving each a bloody sword,/For the service of their Lord” (785)
Shelley draws attention to the word “lord” by capitalizing it. Modern readers
might view this as a shot fired over the bow of religion, and while that may
also be true, it appears to be expressly aimed at the idea of the title of Lord
and the House of Lords.
Yet built
into the structure of the poem is the common refrain “You are many, they are
few.” This is Shelley’s call to the public to take back the control of their
lives. The irony is that Shelley could never have foreseen the Occupy Wall Street
movement, and yet this is almost exactly what he’s arguing for. This would illustrate Frantan’s point of “In
Shelley’s eyes, that is, poems not only become the objects of future readings
but vehicles that enable future readings of present conflicts” (767). Members
of the Occupy Wall Street movement would probably find inspiration from
Shelley’s stanza thirty-eight:
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, but they are few. (788)
Shelley the Romantic
It is all well and good to understand
Shelley’s place in history, as well as his poetic structure. However, to
understand either, readers must look at P.B. Shelley as a Romantic. While it is
true that the place in history informs what it means to be a Romantic, there
are certain ideals and tenets central to the movement one must understand.
One of the
first tenets of Romanticism is the eschewal of conventional forms of religion
in favor of a more pantheistic view of the world. This is best illustrated by Shelley’s
use of personification in stanzas fifty-eight to sixty-five. Shelley
personifies most of the qualities one associates with God, in the English
people fighting for their rights: Justice, Wisdom, Peace, Love, Science,
Poetry, Thought, Spirit, and Patience. In having the English commoners embody
each of these traits, Shelley is illustrating the idea that God can be found in
every creature and living being. By making the members of Parliament embody
those evils commonly associated with the devil – Murder, Hypocrisy, Fraud, and
Destruction – Shelley is encouraging the common-folk to shed off that which
hinders them from being holy, and casts a light upon those members of
Parliament in which the future generations will make judgment calls. Frantan
illustrates this in this way: “In a different sense it amounts to a rather
general way of cursing the present by making the future loom over it as a
disapproving presence” (774-5). Modern readers then cast judgment upon those in
Parliament based upon their current political situation. This is an interesting
combination of the religious with the political and how individuals demonize
others.
While
Shelley doesn’t use as many references to nature as, say, Coleridge or
Wordsworth, the
idea of getting back to Nature, and that Nature will always stand,
are well-represented in the stanzas of The
Mask of Anarchy. In stanza sixty-seven Shelley writes:
Let
the blue sky overhead,
The
green earth on which ye tread,
All
that must eternal be,
Witness
the solemnity. (791)
While earlier in stanza forty-nine, he uses illustration of
birds finding rest and beasts finding fodder.
All these go to show that there is power in the Natural, not the
artificial environments that people tend to make for themselves.
Conclusion
Oftentimes,
art in any form isn’t the best way to convey a political message; it may be
censored, misconstrued, or simply lost. However, if the piece survives, it then
becomes the job of future generations to determine the validity and integrity
of the piece. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The
Mask of Anarchy is such a piece which warrants such consideration. When
viewed from a structural, historical, and literary context, critics can see how
this piece has lasting integrity. As well as being written about a tragic
political event of its time, The Mask
also illuminates some of the wrongs in the modern political system as well.
Bearing this in mind, readers find that The
Mask of Anarchy is truly a political statement of timeless quality.
Works Cited
Frantan, Andrew. “Shelley and the Poetics of Political
Indirection.”Poetics Today 22.4
(2001): 765-793. Print.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “The Mask of Anarchy.”The Longman Anthology of British Literature.Vol.
2A. Ed., Damrosch, et al.
Boston: Longman, 2010. 783-793. Print.
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