Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and ReformerSotheran, Charles
Philosophy
Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer
Sotheran, Charles
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822 -- Philosophy; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822 -- Political and social views
After a series of powerful delineations, he describes slavery and
freedom, justice, wisdom, peace and love, in exquisite terms. Then he
turns to their lamps--science, poetry, and thought, which make secure
"the lot of the dwellers in the cot."
He advises--That, on some spot of English ground, should be convened a
great assembly of the fearless and the free, who shall come from the
bounds of the English coast, and from every hut, village, and town,
where, for other's misery and their own, they live, suffer, and moan.
Also,
"From the workhouse and the prison,
Where, pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old,
Groan for pain, and weep for cold;
"From the haunts of daily life,
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares,
Which sow the human heart with tares."
When face to face with their oppressors, no force should be used, but
instead
"strong and simple words,
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye."
The description of the Peterloo massacre which follows, is one of the
finest pieces of composition in the language, and the poem concludes
by calling the "Men of England, Heirs of Glory, Heroes of Unwritten
Story," to
"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable NUMBER!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fall'n on you;
'YE ARE MANY--THEY ARE FEW.'"
In a pamphlet, written ostensibly on the death of the Princess
Charlotte, he calls attention to the fact that three men had been
executed in the interests of the "big-hearted and generous
capitalists," of whom we now-a-days hear so much from their interested
admirers, but whose wings are now fortunately clipped.
Shelley considered that there was no real wealth but man's labor, and
that speculators pandering to selfishness, the twin-sister of debased
theology, took a pride in the production of useless articles of luxury
and ostentation. Imbued with this spirit, a man of wealth imagines
himself a patriot when employing laborers on the erection of a
mansion, or a woman of fashion indulging in luxurious dress, fancies
she is aiding the laboring poor. He observes of such instances as
these:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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