The Masque of Anarchy

The Mask of Anarchy is a political poem written in 1819 (see 1819 in poetry) by Percy Bysshe Shelley following the Peterloo Massacre of that year. In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance.

The poem was not published during Shelley's lifetime and did not appear in print until 1832 (see 1832 in poetry), when published by Edward Moxon in London with a preface by Leigh Hunt.[1] Shelley had sent the manuscript in 1819 for publication in The Examiner. Leigh Hunt withheld it from publication because he "thought that the public at large had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse." The epigraph on the cover of the first edition is from The Revolt of Islam (1818): "Hope is strong; Justice and Truth their winged child have found."

Contents

Synopsis

Written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at St Peter's Field, Manchester 1819, 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 assembly be, of the fearless, of 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" [2]

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 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 in his essay Civil Disobedience, and later by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his doctrine of Satyagraha.[2] 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][2]

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 whose guise is taken by Hypocrisy, and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon whose ermine gown is worn by Fraud. Led by Anarchy, a skeleton with a crown, they try to take over England, but are slain by a mysterious armored figure who arises from a mist. The maiden Hope, 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 among others describe it as "the greatest political poem ever written in English".[5][6]

Notes

  1. ^ Cox, Michael, editor, The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6
  2. ^ a b c http://www.morrissociety.org/JWMS/SP94.10.4.Nichols.pdf
  3. ^ Thomas Weber, "Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor," Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 28–29.
  4. ^ Thomas Weber, "Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor," Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 28.
  5. ^ Richard Holmes (2003 (1st ed. 1974)). Shelley: The Pursuit. New York Review of Books. pp. 532. ISBN 1590170377. http://books.google.com/books?id=_dC8_eLftKwC&pg=PA532. 
  6. ^ Paul Foot (March–April 2006). "Shelley: Trumpet of Prophecy". International Socialist Review (46). http://www.isreview.org/issues/46/shelley.shtml. 

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