Bottor of ^L)Ilos(Opftp

THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS IN SHELLEY'S POETRY

ABSTRACT

THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF Bottor of ^l)ilos(opftp

BY SYED ASIM ALI

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 1887 Shelley's social and political idealism was occasioned by the degenerate state of affairs of his day, and shaped by Ror.antioisri ani the ^^revalent prof.resslve political philosophy. Eqaality, Liberty and Fraternity vrere f:-.(=^. cornerstones of his thca^hL, he used his talent of poetry for arousing and avakening mankind, and in keeping witli his credo of poets as the unacl-niovjledged legislators of mankind he sought to bring out some of fundamental changes in society. It v/as a veritaMe Utopian view of life, A number of evils like fraud, hypocrisy, treachery, economic disparity and exploitation, religious bigotry and intoleration, persecution, morEngland and France. The rich did almost no work and TX)ssessed more to waste than to eat. The poor had to exhaust himself before he got a mere poor subsis tence, Kisery, disease, starvation and death were alr.ost as common in the poor section as luxuries and voluptuousness in the rich class. The tvro extremes of sl-^very and liccury had debased the very human nature. The economically weak were also deprived of their basic human rights and treated some times \'K>rse tha.\ animals. Food riots and violence vrere common. The tendencies of dissent were ruthlessly crushed 'I

both in relisious and political circles. The lav; makinc and enforcing agencies v.'ere corrupt and so was the adninis- tration. King and clergy enjoyed monorioly in all social, political and religious affairs. Irrespective of their other differences, the '-Tiig and Tory parties held a unanimity about tiie monarchical set up of society. Reacting to the situation, Voltaire, Rousseau, Ilolbach and Ilelvetius etc. severely criticised the feudal, monarchic and aristocratic set up.

Religion, unfortunately, failed to provide its promised panacea in actual terms. 3ome thinkers attacked the role of clergy vhich v/as alvrays in league v.dth the exoloi- tative forces against the general manlcind Avhose salvation it jbroclained to seek. Instead of undertaking the charitable and philanthropic activities, they had contented tlienselves merely vdth maintaining the records of marriages, births, deaths, and baptism etc. Hobbe ridiculed such a religious belief and -./ith Locke he advocated a new mechanistic and materialistic view of life. Voltaire and Rousseau were inspired by these ideas and in turn influenced God\d.n, Words worth, Coleridge, Shelley and other Romantics. However, a change on the social and political planes was in the offing in both the countries - a revolutionary one in case of FraJice and evolutionary one in case of England.

Breathing in an atmosphere of corruTDtion, poverty, excesses of privileged classes, pervading moral banlcruptcy and rising radical intellectualistri, Shelley's roi..antic imagination proved much more fertile and creative to bear ever nevf and original ideas. Ihe French social and political thought ciilminated in the form of tlie l-'Y^^nch Revolution, which sent its tremors across the lengtii and breath of the continent. I'iajority of the English and French thinkers as v/ell as poets saw in tlie Revolution the concretisation of their dreams of equality, liberty and fraternity, \^ereas a few opposed the event ^'/hich was aimed at demolishing the monarchical order and establishing republican democracy. Homantics like 'ordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Southey, Shelley and even Keats acclaimed it as the saviour of mankind. But, the degeneration of the Revo lution into tyranny disillusioned many of them like /ordsworth and Coleridge, ^he impact of the Revolution was so great that even Keats couH not escape it. However, a fev/ years had passed over the event by the time Shelley began composing poetry. Therefore, instead of indulging in any kind of emotional outburst, he treats the Revolution as a rich subject for social and political consideration. In this unique experi ment of history, he found answers to m.any of his queries and fron it he drew many of his rr.ost significant inferences. A nmiber of his prose and poetic writinps like pai.inhlets a.'.:

L-iuee n Mab. The Revolt of Islar.. Prometheus lAibound and Kejlas bear the clear imprint of the event, fhe 'Heforn. Act' of 1832 v/as tile partial f'jafil-.ent of Shelley's reforir.ist ideas dervied from the reflection on tlie lievolution. Shelley's verse reflects his close acq-iaintance --ith the currents and cross-currents of the social and political thought as well as tendencies of his tme.

The poetry of 3:ielley shows th<3t he was unde:^ the influence of the social and political ideas of certnin social and political thinkers like Voltaire, Ho-isseau, Paine, Godwin, Kary "•'ollstonecraft, "olbach, "lelvetlus etc. He was also familiar with the views o" Condorcet, Saint Simon, ^'uesnay, Mercier dela Riviere, Burke, Price, Joseph Priestley and others. His early political tracts written before his major poem Queen Mab throw light on his early social objectives and summarise his social and political responses. "-. His three pamphlets of 1812, addressed to the Irish people show how he was engaged witli the thames of annihilation of monarchy and its established institutions, the replacement of monarchical system v;ith a republican fori" of den.ocracy, complete freedom of press and expression, economic and social equality, legal jT^stice, end of slavery ara oppression, pursuit of hapniness and prosperity as governrent's duty, non-violence, individual enlightenment and refer:.! and restoration of hijuiian dignity. The tracts like Ifecessitv of Athelsr. and Refutation of Deis:., clinch his atheistic (more appropriately non-conforr:;ist) creed. It seems as if refuting the existence of God v/as an strategical inevitability for him to remove the basis on which rests the corrimt social and political str'cicture. He traces all social and political evils to the false concept of God and views religion as a source of weakening of numan will and spreading cowardice, superstition and selfishness.

Shelley's poetry aboands in "' •; social and political themes from the first to the last. A niLmber of his chief characters and the individual embodiment" of certain ideals of the French Revolution. Shelley undertalies to condemn in Queen Mab the institutionalisation of society v;hich, he thinks, is the mother of numerous other social and political evils, ê process of institutionalisation begins v/ith the belief of the common masses in a false concept of an arbitrary, tyrannical God. This belief sets the pattern of the human behaviour, ê also hints at the three stages of the growth of religion, the last of which proves tlie most fatal by making man take pride in his submission, slavery and debase ment. King and clergy, being the rer>resentative of God share in common the despotism, tyranny and callousness of tlie God of their belief and always remain united in their aim of inf lie tine miseries upon and exploiting manlînd. The trend generates slavery to which he traces all the other social evils. Slavery deprives man of his inherent nobility and hunanness. Shelley disapproves of both the status of man, king and slave, as both snatch fror:' him his humanity. Christ could also not escape his acrimonious attack in this poem. Refuting the existence of God and calling Him a false notion, Shelley acknowledges the existence of a povrer, necessity, v;hich sways and moves the universe. He envisages the arrival of a hew era in the disappearance of the prevalent concept of God and prevalence of the concept of necessity. Economic disparity and bigotry are other sources of degrading hunanity. Commerce based on inhuman principles redices even love, the su-oreme law, to a saleable commodity. In this poen, Shelley appears to suggest that the institutional reform is necessary for bringing about a charge in the social and political conditions. But such a reform is not possible unless a change in basic concepts takes place. Once, such a change occurs, the world shall enjoy eternal peace, progress, happiness, justice, sympathy and fellow-feeling. Though, the germinated seeds of the deeper philosophical thought can be observed scattered in this poem, it dealS mainly v/ith Shelley's coping \vd.th the social and political problems on the surface of institutions. The allegorical style is adopted to suit the purpose. Anotiier major vork I'he I'^êvolt of Isl,qjr.T shows a marked advaixe in Shelley as a social and political thiriier. In spite of coming across on several occasions in the poem the same ideas, symbols, figures of speech and m.-annerisms of style as in <ûeeq Tâb. vo notice a gradual sliift froii. rhetoricism to reason and from, allecory to the use of s:,'mbo- lism and imagery, subtler modes of expression. Vague necessi tarianism here takes the form of comparatively concrete concepts of good and evil, "e trices the desirable or undesir-^ble upheavals on the surface of human society to be the manifestation of the interaction of the same forces of good ana evil locked in eternal conflict. These tvro forces are symbolised in the poem, by the eagle and tiip serpent. rood ic basically av.'areness and consciousness, ••hereas evil is the darkness of ignor-ince and arMtrariness. In the poem., the awakened populace of the Golden City strv^gles against the dark forces of Otlirian. 'rhoôgh their revolution f::ils -Jitimately, lilie the French Revolution, Slielley draws :;:any significant inferences from it. •'•'he main focus in this >0Gr. is on understanding the real nature of evil in its various manifes tations. Shelley might not have overcom.e evil in the r-oem but many hints are scattered in it to show hov/ his mind vas pre-occupied with different remedial m.easures ^/nich acfiuired feature •'.-hilosophical concreteness h-' the ti'-.e he ••rot': 8

PrO'letileur, '-'nbo-jcn:-^.. -he t'ocr.os o' love, r'atic-nce, co'^j-i/e, steadfactness, exercise o' -'ill po'^'er aii-i toler nee are recurrent, -'he v.'or.an tenderin,^ the voundo-j snake s;/r.'-iX)lisos love as the nost efficacious corrective Pleasure and lier Ixiat stands for universal ho'-.e. Cythna is a rara-on o"" solf- knov.'ledge and n^-'-areness. Laon a^^'-ears on varioas occasiohs to be the embodii.ient of love and ;;~>atience. -he failure of revolution is due to the insuf*'icierit desree of avrareness and love. 3helley has suggested here that tyranny rr.ay strengthen tyranny and not sitenlant it. It is only love -rhich has the sustainin-: -pover. Ali-.o st trie sarr.e targets of his criticism as in '-ûeen V-t^'o recur in tliis poem to be considered in a maturer philosor)hical ..ersoective of good and bad, here also, almost all the social aiid political evils lil-:e L-.onarchy, slavery, famine, misery, violence, lust, greed, hypocrisy, ambition and treachery etc. issue forth from, tlie same false concept of an arbitrary "-od conceived in the human image. The change in -^helley' s tone and a shift from allegory to s^nnbolisn-. shovs his deer concern for reaching the core of the social and political problems, ^'lie development of the theory of good and evil explains his movemiont fromi substance to essence. The Revolt of Islair. serves as a bridge between the utterly radical vorld of '-ûeen Mab and the highly ideal vorld of Prometheus Unbound. All the social aixi political therr.os ±n Prometheus 'Jnbound derive their rieaninp,fnlncss and relevance fror;. the deep -nhilosophical inferences on which they rest. Here, too, Shelley holds resr>o2isible the false concept of Ood and religion, personified in Jupiter. However, 3helley's concept of God has undergone a revolutionary change, ihelley reaches the inference of the unity of 3einc, Fror.:etheus, of which human beings are ix)rtions. Prometheus is the purest universal Intelligence. Evil is only a miscalculation by and distroted nrojection of t}ie purest Latelligence. -ê al ;o holds that all being exists in one metaphysical reality, Demogorgon, in the form of potentialities whence they are released or to which witlidrawn in keeping v;ith tiie proportion of the conflic ting foi-ces of love and hate as they may be in actuality. God is in fact the name applied to the distortion or shadow of the purest Intelligence and symbolises tyranny and desDotism. Evil nroceeds from tlie same. Donogorgon can be stimulated only through love and he alone can withdraw evil from actuality. Love cannot be evoked except by the exercise of human will. As human will tends towards love, hate is bound to withdraw, since one compels the other out. As soon as Prometheus withdraws the curse breathed on Jupiter, the latter's fall follows at the hands of Demogorgon. 10

Slielle;- believer: fi-^.'c ^lato aii;;. love eterr.ril Dotentlalitiec i:i Dcr-or-or-on nn' t'..o ^rrcrtlo^: of ty.cir release into act'i-^lity defends 0:1 tiê i2icli::at\o:: of h-u-.an -.'ill tovards therr. Evil begets evil ••'.ic'' c^-n 'e :u_r]-:lTnted b;- love ^^lone. 2v'^ry croate-l o"t ^'"^t i- r"' ::>'"'r- vient to liuirian "ill, hut '.r.^ran \:ill is suhservic.:-': o.:!;- to love. Love sustains the ""-asic iiar.-.ony o the ^juiiverct. lo divorce tne concept of a s'lpervisory, an thro porno rpiiic ôd is necessary to remove fror: tl:e v;orld all evil and slavery. The social and political evils are only an apparent nanifestation of the basic disorder, caused to the natural eq-iilibriair. of the universal value-systen, originatinj in t;ie :..iscalc-alation of h-ju.on Liind. If r.an '.-ills there -.'oulu "oe no evil f/êre ic none. Ihe poer. carries an ei-rhasis on the iîdividml reiorr- rather tlaan on institutional reforrr.. Ali.io st the sa; c rhllo- sor)hical inferences have been voice>I in Zie hash of Arnrch'^. Cenci. Svellfoot uie T^.^rant and hellas etc. "he visio.i of r.:illeniu] is a cor:i:;.on ther.e to all these poe- s. -"ie ther:e of t:ie r.oral perfectibilit;- of nan is also reciirrent, •.Tnatever be the r:ianner of Shelley'3 exr;loratiou —r.'iiloso- Tîiical or otherwise — at the core lies the sa;.".e cocial and political quest. He does not contend himself -•'ith s'oggesting sone a-'t)a.rent changes, but r.-.a}:in'" a Toersistent effort of 11

rciCjU.X' ^'i- core o£ t'^f^ Droblei , he siiccestf: sO; e c ic . uacic re- e ial :r.eac;urGs as rnv eliniinatc t!ie so Jrcos froi \'hich evil originates and rianifests itself on t'le suriaco of hur.î: society. In order to revolutionise the hLv-^n society in accordance -.'ith his êciiLiar soclo-]301it3c?l vision, tie touches unon the I'ô st sensitive factors lyin^" at the core of the ^ roolen so that the social and rôlioical contours are autonv-tic ally readjusted to suit tne riiii^pose. Shelley's significaîce rerains, therefore, a'xive hoard as a rajor revolutionary poet in snite o"f the rer.arks he received from I-'atthev -mold ani I'.3. Eliot. THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS IN SHELLEY'S POETRY

THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF Bottor of $()tlo£(op()p

BY SYED ASIM ALI

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 1887 \x"1

15 SEP \m

^^fiSft ^^C77,o/ v

^X)-^ or^cic

T3527 C 0 N T E fj T S

Page

PREFACE

CHAPTER I SOCIAL AfJD POLITICAL BnCKGROUrUj 1

CHAPTER II INTELLECTUAL OACKGRCUND 29

CHAPTER III SHELLEY'S 1*1 A JO R SOCIO-POLITICAL 72 PRE- OCCUPATIONS

CHAPTER IV SOCIAL A''L) PULITICRL DL'EISIUI.S 97 IN qUEEf-J P1AB

CHAPTER U SOCIAL AF^JU POLITICAL J II-IEIJS luUS IN 'THE REUOLT OF ISLAM' 169

CHAPTER VI SOCIAL AfJD POLITICAL OinEfJSIONS 257 IN 'PROI^ETHEUS UNBO UfJD.TO SK OF A!>iftRCHV AND OTHER PLAYS WITH EflPHASIS ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF SHELLEY'S IDEAS

CONCLUSION 355

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1- XIU E E I H A S. I

Shelley's poetry has achieved rich critical attention froir. a variety of angles. Some of tlie more significant studies deal with his social and political thought. Others have sought to trace his social and political theories on the basis of his political writings, or highlight the perspective of contempo rary social and political thought and its impact on the poet's vjork. But, these studies tend to slur over the social and political dimensions running tlirough Shelley's poetical works. His verse is not usually treated as an independent subject of exposing his social and political responses. Shelley's Tjoetry has been foeussed upon in this thesis to achieve the purpose. Though, for the sake of providing background the contemporary social and political objectives as reflected in his early poli tical tracts, and the major socio-political pre-occupations of Shelley have been taken into consideration, the thrust has been on a close study of the text of some of his major poems, marking significant stages of Shelley's evolution, ESfert has also been made-to identify and evaluate the social and political dimensions as they emerge from the study of his poems. The philosophic bearings of Shelley's social and political thought have also been taken into account, with a view to bring into light his philoso phic evolution, and nature of his approach to the core of the problem. Snecial thanks are due to Late iJr, oalaj;'i?.trJLiah Khan under \-jhose kind guidance the work \,'as conceived, Sincerest and heartfelt thanlis go to Professor 'asoodul Hasan, ex-Chairnan, Dept. of English, :ti:U, Alig^^.rh, v;ho took pains to read the manuscript and irhose invaluable suggestions enabled me to carry out iir.provements in it. Selfless help and p.ncour»pemf»nt fror Dr. A,.R. Kidv:?^i has a"l so contributed to the com-Dletion of this •'.•rork in no small measure. I an grateful to him. I ajn also thankful to Professor Kunir Ahiiad, Chairman, Dept, of English, AJ-'TJ, Ali^arh, for his ungradcing support at every stage.

( Syed Asiir. Ali ) CHAPTER I

SOCIAL Aiv'D POLITICAL

ilAS.K2.^c^;:D The mental evolution of Shelley owetfa great deal to the multidimensional movement of Romanticism. Under the spell of this all pervasive movement shaped his social and political idealism. His utter disconteniament and dissatisfaction with the persistently deteriorating social and political conditions of the English society in particular, originated from his feeling that none was as free as nature had created him, that every individual was in the vicious grip of the exploitative trends of a seemingly civilized and sophisticated society. An irresistible urge to reform society and reconstruct it along the universal principles of equality, liberty and fraternity made Shelley a zealous revolutionary. Owing to this basic fact, his social and political ideas formed the predominant element in his lyrics, and he came to use verse, remarks Spender, "as a medium for expressing his ideas and his personal conflicts more than he exercises it as a craft". To Shelley, tiie real task of the poet was to arouse the consciousness in man \^ch makes them the "unacknowledged legislators of the world".^ The verse in Shelley's opinion was an effective means of ushering in a new social and political order discarding the obsolete and unjust scheme of affairs. His preocc\:Q)ation with the social and political ideas made Shelley confess to love Peacock in a letter : "I consider poetry subordinate to moral or political sciences and if I were well, certainly I should aspire to the latter",-^ Marry Shelley also corroborates this view « "Shelley had no care for any of the his poems that did not emanate fromZdepths of his mind, and develop some high or abtruse truthl'*^ In sum, the young Shelley throwing Utopian pamphlets from the balcony of a Dublin hotel, the thoughtful Shelley of The Philosoinhical View of Reform and The Necesfiitv of Atheism^ the revolutionary SheLley of the Queen Mat, the reformer Shelley of The Revolt of Islam and The Mask of Anarchy and the philosopher Shelley of Prometheus Unbound^ all of them are linked up inextricably with a common nexus: the social and political consciousness* Shelley's own words to Maria Gisbome further strengthen this view, as he wrote that, "I have deserted the odorous gardens of literature to journey across the great sandy desert of politics".^

But, it would certainly be far from reality if one were to suggest that P,B. Shelley had grown indifferent in any way to artistic values and characteristics of poetry that was being used by him as a vehicle ^for communicating his social and political ideas. His poetry, an artful texture of thought and feeling, not only retains its literary vorth and artistic value in fTill but also sustains them only because it is not the prodirt of a prosaic dry mind. Rather, it is the creation of an imaginative creative mind that ripened the thought first into a feeling and instinct through introspective experience and only then let it be translated into verse. It is difficult to decide whether thought dominates his lyrics or emotion '?ho!'act.e»*1 ?*>« thAin hflCftnse his thought is permeated with feeling, and feeling is pregnant with tiiou^t. The intensity of feeling being the essential and fundamental quality of Shelley's genius, he is guided by his thought in giving a particular shape, penchant and for,m to his poetry because, in the words of Spender, he used verse, "as a medium for expressing his ideas and .... 6 plays it as an intellectual game".

It goes without laying that Shelley' s poetry undergoes certain stages of the evolution of artistic presentation of his social and political thought. The social and political environ ment in "vdiich he breathed and his particular socio-political philosophy are the major factors that have a clear Imprint on Shelleyan verse.

Obviously, tile society around Shelley, with all its social and political degeneration, influenced all the romantic poets in general and Shelley in particiiLar, and caused them think in the way typical to them. The typical socio-political helrarchy of the English and French societies, the emerging new trends, the influx of new social and political ideas and the disparity between the two extreme strata were the distinctive features of the society of Shelley's times. Without acquainting ourselves with it as well as with the irresistible impact of French thought on English social and political patterns during the last decade of itift iBth t^Pcof.vTy an!?, the firct -^'Jicrtcr cf the "".Oth '---t,;^.,^ our appreciation and evaluation of the social and poetical dimensions in Shelley's poetry will remain inadequate.

During the eighteenth centxiry the English and French societies had been suffering from a sort of moral bankruptcy and a want of higher values. The works of Pope, Addison and Blake etc. as well as the French literature reflects and criticizes various social, political and cultural aspects of the Augustan age. Thou^, apparently, considerable emphasis was laid on sophistica tion, morality, manners, decorum and propriety during and after the Restoration, the moral decadence ran through the century. Making some S3>ecific references to tihe social and political degeneration Bouth points out : "They followed the old fashion of ostentation and self-abandonment, fighting dwells on points of honotir, vying with each other in quips and raillery, posing as atheists and jeering at sacred things, love-making with extrava gant odes and complimentsi applauding immDral plays, while the more violent, the 'gulls* and the * roarers* roamed through the town in search of victims to outrage or assault".'^ 5

Whereas common masses remained unaffected by the trends of Imitating the higher classes, middle-class people were deeply immersed into evils as tiiey had both the mesuis and leisure to have their ill-wills materialised. It is equally true of the l8th century French society depicting viiich Cobban remarks that it vas the "vrorld of rogues and adventurers in which no man is honest and no vmrosn vl rtnonc ^ v»o^ "beeii reflocted o in the satire of age". The hobbies of Dukes, Marquesses, Bar Is and Barons were to chase women, drink wine, spend nights in gambling and days at stake in stocks, cards and lottery tickets, horse-riding, fox hunting and such time-consuming sports. The same class, quite ironically, was the custodian of law, order, justice and morality. In the matters of authority they enjoyed monopoly.

By the time England and France were close to a reconci- latlon after war, a strong middle class had emerged in England comprising doctors, engineers, merchants, lawyers, politicians and contractors, enjoying the position of a respectable class of the society both in England and France. As they felt much elated in establishing close contacts with the bluest class, the vices of the latter started making inroads into their social structure, too. By the middle of the century the vast difference between the higher and middle classes had greatly faded mainly owing to economic factors. The French king Louis XIX did a great deal to 6

ameliorate the lot of common citizens. Such was his economic policy that the nobility eroded and the citizen class "lived in equal state, built as gradually, and spent as prodigeously on furniture, food, and servants".^ But tiie gulf of disparity between the rich and poor further widened as the gentleman-class merged into nobility in a gradual manner. In England, the poor were left in utter misery and abjectness, "The workers were dependent on tiieir masters for their houses, their shops, their taverns, their schools, their chapels. It was easy for their masters to discipline the recalcitrant and the complaining, to repress signs of political consciousness and political organisa tions". ""^

The peasant lived a life worse than that of slaves. They resided in shabby bhuts in extremely uEhygienic conditions. Despite their hardest labour at fields, they were paid much less than the less hard working workers and had to pay a bulk of their wages as taxes. Burdened with crippling debts, they toiled throughout the year in liie field of their masters. Workers also were no better than them as they were made to reside in the deserted houses of tiieir masters \Aiere horses, pigs and fowls also lived. The dockers and tiie daily wagers had to live in "the most filthy conditions of overcrowding", points out Trevelyan, "Without sanitation, police or doctors, and far-beyond the range of philanthropy, education and religion".^^ 7

In France, oving to the problem of over-population, increasing nunber of beggars, criminals, vagabonds, murderers ani thieves came into existence, further woresning the law and order situation. It augmented abjectness even more and the poor sometimes let their offsprings die as they had no means of bringing them vcp. As a result, the food riots and violence became frequent. But, the same factors helped engender the reformation zeal among some thinking minds.

So far as the nature of polity is concerned, England and France both attempted constant moves towards some sort of change; the former's was an evolutionary attitude viiereas the latter exhibited a revolutionary one. The revolution of 1688 made a democratic change in the form of tiie English government as the Crown's right to levy tax was made subject to the approval of the parliament. But witii the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole, the first royal adviser and equivalent to the modem 'prime minister', on account of an adverse vote in the House of Commons the siiQjremacy of the parliament was established. But France was being ruled by an autocratic monarch \^o, wiliiout being respon sible to any constitution, parliament or ministry, manipulated all the legislative, executive and judicial powers. While England was peacefully undergoing the evolutionary change, France was "practically concerned with the question of the right to rebel and to overthrow established order". ""^ Though the insufferable 8

conditions in France called for a complete revolution, the administrative misnanagement and rise of the bourgeoisie gave a iBw philosophical turn to the politics. One branch of yAilch was to deal with the "problem of amelioration in the social, economic and administrative activities of the government"; and the other was paying attention primarily to "the more strictly T»nlltlcol problems touchine the form, organisation and limits of governmental authority itself". -'

Though Whig and Tory parties existed as separate grot^s in the eighteenth century, tiieir differences were not really antithetical in nature as both rested on the aristocratic founda tions. In France, before Revolution, Girondins were opposed to any kind of social or political reform, v^ereas Monteguards demanded a new constitution. In Ifcvember, 1789, chauvinist patriots and rebels formed a new party that was without any ready means at their hand, deadly against the traditional set-up of society. Enjoying the confidence of the masses, they called for a big change. Consequently, in 1789 France underwent an epoch-making revolution vdaile the English masses remained content with the evolutionary change. Even the industrial revolution could not bring about any radical change in the si:?)remacy of political heirarchy. Property was the basis for the representa tion to parliament, and only wealthy class could lead the masses. Though the necessity of change was obvious, the Tory and Whig parties had no objection to the supremacy of the ruling heirarchy. The Tory party, in the words of David, "clung to the heirarchical and aristocratic notion of society, later to be embodied in the mid-Victorian doctrine of 'The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate".

The parliamentary and electoral process was also not iir».ffected bv ^-e height cf ncrraptio-c Trie -sxilir^ priviiGgsd class of/eighteenth century England, comprising aristocracy, landed gentry, clergy, aldermen and the burgesses, aspired to the election to parliament, which involved a great deal of malpractices and intrigues. Those vho contested a seat used to be wealthy enough to bribe or to threaten the votes. Similarly, the voters, too, preferred one who could pay most lavishly to the most capable. The members of the parliament were interested more in providing opportunities, jobs, contracts etc, to their relatives rather than serving the masses, with a view to brighten ing the prospects for the next election. Nepotism or 'countyism' took the place of national interest. In reality, the entire electoral and parliamentary process was rotten to the core and fully depended on threats, bribery, corruption, dishonesty, malpractices and false promises. In France, the absolute autonomy of the king was made a butt of severe criticism by the social and political thinkers like Rosseau, Voltaire, Holbach and Helvetius who made the middle class "conscious both of their grievances and 10

of other power; and tiiey supplied a new basis of authority in their doctrines of civil liberty and constitutional self- government ",^

Corruption and misnanagement were no less rampant in the administration of the eighteenth century England. With a view tn T^«*!:•r^o^7llg^•hincr •Hbo evt,'j?'nr»A£el.on Of thS niCVCECntC for :^r,r«ii,1 reform the "party government had to be carried on by methods which involved various degrees of jobbery and bribery". ° Only a heavy bribe could bring back Bolingbroke from exile. The 'South Sea Bubble' and the 'Mississipi scheme of Law' are some of the famous economic scandals, v^iich are indicative of the corruption among politicians. Walpole's administration "was 17 favourable to tiie spread of corruption in all walks of life". Instead of maintaining {Justice, judges and magistrates worried more about making money out of the rich, selfish merchants. Parliament declared the trivial offences like horse and sheep stealing as capital crimes. To escape punishment was very easy for crlminsJLs on making handsome payment to shrewd advocates, so much so tiiat "out of six thieves brought to trial, five might in one way or the other get off, viiile the unlucky one was hanged".^" Also in France, in the absence of any defined constitution or law, traditions and precedents were the 'fundamental laws of the Kingdom'. Since the word of the autonomous king was law, the 11

administration had become a cumbersome, labyrihthine, tedious ani wasteful routine. In default of a uniform code of civil or criminal law, disputes arose among the different tribunals. Justice could almost never be done in the absence of any certain definition of law. The inflation of the capital punishments for petty crimes was a frequent matter,

THP rihuroh and c1 argy al!?o could not prove imnnine to the vitiating atmosphere of tiie day. The clergy had developed an unsatiable urge to amass money and was busy encashing its religiosity. The church was not only another centre of moral corruption, but it had also Joined hands with the political authority in assisting it to carry out its malicious anti-human designs. References were made to morality, no doubt, in the sermons but never put into practice. Quite frequently, the churchmen defrauded the common folk. The church and the miserable slum-dwellers never worried about each other. Being in league with the aristocracy "it was natural that an aristocratic, unreforming, individualistic, 'classical' age should be served by a church with the same qualities and defects as the other 1Q chartered institutions of the country", -^ In France, the church had to play a major role in the public administration. The clergy was supposed to maintain the record of marriages, births, deattis, and baptisms in the state It also dealt with the welfare and charity. The clergy was divided from within also on some vital 12

issues. As opposed to England, corruption did prevail in the French clergy as well but it was in a large measure confined only to the upper ranks, ^he moral soundness of the lower sections of clergy was above-board. The upper ranks enjoyed special privileges and paying little heed to tiieir duties spent their time in liixurious sports with the members of the landed nobility or chasing women either by enticing them to sell their body or ©nploying tiie fear of god to entertain the agents of the church. Thus, corruption in French church was no much less than that in English church.

Breathing in such a vitiated atmosphere of manifest corruption, poverty, excesses of privileged classes and pervading moral bankruptcy, how co^ld the over-sensitive mind of Shelley have shut out the prevalent and emerging social and political trends of his times and rested detached. It was visible even to a casual observer that the whole society was engulfed by a sort of complacency that made the privileged class believe that "vftiatever is, is right" and the illiterate, imaware, down-trodden masses were "contented with the lot to \Aiich an inscrutable providence had fortunately assigned them, or else consoled them, as they were advised to do by the clergy and moralists, with 20 thoughts of the future life". By the middle of the eighteenth century it had commonly been believed that poverty, abjectness and misery were inflicted by God and were necessary for the 13

universal haT^piness. The 'divine right' of the sixteenth century "to be sole discerner of good and evil, justice and injustice, for his whole realm"^"' vas assigned to the king to such a horrible extreme that James I proclaimed that "the kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God Himself they are called Gods". But, towards tiie latter half of the eighteenth century the new rationalistic, materialistic, and natural ideas were just developing. Hobbes was satirically ridiculing the conventional religious belief, and with Locke he advocated a mechanistic and materialistic view of life. The ideas of 'Ifecessity' and 'Association' were being held in high esteem. The ideas of Hobbes and Locke inspiredHDmsseau and Voltaire who, in turn, influenced Godwin, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and other Romantics. During the same period reformers like Wesley and Marry Wollstonecraft came to tiie forefront : former rendering services and help to tiie suffering people in dangerous circum stances and tiie latter fighting for the emancipation of women. The English society also anticipated some major social change, an instance of which is its favour of the curtailment of the prerogatives of nobility (for example, exemption from taxation). One of the most remarkable features of the current philosophy was that a pronounced stress was laid on 'order' in 'Nature' as well as in 'Man' as is reflected in the verse of Pope :

The general Order, since the world began Is kept in Nature, and is kept in man, 23 14

On the v^iole the antagonistic feelin-s towards religion and the institutional ism were fast growing both in England and France, as is evident from the thought of the time. Shelley, being a voracious reader and impelled by a passionate zeal, was influenced by the philosophical ideas of the era of transforma tion vdiich indubitably proved the harbinger of the ushering in of a new social and political era. This was the social and political background that provided Shelley's social and political thought with a perspective to grow, maturate and evolve into a radical ideology. But this background will surely seem incomplete unless a mention, however brief is made of the social and political responses of liie romantic poets other than Shelley.

On all the Romantic poets, almost without any exception, the great social and political event of the French Revolution had made a deep impact, first attracting their sjrmpathies and then, during its phase of degeneration, arousing their disgust. It became the greatest source of inspiration for Romantics like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Byron, Shelley and Keats, mostly because they acclaimed it as a harbinger of a new era of freedom, equality and prosperity and a saviour of not only French people but that of the entire suffering mankind from all social and political evils. In the words of Stopford A. Brooke "It was the tocsin of the new poetry, \*iich began in WordsvADrth's 'Lyrical Ballads' of 1798".2^ Wordsworth celebrated the fall of Bastille 15

as a mark of the end of tyranny and gave vent to his intensi fied revolutionary ardour in verse

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven (French Revolution Europe at tiiat time was thrilled with joy France standing on iiie tot) of golden hours. Alii seeming aatux'e seeming born again. (The Prelude,vi, 339-lfl)

But ttie degeneration of the Revolution into tyranny and oppression disillusioned him to a great extent, and "his Waste Land came early, through disillusion with excesses of the French Revolution and with England's selfish, even, in v/ordswortti's view, perfidious, response to that revolution'*.^ He lamented thus

But, now, became oppressors Jji their turn, Frenchmen had changed a war|^ elf-defence For one of conquest, losing sight of all V/hich they had struggled for. (The Prelude, xi, 206-10) been Shelley vdiose response had not/pnly emotional either in his approval or rejection of the Revolution, took Wordsworth to task at his s\:tpport of a Tory candidate in utter dejection. He wrote : "vAiat a beastly and pitif\a wretch that Wordsworth. That such a man should be such a poet. I can compare him id.th no one but 16

Simonldes, that flatterer of the Sicilian tyrants". "

Coleridge also was so much Inspired by the French Revolution that he planned the scheme of Pantisocracy based on the principles of socialism. His early poetry bears the marks of "the inescapable topic of the Fall of the Bastille".^^ He celebrates liberty in his poem on the fall of Bastille

Yfes, Lll>t3x-»/y Ui*3 soul of Life shall x-eign, Shall throb in every pulse shall flow thro' every vein (Destruction of the Bastille (1789\ 29-30)

But like Wordsworth, he was disillusioned by the failure of the revolution, and turned reactionary. But, surely, the contempt and hostility of both to the French Revolution was caused by the ugly turn that the Revolution had taken. Otherwize, they never recoiled from their ideal of equality, fraternity and liberty. Coleridge's poems like 'The Destiny of Nations' 1798 (11. 13-1^), and 'France : An Ode' 1798 (11. 39-^2) bear testimony to the fact.

Byron's idealism of liberty, equality, sympathy, freedom of enqtiiry and thought was further strengthened by the revolu tion. It taught him "to fight against his own detractors and 29 agaijQst the detractors of others". The passion of liberty was so intense in him that he was all out "with all might to expose 17

cant and hypocrisy, misgovernment and oppression in all their unpleasant reality, and he came to his death in an act of affirmation of his belief in freedom".^0

The ptirely artistic creed of Keats could also not escape the impact of French Revolution, ^e symbols of liberty and tyranrty recur in his poems of 181U-15, vftiich stand for "a school of liberalism which was only to mature in later years''.-^ A letter of 1819 also shows his concern for the tyranny of kings and nobles : "The example of England, and the liberal writers of France and England sowed the seed of opposition to this tyranny — and was swelling in the ground till it burst out in the French Revolution",^^ The social and political themes of liberty and justice are well-incorporated in his poems 'To Hope* j 'To Kosicusko* and 'The Anniversary of the Restoration of Charles the Second'. One of his sonnets '"Written on th^ dav that Leigh Himt Left Prison' also project his republican creed, ''strongly tinged wilii ^iSiat i-re call pacifism".-^^ His deep consciousness of the human plight and the social and political injustice led him to develop humanistic themes in his poetry, as we come across in *Tj?e Fall of Hyperion' ,3^ 'Sleep and Poetry'3^ and 'Isabella'.^^ But the Impact of the French Revolution on Shelley was unique. In the context of his particular social and political thinlcing, his responses to the Revolution led him to constitute his unique 18

socio-political idealism. The Revolution influenced him in addition to the ai^ademic and philosophic influences. He was fortunate iX)t to have wrestled with ideas only in isolation and abstraction. He was in a comfortable position to confirm their validity by the touchstone of the French Revolution, '.vtiich was a practical experiment in socio-political ideas and certainly more relevant than the written word. Born in the post-Revolution period it way eas^ ^^^ lijiiii oO uVciiuatfc tlic cAp«i j-uiciiLj coul- mindedly ard ob;)ectively, as well as its aftermaths. Romantics like Wordsworth and Coleridge had tinned high hopes On the anticipated revolution in France; obviously having in mind only its optimistic aspects. On July 1^, I789, all through Europe "the fall of Bastille i-ias hailed as the end of secretive tyranity and arbitrary imprisonment, and as heralding the dawn of the age of freedom."-^' The Revolution was a "democratic movement when feudalism, clericalism, and divine monarchy collapsed, making way for the era of economic liberalism, modern science and representa- tlve government". Poets like Wordsworth and Golerdige suffered from a depressing disillusionment at the ugly turn the Revolution had taken by entering a new phase of bloodshed and destruction, whereas Shelley's entire approach towards Revolution v;as a detached one and completely different from their's.

The existing circumstances were quite indicative of a passive revolution in France, \*iere a ruthless tyrant could 19

"suspend a debtor's liabilities, imprison a man without trial, release him without revision of his case, make war or peace",-^^ vftiere clergy, 'the first estate' , "were still in possession of perhaps a fifth of the soil of France, with an enormous revenue and substantial exemptions and privileges, but with no moral or intellectual pre-eminence to justify their position",^ \^ere •hho '^•^bil!•*••" '*'h? second '?s't?t'?' '?i'^o'"'?'^ '^vi'*^*' iin'^v.ctif isbl'" the sDecial privileges at the exnense of the lower strata's hard labour, viiere bourgeoisie, 'the third estate', had grown so powerful as to interfere frequently with the state of affairs, and where liie most miserable pleasantry was laden with the unbearable burden of taxes though "it was totally unfitted to bear the crushing burden of taxation", how the cycle of history could have been restrained from ushering in a new social and political era.

Since "never before was a revolution so armed with words and phrases" as French Revolution, the ideas of the geniuses behind it "exerted a potent influence on the revolutionary movCTient of the day and gave encouragement to those who would sweep away rather than patch up monarchical institution". -^ In addition to Rousseau and Voltaire, there were a few others also whose influence on Shelley was no less effective. Diderot preached humanitarianism and philanthropy, Ibntesquieu, in his 20

'Persian Letters', "ridiculed the corruption of the court, condemned the privileges of the aristocracy, derided the incompetent financial administration, and denounced the vices of fanticism and intolerance". AM, Abbe Sieyes had "made a name for himself by writing the most popular of all pamphlets against privileges''.^^

Shelley might not have been unaware that the English 'chini^ers iiKs nienard Prloc, Juaeph Fries Lly and Tom Paine considered the Revolution the concretisation of their social and political ideas of reform. They shared the ecstatic joy with John Cartwright vAio exclaimed at the fall of Bastille : "Degenerate must be that heart which expands not with sentiments of delight at viiat is now transacting in the National Assembly of France. The French, Sir, are not only asserting their own rights but tiiey are also asserting and advancing the general liberties of mankind". Besides Hannah More, William Godwin, Samuel RomiUy, Mary 'Wbllstonecraft and James Mackintosh had also joined hands with the others to work out a certain solution in the English society5 producing, advocating and justifying the new social and political ideas. The exception among them was a 'hideous phantom', 'unformed spectre', and 'monstrous thing' : so he pronounces in his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France',

By the years Shelley attained maturity the reign of terror in the post-revolution France had already been over. In some poems 21

of 1810 ani in 'Posthimious Fragments of Margaret laicholson' his passion for the Revolution is reflected, in which his "tirades against priests and kings are crude and indefinite but quite in the vein of "Queen Kab* and other later vroiicsl' ' Interrupting the composition of 'C^ueen Mab* he -wrote a novel, Hubert Cauviny vdth an idea to "exhibit the cause of the failure of the French Revolution and the state of morals and opinions in France during me latter years 01 its monarcny'','^" and ne planned an essay in 181I for making an "enquiry into the causes of the French Revolution to benefit mankind". ^ The conclusion he draws is that "The Revolution in France overthrew the helrarchy, tiie aristocracy and the monarchy, and the ^ole of that peculiarly insolent and oppressive system on vdiich they were 50 based", is made by Shelley the recurring theme of 'Queen Mab', 'The Revolt of Islam*, 'Prometheus Unbound', 'Hellas' etc. as well as TDX)G,h. of his prose work. His heroes and heroines like Prometheus, Lion, Cythna, Lind and Ginotti etc. reflect the social philosophy of Shelley, being the embodiment of revolu tionary zeal. Nonetheless, their non-violence is particularly noteworthy. The Revolution was the outcome of some social and political causes for Shelley, as he asserts : "The oppressors of mankind had enjoyed (0 that we could say suffered) long and undisturbed reign in France, and to the pining famine, the shelterless destitution of the inhabitants of country had been 22

added and heaped up insult harder to endure than misery",^' so the Oppressed masses took a "dreadful revenge on their oppressors''.^^ Iftilike the disillusionment, disgust and dis appointment of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and Burke, Shelley held that "the Revolution had done vastly more good than hann",^^ and if the Revolution had remained true to its ideals, "a pattern of society rabidly advancing to a state of perfection, and holding out an example lor the gx-adual and ceacxul regeneraiion of the world". ^

The social and political thinkers, reformers and humani tarians who lived during the last decades of the l8th century and first decades of the l9th century were, incontrovertibly, Indebted much to the exr)eriment of the French Revolution for the culmination of their reformative ideas in the 'Reform Act of 1832. Shelley's stror^ condemnation of "the unhappiness, the torpor, the vulgarity of the rich; the want, the drudgery, the savagery, the vice, the desperation of the poor",^^ to a similar extent was motivated by the ideas of tiie same thinkers — \>d.th due acknowledgement of his touch of originality about them. The English society between I789 and 1832 was predominantly conser vative and reactionary, even the undercurrents of reform were impatient to upsurge. The 'Tory Orthodoxy' had apparently taken two forms : liberalism and conservatism, Ricardo, Ma 1 thus, members of the Manchester school, and Lord Eldon opted to follow 23

the orthodox and conservative ideas of Biirke vihose "thought dominated the niles of England for a generation after his death". Radical thinkers like Lord Ashley, Lord Shaftsbury, Paine, Godwin, Cobbet, Bentham etc, proposed certain parliamen tary, academic, economic, agriciiltural and property reforms, Bentham dealt with the legal reforms, -vAiereas Mai thus came forward with the problem of the proportion of population and production, tiiough 'the checks' he suggested caused distate, Ricardo favoured tiie free commerce. In sum, the thoughts of utilitarian Radicals aroused "interest in psychological investigation and ethical discussion in the schools, and in active politics, social reforms and beneficent legislation to an extent that had previously been unthought of,57 The emergence of trade-unions also marks a great occasion in the success of the social and political reform in the Tory England, To the credit of Joseph Hume and Francis Place the "Combination Act' Was replaced in I78O and Trade Unions were declared legal by the House of Ctoramons, Besides the personal efforts towards the emancipation of the poor by Robert Owen, the father of English socialism, who "made the welfare of his work-people his first 58 concern", the 'Labour Movement' and "Chartist Movement' also secured as important factors. Credible contemporary projections are ^videtjced iii novels like Hard Times j Marv Barton^ Sybil and Altoq Locke, About the reformative contribution of Progressive ageaiies and hunanitarians the prominent figures are those of 24

William Cobbet, Francis Place, Elizabeth Fry, John Tlov/ard, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, Thomas Spence and Robert Owen.

In the next chapter we will consider the intellectual influences on Shelley and his early objectives of social and political reform as reflected in his early prose writings. 25

1. Spender, 3. : Shellev ('./riterG and their v/orks), Longman,

2. Shelley, P.3. : The Defence of Poetry, last sentence 3. Shelley to Love Peacock, Jan. 2^-, lr,19, <^/^^_^i^^/&^id5Axi'Sf^^

h, 1-bte to Rosalind and Helen by V.rz, Shelley, ClW)^^)&fe/oefea£ (vre^^ , ed. T. Hutchinson, p. 188. 5. Shelley to John and Karia Gisborne, Ihv, 6, 1819,

6. Sriender, Stephen : 3)iellev^ Longman, Greene Co., 196^+,p.^5. 7. Routh, H.V. : 'Steele and Addison' in the GasiPrid^.e History of English Literature. Vol. IX, p. h^, 8. Cobban, A. : A History of Modern France^ London, 1965, Vol. p. 19. 9. Plumb, J.TI. : England in the Eighteenth Century. london, 1963, p. 1'+. 10. Ibid., 11. Trevelyan, G.K. : English Social History. London, I962,p. 331. 12. Doyt, Phillis : A History of Political Thought. London, 1961 , p. 200. 13. Dunning, v/.A. : A History of Political Theories — Rousseau to Spender, India, I966, p. hG, 1'+. Thomson, David : England in the Nineteenth Century^ London, 1967, p. 23. 15. Greslioy, Leo : English Literature and Society in tlie Bigrhteenth Century, London, 19^7, p. 99. 16. SteTDhen, Leslie : English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century7Lor^^n7'Tw%~T7'^99l 17. Butt, John : The Au::ustan Age, London, 1965, p. 69. 18. Trevelyan, ^:.-. : Enr: llsh iocial Hintorv, London, 19o2, p.3'!-':. 26

19. Ibid. , p. 35c. 20. ••illey, Basil '• The aip.hteenth Century '.^?^ckp.round. London, 1965, v.~^» 21. Doyle, Phyllis '• A listorv of Political JhouRht, London, 19^1, p. 1?2. 22. James I : ' Tlie Political Works *, ed. C.:i. Kallvain, Gambrdige, 191^^', P. 307. 23. An £ssav on Kan. Epistle I, 171-7"^.

------_-.-. - « J, ,^^ « , 1 J I ^% f_ ^> 1. tit I , f I i-»it ilfT— • - • •— / landon, 1920, p. 98, 25. Thorpe. Baker and Bennet Weaver (ed. ) : The Ka.lor English Romantic Poets, New ^jbrk, 1957, p. XIV. 26. Brooke, Stopford A. : Naturalisn in Enr.lish Poetry, London, 1920, p. 171. 27. Briton, Crane : The Political Ideas of English -Romanticists. Ifew York, 1962, p. 66. 28. Sone for Luddites (IB16). 29. Pratt, Willis, VJ. : 'Byron and Some Current Patterns of Thought' in the Major English Romantic Poets, Iê\'/ ôrk, 1957, p. 155. 30.Thort)e. Baker and Bennet '.-/eaver (ed. ): The I-a.1or English Romahtic Poets, Ifew York, 1957, P. 155. 31. Bush, Douglas : 'Keats and His Ideas', Pl-XA. 1950, lê-vi York, 1957, P. XIV. 32. Keats to George and Georglana Keats, September 27, I819, the letters of John êat^^ ed. K.B. ?orman, Oxford, 1952, p. ^06. 33. Garrod, H.W. : Keats. Oxford, 1962, p. 2^. 3^. Thou art a dreaming thing, The fever of Thvself; think of the Eartli (The Fall of Hvnerion, I, 17^-79) 27

35. AndCan I ever bid these joys farewell I -es I raust nass them for a nobler life* V/here I may find the agonies, the strife Of human hearts. (Sleep and Poetry^ 122-25) 36. stanzas XIV - XVII, 3 37. Fisher, H.A.L. : A History of Europe, Collins, I96O, Vol. II, p. SQh, 38. Martin, Kingsley : French Liberal Thought in the Eighteenth Centuryy London, 195^, p. I.

^0. Sabire George, H. : A History of Political Theory, London, 1959, p. ^63. ^•I.Salvemini, Gaetano : The Fremh Revolution^ London, I963, p.39. h2. The factors generating a revolution are best sumEiarised by J.A.R. Harriott in his The Revolution of Modern EuroTê. London, I933j P. 259. ^-3, Laidler, H.'.-^, : Social-Sconomlc Movement,^ London, 1953,p.^'^. hh, Greshoy, Leo *. 'ê French Revolution and Nepoleon, London, India, I96O, p. 67. h5, Cobban, Alfred : A History of liodern France^ London, 1965, p. 136. U-6. Catwright, John : Life and Correspondence of lia.ior Cartwrlght^ ed. F.D. Oartwright, London, 1826, p. 182^ h7. Stovall, Floyd : Desire and Restraint in Shelley. New York, 1931, p. 182. ^8. Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchener, 'ânuary 2, I8l2, B61. I, p.218. 1+9. Shelley to William Godwin, Jan. 10, 1812, Vol. I, p. 229. 50. A Philosophical View of Reform^ p. 236. 51. Ibid., p. 235 52. Ibid., p. 235. 53. Grabo, Carl; The Iâric Pl^ntj Oxford, I965, p. 319. 28

5h, An Association of Philanthroipistst p. 6P. 55. Hughes, ^.: .D. t The Mnscent Kind of Shelley. Oxford, 1W, P. 222. 5$. Somervell, D.C, : English Thought in the Ilineteeuth Century, London, I960, p. 5.

57. 'Political Thougftx m England — The Utilitarians from Bentham to J. S. Mill, EUL, 1957, p. 172

58. Somerwell, D.C. : English Thought in the Ni London, I960, pp. 203-04 C.HAEIER n

I.nTELLEG.I2AL BAC.KGR0U2iD Though iinfortijnately Shelley did not survive to see the partial fulfilment of his social and political dreams in the Reform Bill of I832, his writings carry clear evidence of his ever present awareness of future waves and his unusual consciousness of the intellectual currents of his age. The tendency renders him a thinker rather than a "master singer", to use the phrase of Swinburne, If, on the one hand, Shelley's best noetry reflects high standards of art, beautiful language and highly original imagery, on the other, a strong vein of reform rions through his works. As the deepest source of inspira tion, the theme of reform applies equally to both the levels, individual and institutional. Discarding violence as a means of securing reform, he insists upon the identity of fundamental political arxi moral principles, which tends to give his social and political utopianism a moral hue. He writes to Elizabeth Kitchener, "Southey says Expedience ought to (be) made the ground of politics but not of morals. I urged that the most fatal error that ever happened in the \TOrld was the separation 30

of political and ethical science",^ He further states the same raore expressly in A Philogophical View of Reform that "Morals and politics can only be considered as portions of the same science".^ But, ttie question is how Shelley reaches such corxslusions. Undeniably, in addition to his personal qualities, it was the intellectual environment interacting with the social and political tnenrie r>^ his tiine 2.z veil z.^ his own extensive^- readings, voracious reader as he was, of most of the current and earlier writings. Counled with his original tiiinking, liiese major factors resiilted in the type of social and political approaches so characteristic of Shelley, The following discussion, therefore, focuses upon the general intellectual atmosphere in l8th century England and France, a discussion of Shelley's readings, his early prose vn:itings, and the influence of the poet's readings on his writings,

Shelley tended to attach paramount importance to thought because he believed it to be a very effective means by which the ignorant masses can be inspired to reject the undesi rable, and awakened to bring about the much needed radical changes in society essential for the common good and betterment. In his opinion "The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the a\\'akening of a great people to vork a beneficial change in Opinion or institution is poetry".^ Hence, it follovrs that the 31

thought content of Shelley's poetry should not be given just the secondary imtjortance since, combined with the intensive feeling, it makes the basis of his verse. To quote Kary Shelley once again "Shelley had no care for any of his poens that did not emanate from the depth of his mind, and develop some high or abtruse truth".^ So, belittling the thought elpmept v»iDulcl onlv tend tc circtsns^ribs the s-rop-r vf hlc poetry. Rogers' suggestion about considering both the thought and feeling in Shelley's poetry seems quite pertinent and plausible. It is "all \re can do — and this precaution is always necessary in our stuiies — is to allow for thought ^Alen we are considering feeling and for feeling v;hen we are considering his thought"" Shelley's thought was a continuous, consistent and vertical process of acquiring social and political maturity, depth, intensity and perfectibility, along vdth gaining the poetic and artistix; perfection, hardly stiffering from any kind of relapse or reversion. His tiiought was influenced by the social and political thought of the era of transformation ^A.ich indubitably proved the harbinger of the ushering in of a new era of reform. This formed a most suitable background for Shelley's social and political philosophy and provided it with a perspective to grov;, maturate and evolve into a radical ideology.

Materialistic and idealistic philosophy had adopted new modes of expression by the middle of the eighteenth century 32

through such thinkers as Locke and Berkeley etc. The new modes were Deism, Rationalism, Love of order, etc. This anti-thesis was, no doubt, emerging out of the established thesis of the inevitability of an arbitrary God, economic disparity, poverty, clergy, tyranny, and numberless other ills generated by the interaction of all these factors. In the words of Phillis. kine was believpri "tn ho

The general order, since the vrorld began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man, (An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 171-72) 33

Out of a z^al for 'order' grev/ t:ie doctrines of liberty and constitutional form of government. The materialism of Locke and Tlobbes veilded a deep influence on the French thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire who in turn influenced Godvrin, Jordsvjorth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and other romantics. Under the influence of scepticism promoted by the two French thinkers, anti-religious and pragmatic trends dominated mainly during I7I+B to 1770, To suppose pain evil and pleasure good also came to be the guiding principle of the pre-revolution decade. But nothing proved more effective in educating the masses about the flourishing social and political evils than the radical thought of the last decade of the eighteenth century. The radical groups of English thinkers owe a lot to it. Shelley's social and political consciousness enriched by his readings of certain philosophers and prophets of the French Revolution is reflected in his poetry. The influence of renowned thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Burke, Paine, God\d.n, Wo 11 sto nee raft etc. on his thought and poetry is an obvious fact,

Voltaire (169^1778) was one of the greatest thinkers whose onslaught on ecclessiastical dominion and simperstition, and social and political exploitation and oppression in every form went a long way towards hastening the French Revolution. Shelley was so highly influenced by him that he opened his 34

Queen Mab with the words 'Ecrasez L'Infame' borrowed from Voltaire's correspondence, and his criticism of the church also carries a flavour of Voltaire. Acrimoniously criticising the arbitrariness of religious and political authority he advocated complete freedom to write, speal^ and act. Inspired by the ideas of Kachiavelli, Hobbes and Locke he "roused the spirit of revolt".° His condennation of the French monarchical system and appreciation of tne English Law was due to his "intense interest in the freedom of scholars, and he was humane enough to revolt at the st^upidities and brutalities of French criminal law". English intelligentsia in general and Romantic poets in particular frequently echoed Voltaire. In Wordsworth's Prelude X, Coleridge's Religious Kusines and Shelley's Queen Mab^ for instance, Voltaire's condemnation of church, denunciation of inequality of laws and arbitrary imprisonment and torture and hatred for unjust authority finds a considerable place. Under the influence of Locke, he vehemently advocated liberty which he held the most effective panacea for all social and political evils and the most efficacious means of progress and change. In spite of discarding religion, he approved of the significance of certain moral aid religious values in their social context, for instance, belief in a transcendental Deity and compliance to the reasonable moral precepts. However, dogmatism, accretions of theology, superstition, fanaticism, and 35

the suT^presslon of reason and free thinkin.vT find no room in his thought. Freedom of expression and religious tolennce and intellectual liberalism are some of his major favourable themes. Voltaire was the leader and most typical representative of his school of thought. A.fter tlie death of tontesquieu in 1755 Voltaire became the source of inspiration for younger thinkers and writers subscribing to rationalism. His writings betray the chief traits of the French enlighten ment, one of v*iich was its imT3atience with social ills and abuses.

Next to his was the fascinating call of J,J. Rousseau (1712-1718) \-fno vehemently advanced the idea that "Kan is born free and everyiAdiere he is in chains. Many a man believes himself to be the masters of otliers v;ho is, no less than they, a slave".'''' The great influence of this chief representative of the French social and -oolitical thought came late in life in that his great works did not appear until the 1760's. Along v/ith Helvetius and D'Holbach, Rousseau is also named by Godv;in as one to vjhom he was most indebted. It is through Godwin that Shelley received Rousseau's influence. In tlie notes to Queen ILa^j he has made direct reference to Godwin, The three major vrorks of early I76O, L?^ nouvelle Heloise, On contrat social, and Etaile, represent his coint of view. The first of these, in the viords of Barrell, "deals v;ith the vjoods and fields. 36

passionate love, and the domestic affections; the second vith politics; and the third with education". 1 2 He v/as so insistent upon the complete freedom of man that he discarded the parliamentary democracy in vihich, he thouc^ht, oeople were free only durini:, a general election. His scathing- attack on the malriractices of church, monarchy or aristocracy v.'as no less acrimonious and hard-hitting. Ke came up as the most influential advocate of equality, liberty and fraternity for achieving which he gave a call to 'return to Nature. Ke says : "There should be, too, a considerable equality, in fortune and in rank, for otherwise there will not long be eq^oality in rights and authority. Finally, there must be little or no luxury, because either it is the product of wealth, or it makes wealth necessary. It corrupts both the rich and the DOor, the rich through their DOssessions, the poor through their lust to possess". -* His theory of the sovereignty of people, denial of any mundane divine authority, belief in a Supreme Being and a civil religion inspired almost every thinker and intellectual of the day and filled them with a great enthusiasm. In his writings "the rise of new epoch is very observable; for this most powerful writer abstained from those attacks on Christianity which unhappily had been too frequent, and exerted almost exclusively against the civil and political abuses of the existing society'.' Z\e idea expressed by Pousseau recurs in 37

Shelley's The Revolt of Is la;.: an.t articularlv in Fronde theus Unbound that "to rerounce liberty is to renounce being man, to surrender the rights of humanity ind even its duties ... to remove liberty from his vdll is to remove all imraorality fron: his acts"."*^ Romantics are indebted for their radlcalisr;, love of nature and social doctrines to Housseau whose hunanisn v;as "carried on vdth increased richness and subtlety in the romantic poetry. Childhood is idealised by Blake, Jordsvrorth, and Coleridge, freedom and nassion inspire the heroes and the heroines of Shelley".''^ In a sense he is the sniritual father of tiie English Romantic movement. ^lis hatred for so-called sophisticated city life was intense and he believed that man Can enjoy the real s-oiritual solace and sublimity in the cc«iT5any of nature. He vras solely for orogress, orosrierity, virtue and dominance of the general will. In his scheme of things, tyranny, corruption, injustice, cruelty and misery found no nlace. Ke expounded state as a progressive force that Causes the gradual upliftment of man from his primitive conditions. He has contended in the essay 'Has the Progress of science and the Arts Tended to Corrupt or Purify Morals' ? That the increase of knowledge, wealth, luxuries and the growth of cities have destroyed the basic elements of virtue and happiness inherent in the primitive man, and made him into a corrupt one. On this basis A.C. Ward regards him "the first of the moderns to 38

Dreach the iiPiDortance of the ijidividual person any 16 individual person in relation to the comnimity". The tenets of his civil religion comprised belief in a Surirerae 3eing, personal immortality, and the concept of future reviard and punishment, and his doctrine of popular sovereignty consisted o.^' liberty, equality and fraternity, He \'eilded a tremendous influence on his followers. The social doctrine of raine ana uodwin, love of nature theory of yords\.jorth and Coleridge and radical ideologies of Byron and Shelley can be traced to Rousseau's philosophy,

Shelley also echoes Helvetius (1715-1751) who had criticised the social and political evils and suggested some remedial measures. Besides 3helley, Godwin and Kary /Jollstone- craft were also influenced by the feminism of Helvetlus. His short but important writings made a significant contribution towards tlie development of utilitarian thought. He held the personal desires more significant than state-service. Jniform education was the most effective means for him to harmonise the private passions with general interests. In his view, the success of a government could be evaluated on the basis of the amount of happiness it provided for people. Godwin owed his egalitarianism to his materialistic thought, of vrhich remarks Brailsford "Helvetius had been Godwin's chief precursor". ^"^ 39

Shelley's hatred of reiirion and W'^femlnisn. seen to be rooted in the thoughts of Ilelvetins whom he studied at the very start of his career.

In addition to that, Holbach's (I723-89) fer.inisn was also a factor resr)onsible for shapin^^ Shelley's ideas about v.'omen, "e also held that a government loses all legiti- macv to onerate as s<~><^^ ^"^ i'^- ^3?l<5 ^^ rv 1-0 riot-in p. fno social ends. That law is also defunct which cannot ensure equal freedon: and justice to all. -^e also deplored the wretched conditions of \gomen v/ho were a permanent victim to domestic tyranny. "He talks of the absurdities" to quote ->railford, "of vjomen's education; draws a bitter oicture of a woman's fate in a loveless marriage of convenience; remarks that esteem is necessary for a happy marriage, but asks sadly ho-- one is to esteem a mind v/hich has eraGr^-^d from a schooling in folly; assails the riractice of gallantry, and the fashionable conjugal 18 infidelities of his day".

In the political parnohlets o" Shelley the thou'^hts of Tom Paine (1737-1809) might be heard reverberating, by -'horn he was particularly deeply impressed. In his Rights of V^r^n, Paine makes an onslaught on feudalism, monarchy and political oppression, Kalcing a distinction betv/een society and rovernr.ent he reconnnends republican and democratic government, and su^^port-^d 40

the 'natural constitution',''^ based on scientific oxcej ience and subject to revision and alteration. The nl-in o^ social security in Rights of Kan also attracted the attention of Romantics. His entire political nhilosophy centres round the French Revolution that "proved a fresh turning point in his career. In 1791-92 he took up the cudgels against 3urke in

the parts of Rights of Kan-'' -rhich, ocniGot;:rc- Tl.-.^-i.i T^^CL, is "one of the finest statements of eighteenth centary democratic philosophy ever formulated". 21 In his opinion the Revolu tion "v/as not against Louis XVI, but against the despotic princinles of the government, that the Nation Revolted". Fast observed a marked difference betv/een the approaches of other thinkers like Housseau, Voltaire, Locke, I'.ilton, Cromvrell etc. and those of i^aine. He infers that "they (Voltaire etc.) vrote abstractly of the pattern of change J Paine wrote realis tically of the method of change. They \jere philosophers -v^o created political philosophy: Paine was a revolutionist vho created a method for revolution. They moved men to thought; Paine moved men to thought and action. They dealt vdth theory and ideals; Paine dealt v;ith the dynamics of one force playing 23 against another". The advocate of Deism and republican form of government, he totally disapproves feudalism \*iich he considers the mother of despotism, war and oppression. Pointing out the distinction betv/een society and the state, i-aine observes that : 41

"some writers have so confoiinded society v/lth Goverrment as to leave little or no distinction between them;vAiereas they are r»t only different but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former oromotes our hapDiness Dositively by uniting our affection, the latter negatively —- by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher", Paine considers law a vehicle to carry out the collective will universally applicable to all and least interfering with the human desires. Defining law he says : "Law is an expression of the v/ill of the community ... It should be the same to all, v;hether it protects or punishes; and mil being equal in its sight, are equally eligible to all honours, places, and employments, according to their abilities".

The idea of constitutional liberty, predominance of reason, egalitarianism, social amelioration, equality and general progress proposed by Gondorcet (17^3-9M are reflected in "the romantic projects of the Utopian socillsts; and also in the poems of Shelley; the earlier poems of Wordsworth, Coleridge 26 and Southey". The subjectjs of constitutional liberty, freedom of Eiiropean colonies and increase in population also figure in his writings. Like Shelley he is also confidently optimistic 42

about the bright future \jhen the human world vrould be pure of tyrants, priests and their slaves, and rationalism will supplant every form of bigotry. Almost the sanie has been repeatedly echoed by Shelley, His political and other views have well been expressed in his essay Outline of an Historical View of the Progress of the Ilxjman Kind.

So enthused was ahexiey wiui tne i^oiitJ-Q^-L JusT^ice of Godwin (1756-1835) that to "attempt to understand Shelley without the aid of Godwin is a task hardly more promising than it would be to read Milton without the Bible",^7 Though inspired by Burke, Kary Wollstonecraft and Paine, Godwin has to his credit the original contribution of numerous social and -Dolitical ideas. Much emphasis has been laid by him on the feasible perfection of the government, and that its corruption becomes the main source of vitiating society. Also, to a great extent the well being of society depended on the nature and functioning of the government. He dismissed outright the traditional law, violent punishments, war etc., and had an urge to replace them by the law of equality and fraternity. He considered the educa tion of the masses to be the most effective means to eliminate every kind of social and political evils and to inculcate virtue. The early poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge was also inspired by Godwin's ideas. He supports the maintenance of social equality and individuality at one and the same time, in the prevalence of 43

which he visualises the withering av/ay of tyranny even if it assumes the form of marriage. It is an idea fully absorbed by Shelley as reflected in several of his roems. Shelley also developed his ovm view of anarchism under the influence of CJodwin, as reflected in wiu^en Kab etc. Por Godwin, government is only a necessary tolerable evil, the final extinction of

"V/ith what delight must every well-informed friend of Kankind look forward to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, \vhich has been the only perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and •'.vhich ... has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated vjith its substance, and no otherwise to be removed than by its utter annihilation".^ Shelley also idealises positive anarchism in his Queen Mnb^ The Revolt o;f Islam and some other poems. However, in The Mask of fiflf\rc^y, he criticises the negative anarchy, in its common connotation, as well as the intellectual and moral anarchy. Godwin identifies feudalism as the chief source of oppression and social injustice. He conceives crime to be a product of erroneous social set-up. Establishing social justice is a better means of eradicating crime rather than awarding horrid Dunishments. In his own \-rords, "^/Jhat ... can be more shameless than for society to make an example of those yihom she has goaded to the breach of order, instead of amending her ovm institution 44

which, by straining orler into tyranny, produced the mischief ?"^^ In his opinion the tyranny and slavery can he shaken off hy an exercise of strong will power, as he says, "In reality chains fall off themselves, \-;hen the magic of opinion is dissolved".^° It is a theme clearly reflected in Shellev' s Prometheus Unbound. Tne publication of Political

T'.-'.4.4__ r'^/a, .<•-, —I o ^^Tr-•<-.»»/%>-> <^>-><'^ TT ^

Inasmuch as the economic reform and the proper distri bution of wealth are concerned, Shelley betrays seme influence of Saint Simon (1760-1^25) "'••i^o regarded the private property to be the chief cause of r)Overty that was the gravest of all the human miseries. His suggestions centre round the financial and economic structure of society. The producing class was, in his opinion, most deserving and suitable for the political leader ship. He attached more significance to "produtive industry and those engaged in it, as compared with the non-productive or positively destructive activities and classes".-^^ He prescribed a three tier system of governmient comprising three ho\ises of govern ment. The house consisting of architects, engineers, sculptors, poets, musicians and painters is named by him the 'house of invention'. The second house will include mathematicians and 45

physicists, and be knovni as 'house of examination. A.na the members of the third, 'house of execution' will be the indus trialists. These three ho uses "'/ill look after the job of framing, examining and executing laws respectively. Simon warns about the tendency of idle feudal classes to seize upon the political power and misappropriate the public funds for the a'-hi'i'Vcru'j::*.. cf thuir c.rn seiiisn ends.

Certain other ideas concerning the economic and financial reforms projected by the Physiocrats like siuesnay, Mercier de la Reiviere also engaged Shelley's mind in one way or the other, as they are "generally considered to be the founders of the modern science of economics". -^ They dealt mainly with the problems of agricultural reform, liberalisation of guild regularisation, nature of property and social vrelfare etc.

In addition to these, there were in the air the views of some other prophets of the French Revolution during the days of the composition of Shelley's poetry. Though lacking the revolutionary fervour, Diderot was one to assail the existing political establishment and propagated humanitariasnism and philanthropy. Despite a lack of efficient response on the part of masses, he continued supporting their cause. Propounding the theory of sociological relativian, Konstesquien v/rote on liberty. In his Persian Letters, he "ridiculed the corruptiDn of the 46

court, conderaned the nrlviledges of the aristocracy, ierided the incompetent financial administration, and denounced the vices of fanaticism and intolerance".^^ Abbe Sieyes fought for the political rights and share of the "third Estate", the bulk of nation.

Besides, the Event of French Revolution had brought a train 01 linglish thinkers and philosophers into existence who became an effective source of influoicing and inspiring Romantics. The impact of their thoughts can be clearly marked on Shelley's poetry. The Event ^^as for them the "onancipation of men's minds ... not from political chains alone but from all conventional and moral inhibitions".^^ Richard Price (1723- 91) vms one of those English thinkers i-t.o regarded the fall of Bastille a landmark for the advance of liberty. In it he visualised an era of the rule of law and reason and an end to kingdoms and priesthoods, -^-'he idea reverberates in Shelley's verse. Quitb contrary to the usual response, Edmund Burke (1729- 27) vjas dead against the entire logic of French Revolution in his Reflections on the Revo].ution in France. He considered the Revolution a 'monstrous thing','hideous phantom' and 'unformed spectre'. He favoured monarchy and opposed the concept of democracy. The abstract philosophy behind the Revolution "seems to him false to the fundament-1 facts of man's nor-J and political 47

nature, n spirit which 'le dcteste'-. lo t'-e rclentlos.. eneny alilce of liberty and relic ion". Inspired by the French Revolution and speaking in a liberal tone, Joseph Priestly (1733-180^-) set the prosperity and happiness of the masses to be the main goal of a state. He favoured "libera lism at its most hopeful and heroic phase, \-faen revolutionar;' Dossibilities were opening on all sides, and human n-^ture seemed about to be born anev".^' -Chough, he had been a target of ridicule, insult and physical assaults by anti-Jacoblans but he did not choose to withdraw from the political stand .e had taken, John Gartwright (17^-1 82^f) also engaged himself in awakening the public consciousness against unjust Corn Laws, for him a sj'mbol of social and political injustice. 'annah More (17^5-1833) •'••^s one of the impassioned youth \^o strongly supported the common cause of humanity i.e. equality, liberty and fraternity. She also visualised in the fall of Bastille the arrival of a new era of human happiness. Samuel Romilly (1757-1818) fought against the severities of the criminal law. Kary v;ollstonecraft (1759-1797) struggled for the equal rights of women. She shares some opinions in common vath Godwin, particularly those concerning ^-romen, like marriage, co-education and conjugal relationships. He takes Burke of Reflections to task in her Vindication of tlie Rif^hts of V/omanT for his obscuran tist ideas. She , say^ "... the distress of many industrious 4S

mothers, v/hose help-mates iinve been torn fron. their., and the hungry cry of helpless babes were vulgar sorrows th?t could not move your commiseration, though they might extort an aLms".^^ And therefore we observe that "The writings of the French revolutionary theorists including Helvetius, D' Holbach, arxi Condorcet soon filtered into the English defenders of the Revolution". ^ And Shelley, whose TXDetry emerges from the same background, v;as one of those.

Such an atmosphere of social and political thought provided him with tlie necessary perspective to viev? things in their reality. Reading many of these writers directly and some of them through others, he developed his o\m. ixjint of view of assessing and evaluating the social and political trends, and he "undertook projects in Ireland and England similar to ho those of Tom Paine in America and France". Combining the qualities of a political theorist and missionary, he savi violence as the most useless means of achieving reform and laid •nronouitted stress on fundamental political and moral principles. His liberalism made him inclined towards liberals ratlier than conservatives and, in the words of Cameron, "even to the end of his life .... he exhibited strange 'democratic' ways". About his radical liberalism, he further points out : "Those who are acquainted with Shelley's political thinking will see many of the germs of it in these ',\/hig doctrines : ... The syinpathy for 48

the French and American Revolutions; the advocacy of the extension of the franchise; the championing of the Irish; the preference of brief "anarchy" to prolonged "despotism"; the faith that the "mighty changes of the rising \«rorld", will overthrow "the monuments of tyranny and injustice", and move 1+2 on to "a happy and glorious consummation". His religious early poem The Wander inn Jew (18IO). In it the vrandering Jew symbolises Shelley's disgust of the "AlmightyTyrant", the originator of all misery. Henceforth, defiance of tyranny becomes an inextricable part of his tiiought, and grovr^as signi ficant as his desire for freedom, 'ihite says, "Shelley v;as entirely devoted to the lovely tiieory of freedom", -' He also held the abolition of monarchy as an inevitable step to end v/ar. His earlier poem 'War' (I'^rgaret Kicholson Volume) is aimed to infer that the abolition of monarchy will result in peace. His acquaintance with Godwin's Political Justice had a tremendous effect on his social and political thinking which, he v/rites to Godwin, "opened to my mind fresh and more extensive viewsj it materially influenced my character, and I rose from its perusal a wiser and a better man, I was no longer the votary of romance; till then I had existed in an ideal world — now I found that in this universe of ours v;as enough to excite ttie interest of the heart, enough to employ the discussion of reason; I beheld, in 50

short, tliat I had duties to nerfor.". In a '/ay nis acquaintance \.'ith the social and political trends of his time serve to be trend-setter for him. The trends which were in the process of being set during his early age, are reflected in his early prose writings. A study of his early panphlets may let us have ah access to the style of functioning of his mind and his social and political responses.

Shelley's early objectives of social and political reform are traceable in the pahmphlets or prose tracts he wrote during the early period of his career, jfevertheless, the thoughts contained in them were subject to nodifications and review during the later years. Such of his seven works are : Ifecessitv of Atheism^ Afl M'ArgSS %Q V^Q ^^£1^ PgQl^Ig> PrOTTOsal for an Association of Philanthropists^ A Declaration of Rjgrhts^ A Letter to Lord Ellenboroueh^ On tlie Punishment of Death and Refutation of Deism. A thorough discussion of all these is beyond our perview, and only the most important social and political dimensions of these will be focussed upon briefly. Familiarity v;ith these early political ^.ffitings is necessary because almost the same social and political responses constitute most of the major themes in his poetry. Secondly, five of these pamphlets were written before his first major political composi tion, Queen llab appeared on the scene. 51

Slielley wrote An Address to thf? Irl.qli Feonle {^^'A2) v/hen he was only nineteen. The social and political state of affairs during those decades in Ireland was by no means satisfactory. Tlie English oi^pression of Ireland, the struggle of the Irish people against it, the conflicts of Protestants and Catholics, deprivation of Catholics of political rights, war in France, the Irish rebellion nf 17?^' '^tc. consricucuclv mnrlrcd the background of the v/riting of the pamphlet. The Irisli neonle were badly affected by religious antagonism, race hatred and lack of educational opportunities. Absentee-landlordism and (Pack rent were the means of economic exnloitation. In tliis background, the boy Shelley, despite the dissuasion of Godwin, embarked upon the venture of solving a very complicated problem of Irish uolitics. To undertake the whole Irish venture, he was armed \jith the Address addressed to "the poor Irisli Catholics" and aimed at familiarising to "uneducated apprehensions ideas of liberty, benevolence, peace, and toleration". ^^ He further informs her, "It is recently intended also as a preliminary to other pamphlets to shake Catholicism on its basis, and to induce Quakerish and Socinian principles of politics, without objecting to the Christian religion, which vouia be no good to the vulgar just now, and cast an odium over the other nrinciples which are advanced". Highly enthused by Godwin's Political iuntitj^ej Shelley began distributing his pamphlet in Dublin, of which 52

"sixty vient to public-hous'^s, and 3helley thre^; many more from a balcony to 'likely-looking' passer-by, much to Harriet's amusement". ''^ The pamphlet bears a clear imprint of God^^nian thought, God\vin necessitated non-violent revolution and freedom of speech and press for every kind of social and Dolitical reform. In his view, dialogue and free discussion vras most effective in charging th.c r.--.h1ir. r.^iriiori. -.l--- •ILl: Uicsc ideas, Shelley also shares with Godi-dn his perfectibilianism and the idea that evil can be curbed if men desired to change circumstances. But, in Shelley, "the some\

"There are many Englishmen v^o cry down the Irish and thin]<: it answers their ends to revile all Uiat belongs to Ireland; but it is not because these men are Englishi.ien that they 53

naintalp sucli opinions, but because they v/ish to get ir.oney, and titles and power. They vjould act in this manner to v;hatever country they belong, until r-ankind is nuch altered for'the better, wh^h reforr:., I hoioe, will one day be affected"." He was not in favour of a reforr;: which was restricted to a religious sect or political group. He favours a r.-.assivc reform on the basis of the moral principles for political institutions, and relicious intolerance. In h±s^ vx^vr thp moral virtues lil^e justice, truth, honesty and reason do not necessarily sterm fron religious faitli, therefore, "there is no reason ... why every religion, every foriii of thinking might not be tolerated".52 Laying emphasis on toler-nce he says, "I nroTDOse unlimited toleration, or rather the destr-'-ctior. ^x)th of toleration and intoleration". ^3 Hence, he inf.-^rs tii-^t thir:!l:ing only in terms of Catholic emancipation v/ill be tantar.o-int to rer)lacing one tyranny v;ith the other, though it m.ay be resorted to as the first step :

"Some teach you that others are heretics, that you alone are right; som.e teach that rectitude consists in religious opinions, vathout v/hich no morality is good. Some ^/.all tell you tliat you ought to divulge your secrets to one parti cular set of men. Bev.'are, m.v friends, how you trust those who speak in this way, They ^/ill, I doubt not, attempt to rescue you from your present miserable state, but they vjili prepare a worse".-^^

Instead of usin;- violence to settle tlie dis-utes, he prescribes the force of reason for the purpose; the )asis of 54

his ^olitic-^l philosophy :

"We cannot bellevo just what we like, but only ^4iat we thih'' to be true; for you cansiot alter a ran's opinion by beatin • or burninr, but by ^>ersuadinr him that ^hat yor thinl: is rl'_'ht, and t\is can be done by fair ^vords and reason".?"?

a genuine purpose. In spite of exhortinc the Irisii to assemble and express their ODinions freely, bat vjarns then against indulging in any kind of violence or sl~.owing mob-n.entality to indiscipline or violence as it ..lay defeat their very just cause. Alluding to the failure of the French Revolution, he .^akes tne sane point in the Address :

"The cause which (the Revolutionists) vindicated v/as that of truth, but they gave it the appearance of a lie by using methods which will suit the purpose of liars as well as their o^'n".?o

In the Address, Shelley also points out th^t the suffering Irish enjoy full sj'mnathy of the English masses vdio do not endorse the arbitrary attitude of the Snglisli government of dictating terns to Ireland or im.posing its conditions upon her. Though, he thinks, after the preliminary step o-f Catholic emancipation, the Iris': "will be rendered equal to the people of Engl-^nd in their rights and privileges, and \.dll be in all respects, so far 55

as concerns the State, as hant^y", '^ it alone v;ill not put an end to all their mis .-ries. -i-'he renx)val of tlie econcmic disparity will still remain a task to be undertaken for achieving the object of prosperity and happiness. It could be achieved, "if ... (rich and r>oor) could be prevailed unon to live equally like brothers. ... But t'ds can be done neither today nor tomorrow",-^ but through a constant riersuance of the aims, "^'ildness, sobriety, and reason are the effectual methods of forwarding the ends of liberty and hapniness".^^

Shelley also enunciates his belief in the -oerfectibility of human nature, an idea he shares with Godwin and Paine etc. He traces evil to institutionalisation and economic factor. The idea of tlie perfectibility of man reverberates in most of his poems and assumes highly T^hilosophical dimensions in Prometheus lAibound. He says :

"I think those people ... are very silly ... who say tiiat himan nature is depraved; \-ih.en at the same time wealth and poverty, those t,.'o great sources of crime, fall to the lot of a great majority of people; and \^en they see that peoTDle in moderate circumstances are alv/ays v/ise and good ".60

Absolving human nature of depravity and characterising it witli the germs of nerfectibility, he traces evil to institu- 56

tio.-.lisatioa, of - .ic •ovcr\ii.o:it is ^ne -ocl o.. L-, .-.i j^ exa'-ple : "Governs"i :t 15, an evil; it is oaly f.iC tioi-'it- fiillness %'tl vices of i en that ily It - .eccssap^- evil, Tien all ren arc ^oofl •:in. "ise, 20V'"J^'ent will of itself decny. ... socie' Is prod-icert b-' the vant^, -overiii..ent 'rj t"ie "ic''euicssj ano -^ state o" just and ha^^" penality b;^ t' e ir;--^co""^- ir.'^nt a'ri reason of T-.n".^'^

Shelley is indebted rc" tMb idea of Faine aid .-od-'in. Faine in his Conrx)n Sense observe" that ôvernrent is tho 1;'ôd•L^ct of "out "ickedness and serves oiir ^relfare "negatively by restr-în- ing otir vices''.^ An^' 'jod"in endorses his vie.: : '"Society and government ... are di-'fereat ' .1 thensolve::, and have di^'erent ori':in3. Society ir yroduccd by o-x "ant..., ••na -over.i'eit by our wickedness, Societ i- in ovory stat'^ a blessing; gover.!- nent even in its best st.tc but a necessary evil'",''^^

Shelley disnisses t'le idea of pro' oting or er.couragiiig art at the cost of the r;eaeral har^-iinesSj aros-^erit- and freedor , In the absence of the latter, s^'Onding v'ealth or art is in his opinion a very cruel activity,

"People say that poverty is no evil; they have never felt" it, or tliey -jould not thin"- so; that wealth is necessary to encourage the arts — but are not the arts very inferior things to virtue and hayainess ? the nan ^-oiO-d bo very dead to all ge-iero^is feelings ^''lo "oald rither see rrett^' aicturo.vand st-^t'ier; tn^ . a •• illion free and ha^^-' on".'^''- 57

The subjects of the 'li erty of the press' and freedom of assembly do also figure towards the conclusion of the Address. Kuch to Shelley's chagrin "There is no liberty of tlie press, for the subjects of British governnent''.^'^ The freedom of Assembly and press are inevitable ceans for him to bring about any radical change or effect social and political reform in society, ^e says : "The discussion of any subject is a right that you have brought into the vrorld with your heart and tongue,,.... It is fit that the governed should inquire into the proceedings of govemment".'^^

Tnus, we see that by having objectives of social and political reforrr; like republicanism, pacifisr. ana economic equalitarianism, based on 'the individual virtues of honesty, justice, and wisdom and the individual freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and religion' , the Addreps develops a universal appeal, -^he proposal for an association to achieve the revoca tion of the 'Union Act' apnears at the end of the Address.

His second pamphlet Proposals for an Association of Philanthronists followed tlie Address during the same year (March 2, l8l2). It also carries almost the same aims and objectives as the Address. The pamphlet stresses the need of an association of people or Darty vAiich could engage itself actively to achieve the r)olitical reform, and set its eyes on 5g

the rerieal of the Union Act and Catholic enianc ipation as the first steps. The task of individual enlighteni^:ent rem3.ins its ultimate objective v/hich is a recurring theme in Prometheus Unbound. His dislike for the 'fireside politician' is reflected in these lines : "Benevolent feeling has cone out in this co-untry in favour of the haDpiness of its inliabitants ...

But it vril 1 not he Vept allvp by PQr>h r^^t^^7pr^ <; H-.t-.i n^; rr-iTofT^y by his own fireside, and saying that things are going on v;ell, because the rain does not beat on him, and he has books and leisure to read thein, because he has money and is at liberty to accumulate luxuries to himself",'^ He sets for the association the general goals to pursue :

"I an ,,. indeterminate in my descrintion of the association \^ich I propose, because I conceive that an assembly of men meeting to do all the good that opportunity -will permit then to do must be in its nature as indefinite and varying as the instances of human vice and misery that precede, occasion, and call for its institution". 68

Shelley also observes that the corruption of Toriesthood and government have necessitated the existence of such an organisa tion as will oppose these t'v.'o evil agencies as its prinary objective, Shelley's hatred of monarchs and kings finds vent in this pamphlet also. He argued that kings, as tiiey are not chosen by the governed, do not have any right to govern. He night have owed this idea to Paine whom he read at Eton and 59

reverred throughout his life. He declares :

"Government can have no rights: it is a delega tion for the Durpose of securing them to others. Man becomes a subject of government, not that he may be in a \irorse, but that he may be in a better state than that of unrecognised society. The strength of government is the happiness of the governed. All government existing for the hapniness of others is just only so far as it exists by ttieir consent, and useful only so far as it operates to their well being". "9

Much later in l820, in his A, Philosonhical View of Reform, he casts his vote in favour of a representative government alone and comments : "A government that is foimded on any other basis is a government of fraud or force and ought on the first convenient occasion to be overthrovm",' About constitution Shelley opines in the Proposal^ :

"Constitution is to government what government is to law. Constitution may, in this view of the subject, be defined to be not merely something constituted for the benefit of any nation or class of people, but sometliing consti tuted by themselves for their own benefit. The nations of England and Ireland have no constitu tion, because at no one time did the individuals that compose tiiem constitute a system for the general benefit"?1

In Rights of Man^ Paine had made similar observations about the constitution and government fror which Shelley confesses to have borrowed;'- Paine says : "The government of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the nersons, but in the lav^s" , and 60

further "^A coxistitution ij .-.ot the act of a government, but of a people constituting a covernraent; and govera-ent dthout a constitution, is power vitiiout a right". "73 It is, no doubt, OT^posed to Burke's pro-estVolishnent ideas. Shelley therefore Infers, "A phil-inthropic association has notliinr to fear fror. the Englisli constitution, b-it it moy expect danger from its eovernraent"

I^.e Proposrils al?o undertakes to develop intellectual leaders as r>ay be no les3 talented than the makers of the French Revolution. Shelley's comnents on the halthusian doctrine of population mal-:e also an im-)ortant aspect of the Pro-no sals. Shelley condemns the vay of •Tcsentinr t;:e theory that t!:e continuance of -'rar, disease and poverty are the only natural means of cuttinf: the population to size, because it eliminates all chances for reform. He concludes that Kalthus' observations as they appear in his Bssav on the Principles of Formulatioq(1798) are aimed at only comforting tlie rich and the warmongers. He exclaimis :

"'.Jar, vice and misery are undeniably bad, they embrace all that i-.'e can conceive of temporal and eternal evil. Are we to be told that these are remedyless, because the earth v/ould, in case of their remedy, be overstocked ? That the rich are still to glut, that the ambitions are still to -nlan, that the fools whom these kuaves mould, are still to murder their brethren and call it 61

,^lory, and Uv\t the poor ai-e to i?ay 'vit;-: t'.eir blood, their labour, their hanpiness, and their innocence, for the crimes and mistakes vhich the hereditary raompolist;-; o-:' earth conmit ? Rare so phi Sin" 175

The pan.phlet reflects 3helle;"' s inclination tovrards the forra- tion of a deniocrntic set uv based on riolitical parties.

almost in a failure bringinr disapriointment to him. He v;rote to Kiss rlitchener "Ky youth is much against me here".'^'^ Shelley learned at Dublin through experience that bigotry and the grip of the habits of belief prevent men fro;, adventurous thinking. But, his failure with the masses 'iid n?t disillusion him for ever, but only made him change his strategy, he writes to Kitchener : "I had done all that I could do; if its effects were beneficial, they were not greatly so. I am dissatisfied with 77 my success, but not vdth the attempt". Realising that he could not achieve the objectives of his political pamnhlets, because "The spirit of bigotry is high", he v/rites to Godwin :

"I have withdrawn from circulation the publica tions vThereln I erred, and am t)reparing to quit Dublin. It is not because I thinlc that such associations as I conceived, v/ould be deleterious .... I am. not one of those whom pride will restrain from admitting my orwm short-sightedness, or confessing a conviction which wars with those previously avowed. Ky scheme of organising the ignorant I confess to be ill-timed ... moreover I do not see that a peasant v70uld attentively read my address .... M78 62

Ab. ut the change of his strategy he says in tiie sa;^e letter :

"I shall address myself no more to the illiterate. I will look to events in ^/iiich it vdll be impossible that I cah share, and make myself the cause of an effect vhlch will take place ages after I have mouldered in the dust ... '-^olly to abstract our views from self, undoubtedly requires unparalleled dis interestedness. 'There is not a completer ^^ abstraction than labouring for distant ages". '^

Before leaving Dublin on ^nril \^ l8l2, he published but did not circulate another tr-^ct A Declaration of Rights. It is a concise reproduction of the same arguments as expressed in the two tracts discussed above. The namphlet echoes the social and political ideas of Godv;in, Housseau, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine etc. The points restated in it can be briefly siomiuod up here, as they add nothing new to his social and political thought. A government draws its validity only from its delegated authority to protect the rights of citizens. The perfection, imp2X)vement or change in government should depend on the vdll of the majority and in this task "tlie minority should not disturb them, they ought to secede, and form their ox-nx system in their ovm way". The benefits and burdens of government should be equally shared by all and the use of coercion should be minimised. Everybody should enjoy a right to think "as his reason directs" and sioe-^.k out his mind freely. Government can only define i^atever exists and cannot make law, nor can they 63

înd the coinine generation. Politics should be controlled by universal moral princirdes, and itnsnot "right to do an evil thing that good may come". All religions beliefs should be treated equally. Virtue and talents should be tlie sole criterion of honour and not titles, oov/er, ^vealth or ^lory etc. Right to monopolise or extra liberty or leissure •.ay not be a-v¥arti^ckri i-r\ oVIT*^no >i<5/-l>,T•ô•^». ^-f^ ir^Â^. Q.r'd mind Is ncccr<"r.rv

to those T'lho would be free.... -^he only use of government is to repress the vices of man". If men slied off evil, there will be no need of government. In the preroration, he declares :

"1-fen I Thou whose rights are here declared, be no longer forgetful of the loftiness of thy destination".80

Through tliese rights men may "arrive at happiness and freedom". The preroratlon ends at the note : "Av;ake I —arise 1 — or be forever fallen". Despite all this he returned from Dublin saying, "more hate me as a free thinker than love me as a votary of freedom".

A Letter to Lord Ellenboroueh^ arother printed work, of July I8l2, is a protest against the conduct of the trial of D.I. Eaton for the crime of publishing Part Three of Paine's Age of Reason. The blam^e on him was to have professed deistic rather than christian views. Shelley's protest was against 64

deprivinp anyone of freedom of speech and oress.

The fragment, On the Punishment of Death, belonging probably to a period shortly following JJueen Mab^ deals with Shelley's ODlnion about the problem of the purpose and form of the Legal punishment. Shelley argues strongly against the punishment of death in it, because instead of putting an end to thR erir.ie. it aftgr?^vates the tendency to renent it. Dp>p-hh sentence is a kind of society's revenge upon the criminal and revenge can never be a corrective measure. Because of this punislment, callousness and brutality take deep roots in human nature and further degenerate it. This i^ea of Shelley gained v;ide popularity in the years to come and is nrach more relevant today.

The distribution of his tract Ifecessitv of Athei?gR caused his expulsion from Oxford in 1811. Although the pamphlet deals with metaphysical problem of the existence of God, a brief mention of it is necessary in that it has some indirect bearing on the social and political dimensions of his poetry. In his poems he bases, as we shall see while dealing with some of his major poems, the social and political structure of the society on the metaT)hysical beliefs of people. A belief in a despotic, anthrotjomorphic God generates the attitudes of despotis:^, arbitrariness and slavery. He wrote the Pamphlet with 6§

a vievj to having ansvers to his doubts about the existence of God, "^ae argiment in the tract focusses r.ainlv on three points : evidence of a Deity can be direct, as in this visible appearance, or our reason is forced to believe in "lire, as the Creator of the universe, or the testimony of those who see '-lim convinces us. He finds no answer in affirmation regarding these questions and therefore infers tliat "V/e can only command voluntary actions, belief is not an act of volition, the mind is even Dassive""^ Since it is irrational to command belief, there is no sufficient evidence that God exists. "It is almost unnecessary to observe, that the general knowledge of the deficiency of such proof, cannot be prejudiced to society ; Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind. —— Every reflecting mind must allow that there is no proof of the existence of a deity. "Q.E.D," -' The Ifecessitv of Atheism was expanded in the notes on jjueen Mab.

To ansvrer deists, Shelley wrote in iSl^f another pamphlet Refutation of Deism in which a dialogue takes place between a deist and a christian, Theosophus and Eusebes, the latter defeated by the former with the help of arguments of the ffecessitv of Atheism. In it he argues :

"I&itil it is clearly proved that the liiiverse was created, we may reasonably suppose that it has endured from all eternity. In a case -vAiere two Dropositions are diametrically ornosite, the 66

mind believes that v/hich is less incomprehen sible : it is easier to suppose that the Universe has existed from all eternity, than to conceive an eternal being car)able of creating it. If the mind sinks beneatli the weight of one. is it an alleviation to increase tlie intolerability of the burden ? 0"+

\-ie observe, therefore, tliat Shelley's poetry euerges lism and carrying in its fold a very significant epochal experiment in social ard political change, the French Revolu tion. Shelley was fortunate to avail himself both of the pre-Revolution and post-revolution social and rxDlitic'^l philoso phy. Since, the event was over before he appeared as a thinker and poet he v:as in a better position to assess the factors of its making and failure from an objectve angle, ^-e adopted the philosophical ideas of many French as well as English thinkers but not v/ithout subjecting to his ovrn critical facul ties, 'fhe impact of the contemporary social and political thought can be clearly seen on his poetry, particularly the radical and reformist approaches appealed to hin more. His political tracts contain his social and political views. They share in common a few basic princii^les that government is a necessary evil which should be tolerated for pro tec tine the human right, reason and not violence should be the neans of reform, in nlace oC monarchies, rerresentative republican forr: 67

of government sliould be installoa, econoriic justice ^nd equality of opportunities sliould he the basis o^ refori:., and all reforr. must rest upon individual moral virtues like enlichtenment, courace, justice, honesty and sy'.-patli;- for hunan beings. He also refutes the existence o^ any s'lch Deity as projected by Christighity or other faiths, ^he denial of God rests vrith bin more '>?^ a nni iticql <;f-.rQt.pry f.'i^n ^ r"-,tf-or> of belief. In order to do av;ay ^/ith the social and nolitical evils he hits hard at the very foundation of the existing social structure, i.e., belief in a despotic, arbitrary and supervisory God. 3ut, as we shall see later, it v.^-old be unjustified to for.T. t::e impression that he refuted tiie existence of an ultimate pov/er. The only point is that he took an entirely different view of the ultimate power from tiiose prevailing.

The influence of social and political thought, discussed a'Dove, resulted in Shelley's preoccupation ^-jlth cert.iin social and political themes. It also ir.ade him develop his 'jnic.ue concept of man, universe, society, govermaent an: f'^t-ore. Ilis these major preoccupations have a deep bearing on his poetry. In tlie follo'.-.'ing chapter, tlie sa;r:e \^rill be taken into acco'cuit, and the evidence of the above discussed influences v/ill be trace." in his poetry of different periods. 68

1. Gonclusio-. to his "Ifoten on the Text of Shelle"", 'Fortnlrhtly Reviev;' , hay 1'"'69, p. 5^>1. 2. Letter of January 7, 1p2, Julian .lor^^sM-^P^^c'r^lPeckjHt^^p^,

3. Clar!:, David Lee: ed. 3hellev' ?. Prose.lUltn^AftAMfi^fr&^J^e^'ic^^,

h, A Jefeiice of Poetrv. p. 297. 5. Mary Shelley's -*3te to ^^os,^^lind and Ilelen. Ir-o lit leal V/orlis^ ed. Hutchinson, t). 6. ?iogers, 1^'. : She lie v at .^'orh. Oxford, 1967, i:. 2'j, 7. Doyle, Phillis : A Ilistor- of Political ThoaRJit. London, 19^1, P. 152. 8. Jane I : 'The Political 'Orhs' , ed. C.H. Ixjllevain, Cambridge, 1918, p. 307. 9. Dunning, V/,A, : A History of Political Tlieorv. ?ousseau to Snender, India, 1'^66, p. h-, 10. Sahine, George, IT. : A History of Political Ineorv, London, 1959, P. ^7^. 11. Rousseau, J.J, : "The Social Contract" in Social Contract; Locke — HumeT RouEseau^ ed. E. Barker, Oxford, 19<30,p.2UO. 1 2. Barren, J. : Shellev and the Thought of his Time. Archon Books, 1967, h2, 13. Buckle, H.T. : History of Civilisgtion in Enrl^^nd^ Longman, I908, Vol. II, p. 330. ^h, Rousseau, J.J. : Social Contract and J^iscourses. London, 1913, p. 10. 15. Herford, C.H. : The Age of Words^^rth^ London, i960, p.X^TI. 16. V/ard- A.C, : Landmarks in Western Literature. London, 1932, p. 66. 17. Brailsford, H.H. : Shelley^ Godvin and Their Circle. Oxford, 19'^2, p. ':'9. 69

18. Brailsford, H.::. : Shelle^.^. ^iodv/in and Their Circle. Oxford, 19V2, ^. 197.' 19. Paine, T. : Hlrhts of Kan, D. 22?. 20. Previte - Crton, C.'-'. : "Political Writers and Speakers' in the Cambridge History of English Literatiare, Vol. XI,

21. ?ast rIov7ard (ed.) : Preface to Rights of Kan in the Selected Vforks 01 Tom Paine^ IJev York, 19^, p. 9^. 22. Cocker, F.'.;. : Recent Political Thought. Calcutta, 1962, 23. 23. Fast Howard : The Selected Vfork of Tom Paine — (Introdic tion) , Ifew York, 19^, T). XII. 2^. 'Goramon Sense', The Selected V/ork of Topi Paine, p. 6. 25. Paine : Rights of Kan, p. 227. 2$, Cocker, F.V/. : Recent Political Thought. Calcutta, 1962, p. 28. 27. Brailsford, op. cit, p. 212. 28. Godwin, Political o'ustlce, Vol. II, p. 578. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid, Book I, Char?. 7, Vol. I, p. 6^. 31. Cameron, K. 11. : Shelley and Hjc; Circle. Oxford, 1961 Vol. I, p. 9, 32. Dunninc, W.A. : A. History 01 Political Theory. London, 1959, T). ^79. 33. Sabine, George :i. : A History of Political Theory. London, 1959, p. ^79. 3^. Gr&shoy, Leo : The French Revolution and ^^ipoleon, India, 1960, p. 7. 35. Elton, Oliver : A Survey of Egcrllsh Literature (17S0-1"^0), London, 1955, Vol. I, p. 2^. 70

36. Grierson, H. : 'Edmund Burke' In the Cambridge listory of Ennlish Literature, /ol» JX, p« ^0. 37. valley, Basil : The Elghteentli Century Background. London, 1965, p. 189. 38. V/o^lstonecraft, >^ary : Vindication of the Hlehts of Vtomgn, London, 1792, 0. 27. 39. Elton, Oliver : A Survey of Snrllsh Literature (17^.0- 1830), London, 195"^, Vol. I, p. 2h, kO. Gulnn, J.P. : Shelle^r's Political ThouAt^ Koutoxif 1^769, h^, Cameron, K. li. : The Young She lie v. p. 38. ^2. Ibid., p. h5. ^3. -'hite i^-'. I. : 3hellev.Vol. I,p.9. hh, Shelley to Godv;in, Jan. 10, 1812, Julian .hrks ^ Vol.^lII, I'. 2ifO. U5. Shelley to Elizahetii Httchener, Januarv 26, I8l2, Julian Works, Vol. VIII, p. 2^6. ^-6. Ibid., p. 25h, ^7. Kin^-'Iele, Desoond : Shelley t His Thought and v/ork, Londoa, 196O, Ch.I, p. 19. h8. Grabo, o^->. cit. p. 73. ''-9. Ibid. 50.Kinr:-::ele,op.cit. 51. Clark, David Leo : Shelley's Prose (ed.), Albuquerque, The University of "e\i Mexico Press, 195^, pp. UO-M , 52. Ibid., p. hh, 53. Ibid., p. h5. 5^. Ibid., p.Ul. 55. Ibid., p. hh, 56. Ibid., p. W/, 57. Ibid., p. 50. 58. Ibid., 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. ,p. 5^. 61. Ibid., p. 51. 62. Paine, Thomas : Comrnon Sense^ (Basic Writings of Thomas Paine, :iev York 19^2) , p. 1. 63. trodv.dn, ..'illiar.i : Enquiry GGoncernln,"o : Political Justicej London, I798, ''ol. I, p. ^9. 71

6V. Shelley's Prose, Op. cit. , T-. 52. 65. Ibid., p. 55. 66. Ibid. 67. Complete Worl's, ed. Ingiên "- Teck, London, 1926, Vol. V, p. 256. 68. Shelley's Prose. Or), cit., p. 63. 69. Ibid., p. 65+. 70. Complete Works, OT^. cit., Vol. Ill, p. V2. •71 S^-'eTlGv'c Pre CO. C"". cit. ~r,. 6':-6':. 72, Ibid,, op. cit,, "It is with openness that I confess, nay vith" pride I assert, i'hey are so", p. 67. 73. Basic Writing of T. Paine, op. cit, pp. 176-177. 7^+. Shelley's Prose, op. cit, p. 65, 75. Ibid., p. 65. 76. Shelley to Elizabeth Ilitchener, l-ebr-oary 27, 1B12, Kafîc Plant, op. cit. p. 73. 77. Shelley to E. ilitchener, Acril 16, l3l2, Julian ..orks, Vol. VIII, p. 308. 78. Shelley to Godwin, Karch 18, 1812, Julian ./orks, Vol. VIII, p. 301. 79. Ibid. 80. Shelley, P,3. : A Declpration of Rights, last naragranh. 81. Shelley to Elizabetli Kitchener, I-ârch 10, l8l2, Julian V/orks T Vol. VHI, p. 292. 82. Shelley, P.B,, Necessity of Atheism, concl^xiing part. 83. Ibid. 8^. The Works of Percy By s she Shell ey^ OD. cit.. Vol. 'H: , pp. ^7-lf8. CHAPTER m.

^HELLEI'S. £,AJOR SOGIO-PCLI^IlAk

PREOG.CUPA^I0i:S Shelley's social and political philosophy emanated and his equally strong wish to change them. Bet-ween >iiat the -world 'is' and A^iiat it 'ought to be' lies the atopianisn of Shelley, viiich Grabo comn^nts, "is the natural outgrowth of an ardent and altruistic mind confronted -with the stark i actuality of life",' Shelley "hisigered after the golden age of his desires s and all his powers of intellect -were at Vtie service of this hunger".^ To see the society ricideriof poverty, illiteracy, slavery e-tc., the foun-tainhead of all other social and political evils, and Man emancipated to the due level of his nobility was the only ambition of his life realising ^^diich was his only dream. "Dreamer of dreams as he was Shelley yet conceived it to be the part of his poetic mission to become the inspirer and guide of man", *^ His enriched thought trans formed into a verse \iiich became "the trumpet of prophecy" of an ideal world in vftiich "Man has lost/ His terrible prerogative , 73

and stands/ An equal among equals".^ The poems Ode to tiia West Wind and To a Skvlark reflect the passion of his soul. The Revol-^: pf Islam predicts the vrorld of his dreams : In •which the characters Laon and Cythna become the embodiments of his 'high intent'. This is true of The Prometheus Uiib9^n<^ and some other poems too. The author of The I'JBcessltv oj* Atheism, that ultimately caused his expulsion from Oxford, lived in English society but "abhorred that society and all its 5 ways and directed all his energy again its opinions"."

His harsh criticism of religion and outright condemnation of the church had not been "hastened and embittered by a dis appointment in love", but his atheistic proclamation that "There is no God"'"^ was "in defiance of injustice", and triggered off by his "abhorrence of superstition".*^ He believed that "Religion fetters a reasoning mind with the very bond viiich restrain the unthinking one from mischief". Believing in a "mixture of Platonism and Pantheisn", Shelley passes strictures on Christianity, saying "my rejection of revealed (Christianity) proceeds from my perfect conviction of its insufficiency to the happiness of man —— to this course I can trace murder, war, intolerance ... I once was enthusiastic Deist, but never a Christian". Advocating religious libera lism, Shelley gave a call against the "remission of the church- craft and oppression" because the church condemned "the wise. 74

the mild, the lofty, and the Just".'^ Vehemently, he opposed the chiirch and the government and advocated to "abolish titles, and make all religions ... equal in the eyes of the law". '^

Love -—"the one abstract and universal and the other concrete and earthly"'5" makes another major recurrent thesie in Shcllnv* s r.nctrv. -Jr.lcy- i^ iM.:.-~|.^.r-t^''-, Tvr liitiarsc, in Adonais '^ and Enirtsvchldion. '' It is for him a sustaining force that can be defined as a "bond and sanction which connects not only man with man but with everything -vAiich exists". Shelley visualised some inherent evils in the institution of marriage and so he denounces it outright. The ideas on matrimony borrowed from Mary Vfollstonecraft and James Lawrence were reinforced by his own personal grudge and indignation against marriage. It is for him "an evil of immense and extensive magnitude" because it is the "most despotic, most unrequired fetter vAiich prejudice has forged to confine its energies". Instead of a horrible, indissoluble and so-called sacred bond of marriage, Shelley prescribes "a complete reciprocity of duties"*" between husband and wife with a view to saving th^i from living a dogged life and their offsprings from the stJbsequent pernicious effects. Disapproving 'promiscuous concubinage', he necessitates "a previous reformation in morals" before abolishing the institution of marraige. Pointing out that 75

"ten percent population of London consisted of Drostitutes", Shelley considered prostitution the "legitimate offspring of marriage and its accompanying errors". It is obvious that Saielley totally disapproves of prostitution and strongly recommends that sooner it is done away with, the better.

As regards government, Shelley believed in the spirit of tile vjorus of Abraham Lincoln that it snouia De "of the people, by tiie people and for the people". It should be fully concerned with the amancipation and welfare of people who always must "have a right to change it" Any other form of government than democratic was, for him, "a government of fraud or force and ought on the first convenient occasion to be overthrown". In a great nation "masses of individuals should give their consent to qualify other individuals whom they delegate to superintend their concerns".^^ Constitution is a means to safeguarding the equality of rights of people and the maintenarxje of the national welfare. It is "not merely some thing constituted for the benefit of any nation or class of people, but something constituted by themselves for their own benefit".^ This was surely an attack on the British constitu tion vAiich favoured the rich and suppressed the poor. Only that constitution was acceptable to Shelley vAiich cromised eqxiality, liberty and fraternity to all irrespective of their caste, creed, complexion or status. Law, in the opinion of Shelley was "the 76

mode of determining those opinions, according to \>rtiich the constituted authorities are to decide on any action", and its aim is "the good of the v»hole". The purpose of punish ment according to him v;as to reform rather than to gratify the lust of vindictiveness, and to maintain peace in the society. He \]&s not in favour of frequent death sentence.

Shelley was of the belief that the liberation of man from slavery fully depended on the liberation of vjoman: hov; could he be free "if woman be a slave" and real peace be achieved ?* Inasmuch as the emancipation was concerned his voice was no less fearful than that of Mary V.'ollstonecraft, In the \^rds of king-Hele "To guide him, he had a bible at hand in the 'Righteof Women' which he had first read in iSia''.^"^ Emphasizing the inevitability of their emancipation for the cultural progress, he quotes the example of Rome where women "held a hi^er consideration in society and vrere esteemed almost as the equal partners with their husbands in the regula tion of don^stic economy and the education of their children",^^ He s\«5ported their right to vote, too.

Along with tiie passionate love for his own country what has got a remarkable bearing upon his social and political philosophy is that we notice a strong undercurrent of interna tionalism, i.e. humanism, throughout his thought and verse. On 77

the other hand, he loves Englishmen : "Our poets, and our philosophers, our mountains, and our lalces, the rural lanes and fields which are ours so especially, are ties which unless I become utterly senseless can never be broken assunder". ^•' And, on the other hand, his love for those who do not belong to the religion or country of his own people is eqxially intense and passionate. He staunchly believes that "the cates of heaven are open to people of every religion, provided they are good". Of the people of contrary notion he asks in surprise : "Can you think that the Mahometans and the Indians, vrfio have done good deeds in this life, will not be rewarded in the Ifext?"^' Taking no sides with "an Englishman or an Irishman, a Catholic, a heretic, a christian, or a heathen",•^ he predicted tlie days "v^en the Mahometans, the Jew, the Christian, the Deist, and the Atheist will live together in one community, equally sharing the benefits \4iich arise from the association, and united in the bonds of charity and brotherly love",

Shelley's approach was a mixture of both materialism and idealism. He thought that Necessity controls all matter which is through and through animated; feeling, loving, and thinking like human beings. He says in Queen Mab

... the smallest uarticle Of the impassive atmosphere. Think, feel and live like men. (II, 232-31+) 78

Another maturer poem, The Sensitive Plant^ also corroborates the same view. Thios, he emphasized motion without which there is no life, neither matter : "Matter, such as we hold it is not inert. It is infinitely active and subtle".^*^ Somev^at similar ideas have been expressed in Prometheus Unbound (IV, 2^7-52), Adonais (XX, 172-80), Hellas (78O) Tl^e Mask of Anarchy (LXIII, r5'-^—?^) A.r.^. Ir; tilt psiiiiplilet Essnv sxi —lie vp. !'/J/ • i'llla philosophical view is closely relevant to his theories of social and political dynamism and radicalism, ^//hat is, however, to be taken special note of is that Shelley believed in the effective social and political purposefiillness of poetry that was for him "The most unfailing herald, or companion, or follower, of an universal employment of the sentiments of a nation to the production of beneficial change is poetry".^

The theme of socialism and 'economic equality' are recurrent in his poems and prose work. '//ho can deny the worth of Shelley's inference that "there is no real wealth but the labour of man",*^^ as the basic orinciple of modern civili zation, Shelley thought that wealth creates wickedness and cruelty whereas poverty causes wretchedness and tendency to crime. Only through the eradication of poverty and economic disparity, the social evils like falsehood, debts, rents, taxes, hypocrisy and dishonesty would vanish to a relieving extent. In 79

it he envisioned an all round uplift of mankind. About the socialistic element in Shelley's Doetry the critics have con rent reacted variously. In tiiis connection David Clark's/.is one of mixed appreciation and censure : "During the last century and a half, t\K> Shelleys have emerged from the vast sea of criticism; one, 'The beautiful and ineffectual angle' vdio conld rto po vrT»nnp: thp nthor, -hho radical reformer, the ::tn.rrv eyed dreamer, the enemy of God and religion and marriage, who could do nothing noble". He further observes : "Perhaps the most notable fact about the politics of this radical reformer is its utter practicability. Many, if not most of ideals, have been realised in full. That the reforms ^^ich he advocated have been long in coming in perfectly consonant v;ith his poetical philosophy, 'Jhere then is the impractical dreamer about v/hom we have heard so much ? The answer is short and simple : he never really existed". In this context Eliot's remark seems to hold little water who finds Shelley's ideas repellent, probably owing to his theological creed: "The ideas of Shelley seen to me always to be ideas of adolescence — as there is every reason vAiy tiiey should be. And an enthusiasn for Shelley seems to me also to be an affair of adolescence".'^^ Nevertheless, his pamphlet A Philosophical View of Reform and recurrent r>assages TDregnant ^d.th socialistic themes bear testimony to Shelley's socialistic zeal and artistic concern for it. In the 80

words of aowervell, "..., ihelley has become one of the patron saints of socialism. Socialism, like Shelley's dreams, is based on a conviction of the natural goodness of man and the badness of the institution v/ith vwiich he has none the less managed to provide hinself". Going a step further, Bernard Shaw ranks Shelley for his social and political ideas am.ong py>r.T•* ~u -----.hr.t.:;: "L^r.?"'^r:."^ "• r.-^- '^'•a.t."".-.-" -'..- •"•• • T^...... ^ -vi-r John Bunyan and George Pox, Goldsmith and Crabbe and Shelley, Garlvle and Ruskin and Morris, with many brave and faithful preachers, in the churches and out of them., of v.4io -vou have never heard, \jere our English 'prophets'".

Shelley had no reservations in condemning the capitalistic system of economy under \^ich a minority oppresses a vast majority to ttie end of its own petty interests. He expresses deep anguish at the unsightful appaling conditions of the labourers, ordinary workers and peasants, Shelley gives a revolutionary call to them to

Sow seed, but let xr> tyrant reap; Find wealth, let no imDOstor heao; Weave robes, — let not the idle wear; Forge arms, in your defence to bear,

(Song to the Ken of Englpnd^

His anguish at the sight of humans beinf^^ treated vrorse than 81

animals is evident in verses like these : Assess, swine, have litter spread And vdth fitting food are fed; All things have a home but one '— Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none

Shelley traces the callous attitude of humans towards their fellow beings to unequal distribution of wealth and its accumulation in the hands of a few usurpers and the consequent

CieorlVatlOn of tiio laasstJS froia all UUlniiii rig.lio.-^, i^« uisaupJCOVes of the continuance of the gulf between "the tvro extremes of opulence and penury".*^' He argues, "Too mean-spirited and too feeble in resolve to attempt the conquest of their own evil passions and of the difficulties of the material vrorld men sought dominion over the fellow-men as an easy method to gain that apparent majesty and power which the instinct of their nature requires". He expresses the causes of inequality in his Egs^Y QJ^ Christianity and also proposed the strategy to do away with it: "if there be no love among men, whatever institu tion they may frame must be subservient to the sam.e purpose : to the continuance of inequality". "^^ In Shelley's opinion, the downtrodden can seek the objective of regeneration only through the means of awareness, knowledge, self-consciousness, universal love and wisdom. He visualises the core of the problem lying in the base and unnatural attitude of commercialising even the noblest instincts. The same he subjects to his bitter criticism 82

in Quepji Kab :

All things are sold : ... ,,. The poor pittance \rjhich tiie laws allow Of liberty, the fellov/shiiD of man, Those duties which his heart of human love Should urge him to perform instinctively, And bought and sold' as in a DUblic mart. (Queen Mab, V, 177-78)

Ineciuolitv 1= T.rcdur.tivc of -sr^rl-.-r.-^ ^-.-^AI ^-.-.r. .ol-^t •.•.-u.i evils, particularly slavery and oppression which disrupt domestic peace. It is a curse which not only adversely affects the depressed but also oppressors, "\^)ho love not fellow-beings, live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave". In The Revolt of Islajn, Shelley makes tlie same po int :

Jfever will peace and human heart meet Till free and equal man and woman greet Domestic -oeace, and ere this power can make In human hearts its calm and holy seat, This slavery must be broken. (The Revolt of Islam. II, 99^9^)

Alongwith emphasising moral equality, Shelley lays an equally ppronounced stress on political and economic equality, in \,iiich connection R.J. Vfiiite points out "Shelley's social interpretation, while it is less extensive, is bolder. In the Philosophical View of HpformT it is taken up in a thoroughly socialistic programme for tlie equalising 01 wealth, the abolition 83

of unreal increment, nnd -^ r.ioro than soci'ilistic trentr.ent of the National Debt".'^'^ At a cursory gl-^nce at the existing society Shelley observes the sharp contrast between the rich arxi the poor, the former which only "eat and drink and sleep and, in the interval of those things performed \ilth nost ridiculous ceremony and accomnaniments, they cringG ano. lie", whereas the DOor and their offsr^rinrq "ent TP^^'^ hrpori ^. •..r^^f worse clotiies, are more ignorant, imnor-il, miserable, and desperate". "^ Shelley condemns the aT. as sing of wealth as v/ell as the existing pattern of commerce responsible for breedinc selfisliness, invidious distinctions, discontent ainong people and an incessant unnatural strife among people. He assails in tueen Mab the vrorship of the goddess of gold :

Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, The signet of its all-enslaving tx5wer Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: Before wiiose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserably proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings. And with blind feelings reverence the tjovrer That grinds them to the dust of misery. (Queen Kab. V, 53-60)

The concept of political equality makes a persistent appearance throughout the social and political poetry of Shelley. The "misery and fear and care"^"^ of the poor masses originate in their deprivation of the political rights, whereas 84

the rich intoxicated by power, wealth and undeserved privileges indulge in heaping "discord, war and misery". Shelley gives priority to 'public benefit' over 'private feelings'.^*' It is only through equality of rights and duties that the world can be blessed v/ith eternal peace, prosperity, joy and justice. He appears to nourish such ideas as early as he wrote Queen F^b :

The fertile bosom of the earth gives such To myriads, v*io still grow beneath her care, Rewarding her with their pure perfectness: The balmy breathing of the winds inhale Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad : Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere. Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream The lion now forgets to thirst for blood : There you might see him sporting in the sun Beside the dreadless kid; his claws are sheathed. His teeth are harmless, custom's force has made His nature as the nat\ire of a lamb. But chief, ambiguous Kan, he that can know More misery, and dream more joy than all; VJhose keen sensations thrill within his breast To mingle with loftier instinct there. Landing their power to pleasure and to pain. Yet raising, sharpening, and refining each. Who stands amid the ever-varying world. The burthen or the glory of the earth". (VIII, 109-1M)

In The Mask of Anarchy^ a later and maturer poem, he gives a general call to people to rise up in revolt against the criminal oppressors and exploiters to put a final end to social political, economic and religious inequalities and injustices :

From the corners uttermost Of the bounds of English coast; 85

From every hut, village and to\mi V/here those \>;:io live and suffer moan For others' miserv or their o\m; From the i-Ajrkhouse and the prison ''jJhere pale as corpses newly risen Women, childr^, young and old Groan for pain, and weep for cold Frow the haunts of daily life VJhere is waged the daily strife VJith common wants and common cares V/hich sows the human hearts with tears —

_ _ *

This concept re-echoes in his prose pamphlet A Declaration of Rightsy in these iirords '- "Man ! thou v*iose rights are here declared, be no longer forgetful of loftiness of thy destination. Think of thy rights, of those possessions \'diicli give thee virtue and wisdom, by viiich thou mayst aarrive at happiness and freedom".

The freedom of speech and expression also constitutes a significant theme in Shelley's social and political thought, the absence of which, in his view, promotes depotism and safeguards the sinister designs of tyrants, Freedor of expre ssion enhances the thinking power of man, sharpens his imagina tion and opens new vistas to them which in turn affects to the good the entire social and political structure of society. Therefore, "a man has not only a right to express his thoughts, but it is'-JLs duty to do so". ^' Addressing Irish rieople he says 36

"The discussion of any subject is a right that you have brought into the wrld witli your heart and tongue". ^^ He considers the spirit of enquiry and free qioestionlng as an important rr.eans of furthering the cause of advancement of civilisation, and says ' "the individual who devotes his time to fearless and unrestricted inquiry into the grand questions arisii:^ uul of V •-•_:• ::;vrul ::i:L'ure 'JUj^iii. i-aiiisi" Ic r'Jcivs trie patronage than encounter the vengeance of an enlightened legislature". But the freedom of speech and expression regains unattainable as long as press is a subject to so riany checks and censures. Press is a very powerful and effective means of educating and enlightening people. It generates public av.'akening, reform and social and political consciousness, It can successfully check the prevalence of exploitation and corrupt practices. Criticising the press of his day for the same, he remarks "The press is loaded with vAiat are called (ironically,! shoiild conceive) proofs of Christian religion; these boolcs are replete vrith invective and calumny against infidels; they presuppose that he \.^o rejects Christianity must be utterly divested of reason and feeling".^"^

The concept of the freedom of Assembly also acquires an important place in Shelley. He abhorred tlie political authorities to deprive rieonle of this legitinate right of 87

Their's in 1'^19, ^•/hen around sixty thousand labourers gathered, carrying banners, in 3t. Peter's field, Kanchester, to listen to Leigh Hunt. Shelley was critical of authorities of declaring tlie meeting illegal and arresting Hunt. In the massacre that took place "six people were killed, tvrenty - odd wounded bv Sabres, and fifty or more injured". A starving labourers were demonstrating to demand a wage of half-a-crovm a day. ^ Courageously, Slielley advocated for labourers' right to assembly in The Ka^k of Anarchy :

Let a vast assembly be And V7ith great solemnity Declare with measured \^ro^ds that ye Are, as Ood has made ye, free — (11. 295-9?) and V/ith folded arms and steady eyes, And little fear and less surtDrise, Look upon them as they slay Till their rage has died away. (11. 3^9-^7)

Shelley declares the peaceful demonstrations of the depressed vrorkers to be the only effective means to impress upon others their grievances and resolve unitedly to overcome their problems. It is crimiagl to put checks and restrictions on their peaceful and non-violent deir.onstration. The vrorkers SH

yjho "vjork and have such pay/ As just keep life fror. day to day" ^^ are encouraged by him to exercise their right of holding assembly but vmrned at the same time not to exchange "Blood for blood —- and wrong for wrong". ^^ Thro'ogh holding assemblies the common masses may reach tlie aim of universal brotherhood, harmony and unity, v/tiich will ultimately enable f.VioTii Vr, Vi«a T«on«;ih1p niti Tftn<; in all «?pheres of life. It mav make them into a great resisting force against all forms of despotism and tyranny. From his deep-rooted concept of perfectly happy future has snrung his concept of liberty :

the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircimscribed, but nan Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless. Except from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself, just, gentle, wise; but man Passionless. (Prometheus Unbound, III iv, 193-198) He seeks the union of the workers not for replacing the old tyranny of haves by that of have-nots, but with the only objective in view of doing away with social and political evils, vdiich he suggests thus : "Let the object of your associations (for I conceal not my approval of assemblies conducted with regularity, neaceableness, and thought for any purpose) be the amendment of these abuses; it will have for its object universal emancipation, liberty, happiness and virtue".^^ 89

The dissemination of knowledge and science vras, in his opinion, "the means to the alleviation of human ignorance and misery". "^^ Shelley strongly pleaded for providing ediica- tion to all at the public expense. So he did because before the Act of 1833, the education system was funded and controlled by religious organisations and not by the goverrment. The

_^^..j_4— -j> ..vT« - •>-- x.^ ,. « ..•,,,.»* ij^-. ^; ,. r.^.. t; ;-v. —

balance between popular impatience and tyrannical obstinacy". In his opinion, equality can attain perfection only by "ediKa- tion of all viio dwell in darkness", ^ He took those to task \'iho wanted to deprive the masses of the facilities of education in order to have their subjugation perpetuated. At the same time, he was also against literary despotism. He says that "Intellectual inequality could never be obviated until moral perfection be attained, then all distinctions would be levelled".'^^ Laying stress on acquiring scientific krowledge, he points out that it alone would "seize the mysterious forces of Nature and wield them for the use of humanity". Summing up his socialis tic tiiought, we can agree witli Grabo who infers from Shelley's social and political approaches that "free thought, free speech, a free press and uncensored books" — \'rould make mankind "great, just and tolerant". '^

Shelley whose passion it v/as to see almost perfect eq-oality and liberty in the society and to eradicate economic 90

disparity altogether, vas all out against tlie theory of Kalthus, whose "name became an abomination to those •'-iio vrere trying to raise the lot of the poor, for he seered to prove that the lot of the poor could not be raised", "^^ '..althus, whom Shelley calls a 'eunuch and a tyrant' preached the cynical idea that the ecological balance of the earth was fr{?i JfT'nriT r^r^r; CV lliTlC Cci>iaC^rcpIiCC iilie War, XdmXTZC, Cind Cp.i.CieiTijLC • Th-us, he favoured to aggravate the wretchedness of the poor by "a threat of the confiscation of those funds which by the institutions of tiieir country had been set apart for their substance in sickness or destitution". One interpretation of his theory, in the eyes of 3helley, was to com-oel the poor to "abstain from sexual intercourse ^'hile the rich are to be permitted to add as many mouths as they please", Ke condemned and rejected such an inhuman and tyrannical theory, outright,

'Vith his full might he opposed the colonisation and enslavement and exploitation of nations. Devoted as he \v'as to the cause of liberty, he avows that his very ''endeavour, insufficient as this may be, will be directed to tlie advance ment of liberty", ^"^ Heartily, he supported the cause of the freedom of Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland and India and eagerly waited for the day when these countries would not be any more 91

under any bondage, as evidenced tr- his vrorks. ^ le detested the slavery in this form only because he thought that it was productive of social and political Inequality, religious intolerance, economic disparity and despotism. Hovf the social and politic-nl reformer in Shelley would have ignored this even though it did not concern his ov/n co\intryrr,en.

Svttii ii: 'JiL-^ ^ci--ly poetry cT Sheiicy iiic brace3 ci social and political themes can be traced, though tending to 0/ a gradual evolution towards Intensification and maturity. The Verses on a Cat (l800)brings to light his awareness of the 'modes of distress' (IV, 19-2^). The Irshman's Song (1809) highlights the English injustices to Ireland (11. 13-I6) and War (1810) the ever conderanable horrors of war and its repur- cussions (11. 29033). A Tale of Society (18II) depicts the wretched ]jot of the suppressed poor despite his innate goodness (11. 1+8-51). However, the ijoetry of the earliest phase clearly clinches the idea ttiat the seeds of radicalism and social and political reform had already been sown, though the mighty growth of them was yet awaited. It became a bit more vivid after his expulsion from Oxford in 1811. The Devil' s Walk (I8l2) records his growing criticism of the political institutions (II.IOO-1O3) enhancing human misery. His social and political ideas are more distinctly laid, though mixed witli an over-enthusiastic tone, in Queen Mab (I813) which is indicative of his evolving literary 32

Skill along with the healthy embryonic stage of his thought, on as well as reflective of his voracious readings. Growing further, his philosophy transforms into a zeal for activity. In To Word<;vjprth. (1815) he takes u/ordsworth to task for inertia and seclusion (11. 7-1^). I'^n's spiritual and material, imaginative ard sociological dimensions have been v/orked out in Alfistor CiRl^"^. Tn Thp Rpvni+- o-f T^^i nm y>^r. ^r.«-? ^T «.,^ political ideas acquire still maturer form presented with skilled literary art, but -^d-thout being overshadowed by it. In one of the maturest poems, Prometheus Unbound^ his ideas assume greater philosophical dimensions. How his early social and political thinking finds expression in his early composition, Queen Kab^ and how the poet Shelley reacts to the undesirable concept of God, tyranny, war, poverty, corrupt clergy and nimerous other social and political evils is the subject of the detailed study of Queen K?^b in the follov/ing chapter. 93,

1, Grabo, Carl, : The I'lugiL Plunt, 1965, p.67,

2, Brinton, Crane : Political Ideas of the Romanticists, New York, 1962, p. 155

3, Hudson, W.H. : An Outline History of En'jlish Liter,.' urti, Bombay, 1961, p, 201.

4, Queen Hab, U III, pp. 225-27.

5, Broke, Stopford; tJaturalism in tncilisn h'oecry, Loniuri, 1920, p. 221.

6, Bernard, Ellsworth : Shelley's Religion, l\leuj York, 1964, p. 21.

7, Queen Hab. UII, p. 13,

a, Trelauiny, E,3. : Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley Byron, Dent, 1933, p. 190,

9. Ibid.

10, Shelley to Timothy, Feb, 5,1810, The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. F.L. Jones, Oxford, Uol, I, p.51,

11, Shelley to Jenetta Philips, May,lEll, on, cit., Uol. I, p,89

12, An Address to the Irish People, p,59

13, Prometheus Unbound, I, 605,

14, A Philosophical Uieuj of Reform, pp. 248-49,

15, Rogers, l\l. ; Shelley at IJork. Oxford, 1967, p,37

15. LIU, 482-85. 17. 11. 112-19

10, Essay on Lowe, p. 17 0 94

19, Shelley to Elizabfith Hit^hener, Nou. 26, 1811, op. r; i L., Uol. I, 0. 193

20, Shelley to J.1*1. Hogg, Way 1811, op. cit., Uol. I, p. 88,

Our 21, Reui^of Hogg's 'nemoirs of Prince Haimatoff', p, 30A.

22, Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchener, tioycmber 26, 1811, op. >-,it., I'ol. I p. 19^t,

23, Motes on queen Hab, p, 808

24, Ibid,, p. 807.

25, 'A Declaration of Rights', p, 70,

26, Shelley's Prose, op, cit., p. 207,

27, 'A Philosophical Uieu of Reform*, p. 253,

28, 'An Association of Philanthropists', p. 6'2

29, A System of Government by Juries, p, 262

30, Ibid,, p. 263

31, The Rev/olt of Islam, II, X III, 1045o

32, Ibid., II, XXXUII, 994-96.

33, King-Hele, Desmond: Shelley- His Thought and iiJork, macmillan, 1964, p, 85,

34, A Discourse on the banners of the Ancient Greeks, p. 220.

35, Shelley to Thomas Loue Peacock, nay 15, 1816, op, cit., Vol. I, p. 475,

36, An Address to the Irish People. p,41

37, Ibid., p.41. 38. Ibid,, p. 48.

39, A Letter to Attenborounh, op. cit., p. 80, 40, A Refutation of Deism, p. 133,

41, A Philosophical Uieu of Reform, p. 279, 95

A2, for instance, Song to the men of England 21--'^, The l^ask of Anarchy 201-A, fJotes on Queen Wab p. d04 & 806, Essay on Christianity p. 207, Queen hab V, 177-86, The Rev/olt of Islam II 994-98, Preface to Alastor p. 15 & 283, Tuio Fragments on Reform p, 61, Queen nab \l 53-60, A System of Gowernment by Juries p. 62, Letter to Catherine Nugent Hay 7, 1812, Vol. I, p. 296, etc. etc.

43, iMotes on Queen Plab, p, 804,

44, Clark, Dauid Lee: 'The Grouth of Shelley's llind* in Prose or the Trumpet of a Prophecy, Abuquerque, 1954, p. 3.

45, Ibid,, p, 208,

46, Eliot, T.S. ; The Use or' Poetry and the Use of Criticism, London, 1964, p, 89,

47, Somervell, D,C, : English Thought in the Nineteenth Century. London, 1960, p, 72

48, The Intelligent Woman's Guide etc. , p, 41,

49, f^otes on Queen hab. p. 804.

50, Easay on Christianity, p. 207,

51, Ibid., p. 208. 52. Ibid., p. 209 & 211,

53. Preface to Alastor, p. 15

54. A Philosophical Wieu of Reform, p. 245.

55. Ibid 56. Ibid.

57, Queen Hab. U, 114,

58, Ibid,, in, 129,

59, "Private feelings must not be gratified at the expehse of public benefit" Shelley to Kitchener, October 28, 1811, op. cit,, \Jol, I, p. 161.

60, p. 70.

61, A Ueclaration of Ric|hts, p. 71

62, An Aduress to Irish People, p. 55. 96

63, A Letter to Lord Ellenborouqh, p. 7 8 .

6A, Ibid., p. 79

65, Jones, F.L. (ed.) Notes to Shelley's Letter to Lharlcs Oliver, Sep. 6, 1819, Uol. II, p. 117.

66. Trouelyan, G.H. : Enc;lish Social History, Lom'on, 1962, pp. 477. 78.

57. The l^ask of Anarchy. 150-61.

68. Ibid., 195.

69. An Address to the Irish People, p. 55.

70. Grabo, Carl : The Pelagic Plant, Oxford, 1965, p. 21.

71. Shelley to Leigh Hunt, Nov. 18, 1819, op. cit., Uol. II, p. 153.

72. Grabo, Carl: The f^agic Plant, p. 26

73. Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchener, Aucjust 10, 1811, OD. cit,, Uol. I, p. 132.

74. Douiden, Edward : The Life of P.B. Shelley, Lonoon, 1966, p. 32.

75. Grabo, Carl : The hagic Plant, Oxford, 1965, p. 305,

76. Somervell, D.C. ; English Thoutiht in the IMineteenth Century, London, 1930, p. 33.

77. Ibid., p. 248. 78. Ibid.

79. Shelley to Leigh Hunt, March 2, 1311, op. cit., \iol. I, p. 55.

80. Preface to 'Hellas', p. 488, Hellas 139-44 & 166-69 & 696-703, Fragments written for 'Hellas' 15-17, 'A Discourse on the rianners of the Ancient Greece, p. 217, Notes on 'Hellas' by Shelley p. 479 and other letter, 'Qae to Liberty 1-4, 81. e.g. Original Poetry and the Uandering Jeuj, etc. ;hich combine the elements of terrorism, occultism and mysticism with the strains of reformist zeal. 82. lines: II 141-44, lU 107-16, U 119-20, UI 251-57, 1/11 44-48. CHAPTER rv

^0.0.1 A L AiiD FQ.LI2I2jik 2I^£i^3I.0^:3

I ii J g E s :: I-: A B The fertile seeds of social and political philosophy, peculiar to Shelley, seem to have already germinated in his mind even ^lle attempting a juvenile composition like Queen Mab In 1813, even tfaou^ It had to undergo a protractfld steady growth to attain the higher qualities of vigour, grandeur and coo^actness In Prometheus Unbound. From the very early age, he appears to have teurgetted freedom and love as the sole object of tiie mental evolution of man, Mary Shelley observes, "It was the cardinal article of his faith that, If men vere but tau^t and Induced to treat their fellows with love, charity, and equal rights, this earth vould realise paradise". Almost at the same time, he was In a process of locating the sources of evil against \^lch he spoke with the zeal and enthusiasm of an Impassioned youth. **He looked tQ)on religion, as It Is professed^ and above all practised, as hostile Instead of friendly to the cultivation of those virtues which would make men brothers". The poem contains the shades of revolution and description of the world to be, the faith he holds to the last, however, It gains much In poetic expression and maturity In the years to come. This Is %diat perhaps led Grabo to observe*. "In Queen Mab the mechanism is slight and of Uttle Interest. The poem Is an 38

eloqiient Indictment of th« evils of the \rorld as it now is and a picture of golden age to be. But speaker and audience in themselves have no dramatic or story value".^ Imbied vith a quality of unvorldlinsss) sin^jlicity and directness of piirpose and burning with a desire for affection and Sjro^athy, Shelley undertook the eon^sition of this poem. Being a person ^dio * loved trulii with a martyr's love'^ for \Aiich ready to make sTsry sacrifice, he asser-teu wuat he believed lo be irue and did what he believed to be right. Being "too enthusiastic, and too full of hatred of all the ills he witnessed", he grew all the more resolute in disseminating his views on change and reform^ and "the more enmity he met, the more earnestly he became attached to his peculiar view, and hostile to those of 5 the men \dio persecuted them". To his adolescent zeal, probably, then owe his straightforwardness, rhetoric eloquence and a tinge of acrimony in his tone. Of the artistic value of the poem, Shelley himself wrote to the editor of the ETranrt nar in 1821 : "I doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition; and t^at, in all that concerns moral and political Speculation, as well as in the subtler discrimination of metaphysical and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and isnature". Shelley might have arrived at such a conclusion throu^ his intensive studies of Greek and other classics which might have revealed to him its wanted aspects as escape t 39

general reader. But, a reader shoiild have no reason to underestimate Queen Mab as an expression of Shelley's early social and political Ideas, since his precocious ndnd had edready acquired sufficient literary skill and developed social and political insights^ revealing to him the vision of a better vorld to come. Of the ideas expressed in Queen Mnb Cameror.c remarks to be "representative of the most advanced school of social thoughts of the age"." It is only because by the time he undertook the cos^osltion, Shelley had already acquainted himself vdth the thought of the prominent thinkers like Godwin, Jefferson, Cobbet, Diderot and Paine etc., \diose social and political ideas reflect here and there from the thought struc ture of his poem. Since, in the vK>rds of his wife •'His sjrmpathy was excited by the misery with vdilch the world is burning. He witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the evils 9 of Ignorance", he visualised the poem "to be by anticipation a picture of the manners, simplicity and delights of a perfect 10 state of society; though still earthly". In his opinion, it is a historical view of "the past, the present, and the Future". He appended to titie poem long and philosophical notes assuming it to be the safest way of "propagating my principles \dilch I decline to do syllogistic ally In a poem".^^ Nevertheless, ttie poem was branded blasphemous and an acrimonious attack on the existing social pattern and to be "too much against every existing TOO

establishment". The poem raised stch a controversy in government circles that a bill was filed against Shelley who was accused of indulging in "blasphemy derided the truth of the Christian Revelation and denied the existence of God as Ah. the Creator of the Universe",'

In this all-time-spectacle, experienced spiritually by the soul of Laathe acwompanidd by vueaen Mab^ serious afcentlon has been paid to be problem of God, a concept \diich structured, shaped and perpetuated the unjust social and political system of his day, the subject of his criticism. It is necessary to start with the evaluation of this concept as it is pertinent to every facet of the thou^t structure in Queen M«b. H.is entire social and political criticism has a bearing on it, since more than being a matter of faith, it is a matter of inevitable political strategy for him.

From the very early age, Shelley*s philosophical inferences made him inclined towards non-conformism in the popular Christianity and atheism. He started identifying God with Tyranny and Oppression in \^ose name justification for such evils is sought. But, during these formative years he had not reached a clear concept of the ultimate reality as he had not repudiated either materialism or the "shocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of mind and matter", '^ both of which he 101

rejected by 1816, \4ien he wrote 'Mont Blanc'. Shelley had rejected the concept of a transcendent authority of the universe and substituted It by an Immanent intellect, the world-soul, animating the material universe. He defined God as "the Soul of the Universe, the intelligent and necessarily beneflc '"^ actuating principle", some 'vast intellect* that "animates Infinity". He conceived the Christian God to be arbitrarily beneficent and, therefore, eJ^ing the concept of a divine Creator, he explains that God is to the universe,"as the soul of man to his body, as the vegetative power to vegetables, the stoi^ powers to stones .... In this sense I acknowledge a God, but merely as a synonime (Sic.) for the existing power of existence. I do not in this recognise a Being vMch has created that to T^ich it is confessedly annexed as an essence, as that without vdiich the universe wd. not be vdiat it is, it is therefore the essence of the universe, the universe is the essence of it —» it is another vjord for the essence of the universe". ' So, the term God designated for Shelley, in the formative years, the "animative intellect" of the \Aiole "mass of infinite intelligence" of whidi "I, you, & he are constituent parts".^° And, in the Ibte to Queen Mab^ he observes that God is "a pervading Spirit co-eternal with tiie universe".

This is the basis from \Aiich Shelley's subsequent thought evolves, repeatedly redesigned and modified later. Owing to such 102

a concept of (Jod, Shelley demonstrates bitter hatred for Christ \*iom he depicts In queen Mab as a hypocrite \ho professed meakness and love vhlle Inciting his foHovers to Intolerance and cruelty. He developed a strong disgust for institutional religion viilch pervades throughout his poetry. Since superstitious tiieologles are founded on the concept of anthropomorphic God, assuming power as an attribute of being, Shelley considers it a source of atrocities as indirectly permits human-gods to cross all boundries of tyrannies. He writes in the note to Quftan M^b t "It is probable tiiat the word God was only an egression denoting tiie unknown cause of tiie known events %liich men perceive in the universe. By tiie vulgar mistake of a metafhor for a real being, of a w^rd for a thing, it became a man, endowed with human qualities and governing the universe as an earthly monarch goverii^hls kingdom". 19^ The poem presents us with the echoes of the same ideas.

Fairy traces ttie cause of all foxms of misery "Earthquakes and %rars, and poisons and disease" to *an abstract point* to \A)om

... thou didst bend and called it God (VI. 100-103)

Fairy launches an acrimonious attack on the prevalent concept of God, \iaom man visualises in his own image and often attributes to him most of his o\ai attitudes, particularly arbitrary ones. 103

so that In turn th^ may enjoy dlTlne sanction. The 'avenging God* that they bov to is not no re tiian a 'prototype of human misrule' • IftKier the same concept, a microscopic minority has always been seeking assurances to tyrannize, oppress and exploit vast majorities in utter disregard of any sense of justice. l!he God is shrounded in the appearances of a cruel worldly monarch ^o is extremely jealous, proud and vindictive and hastes to kill others at the slightest provocation or excuse. He sits hi^ in his 'golden throne' and casts an amusing look at the suffering humanity vAiom he had created as if just for tiie sake of fun. The fall and suffering of humanity amuses God aod brings him immense satisfaction.'2' 0 God's •dread work',

Hell, gapes for ever for the unhappy slaves Of fate, Wiom He created, in his sport, To triumph in their torments when they fall \ Earth heard the name; Earth trembled, as the smoke Of his revenge ascended up to Heaven, Blotting the constellations; and the cries Of millions, butchered in sweet confidence (VI. 108-lif)

God is therefore perceived by Shelley as an embodiment of indifference, cruelty and callousness; one who rejoices in the misery of his own creation. He is so furious that the earth trembles hearing his name. The smoke rising from the rage of 104

God destroys all beauty of tiie universe and its darkness overshadows everything. It blots the contellatlon of the stars and suppresses the shrieks and groans of millions of si:K;h people as were slaughtered in his name. They vere given to understand that God, their Lord, is their protector, omnipotent and omnipresent. But, in his very name the blood of his sincere slaves was shed uohesltatlngly in "sveet confidence'' and "unsuspecting peace". They were claJQped vtpon unawares in such an ironical condition that the "bonds/Of safety were confirmed by vordy oaths/Sworn in in His dreadful name", still resounding throughout the country.

Vlhllst innocent babes writhed on thy stubborn spear. And thou didst lau^ to hear the mother's shriek Of maniac gladness, as the sacred steel Felt cold in her torn entrails. ( VI. 118-21 ) Such is the concept of God, Shelley believes, from ^ich results an entirely unjust system of religion projecting on the social and political plain the same callous trends as mentioned above. During the early stages of the human civilisation, the concept of one God prevailed as a name applied to the unknown cause of creation* During the latter stages of the * struggle for existence', the advancement of civilisation, along the principles of competition rather than cooperation, reqiiired many 105

more deities to suffice for * senile puerility'. It was In keeping with the need to supervise even Increasing murder, rapine, violence and crime and to "glut/thy misery-thlrsting soul". In the course of the spread of religion and Increase in the number of Gods the social and political evils also multiplied, ^^ Shelley here seems to ^are the old belief that the evil is self-destrustlve, because he thlidcs that the same destructive role of religion would prove destructive for religion Itself, and the final extinction of religion is not far off. Shelley envisages that the pyre built by religion for burning innocent men, women and children will ultimately consume religion itself along with all Its apostles. "^ The time will come >hen religion will have to pay for its misdeeds committed in its folly of old age. Shelley does not hold any high opinion of the religious authorities either. It is the guardian of religion vihanhe holds more than anyone else responsible for disseminating the social evils like hypocrisy and callousness and promoting fraud and deceit Instead of removing such evils. These hypocrites are corrupt to the core and invent 9ivtc new met:hods of corrt^tion. They put on deceptive appearances of respectability as ttiey look hoary-headed and grave. Despite preaching all the time the morality and honesty they do not possess acQr goodness or positive quality in themselves. Being entirely devoid of hope or passion or love, they are the typical example of complacency. Their sole 106

objective in life, strongly marked by luxury and lies, is to amass wealth ani gain power. Not that they merit these things for intelligence and wisdo^', which they do not possess, but they reach through "flattery to the seats of power". Utterly concerned idth their own prosperity and material well-being, they "si:5)port the system ^dience their honours flow", (IV.207) irrespective of its being a just or unjust system and whether it Is Capable of fulfilling the needs of society and maintain peace and prosperity.^^ His criticism of the guardians of religion and clergy instantly reminds us of the acrimonious attacks of Langland as well as Qhaucer on tiie same class. Particularly, Langland has been much bitter in condemning and chastising priests and clergymen. Chaucer has also touched upon the same issue but comparatively in a mild way. Another difference is that the two old poets condemned corrupt ^colessiastical practices but did not show any sign of irreverence to God, ^ereas Shelley targets God for his condemnation of religion with a view, most probably, to hitting at the roots of religion. This seems to be more a political strategy aimed at achieving his reformist objectives rather than a matter of faith. It is so because the atheist Shelley of his poetry was a s\;^erstitious person in his personal life.

With a view to exploiting the people, the ecclessiastics terrorise them with ttie help of th^ree concepts, the use of vdiich 107

is also known to tyrants and pays them back lavishly with •usury/Torm from a bleeding world*. It is 'God, Hell, and Heaven*, God is only a synonym of "Avengefiol, pitiless, and almighty fiend".^^ It is another nase for mercilessness and oppression t

VOiose mercy is a nickname for the rage Of tameless tigers htingering for blood. (IV. 212-13)

The Fairy dwells at length at the ills of the flasehood of superstition and tiie evils engendered thereby. Religion enslaved man to the petty objects of nature by either attributing reverence and power to them or by instilling fear into man*s heart. All those natural objects \iiich nourish or si^port human life in any way were taken to be the objects of deification and worship, and thus compelled man to humble himself in front of the things \diich are otiierwize nothing but subservient to him t

... the trees. The grass, the clouds* the mountains, and the sea, All living things thai walk, swim, creep, or fly, Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon Her worshipper, (VI. 75-79)

Such an attitiade developed by religion, had a severely adverse effect on the progress of culture and civilisation. It was only because a thing cannot be an object of reverence and warship as 108

veil as a subject of exploration and investigation at one and the same time. The tendency of attaching revereose and sanctity to the objects of nature prevents human beings from cultivating a spirit of enquiry and inqulsitiveness. Their curiosity is cooled down by the tranqulllser of dogma. They cannot even imagine in terms of carrying out experiments on tiiose things \Aiich are sacred to tiiem, lest they should be profaned and descreced. The same tendency, Shelley thicks, has always kept the masses ignorant and con|>letely suhk in superstition and dogmatism. Every monstrous, vast, or beautifully wild shape, the 'spirits of the air', the * shuddering ghost', or the powers of nature were supposed to be having "life and place in the corrupt belief/Of thy blind heart".^^ (VI. 86-7) Bie effect of religion left every thing liiq;)ure and unnatural : 'Thou taintest all thou look'st t5)on», (VI, 72)

Although, in Shelley's opinion, in the earlier stages of its development, religion kept itself 'pure of human blood', gradually it developed into a source of all miseries and in particular of bloodshed. It became t^e curse of human society as it filled it with all forms of social and political evils. The sole duty it took vcpon itself was to drag human beings down to the level of slaves and then condemn them to hell. It is in this context that Shelley calls religion a 'prolific fiend',

Who peoplest earth with demons, Hell with men, And heaven with slaves 1 (VI. 70-71) 109

Rollglon ends rtp thus only because it evolves from the concept of such a God ^liho Is seen In human image. All the iidierent shortcomings of the divine model manifest tiiemselves in its social and political application* At the peak of its development it evolved into an embodim^t of all the evils and devastations found in the phenomenal world as vrell as in human nature. 27'

Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and ttsease. And aH tueir causes, to an abstract point Converging, thou didst bend and called it God 1 (VI. 100-103)

Under the pretext of being the spokesman of liberty, equality and Justice, it countena.icc the decapitation of innocent babes in front of tiieir mothers. Such heinotis crimes flourished under the very nose of religion, unnoticed and uncondemned.^°

The use of violence becmoes aU the more abominable in- so-far as its religious dimensions are concerned. The vindictive^ ness of the faithful is but the s\«>rd of God with which he reaps the crops of heads to seek the pleasure of his Lord. Religion, instead of discouraging and condemning such beastly attitudes, sanctifies their blood-thirstiness and confirms "all unnatural impulses" and "their desolating deeds". (VI, 227-28) The cross in such a context becomes only a symbol of destruction \ihlch is waved "over the unhappy earth". (VII. 230)

and all crime Made stingless by the spirits of the Lord, And blood-red rainbows canopied to land, (VII. 231-33) no

Religion has also been a tnajop source of causing wars and fanning destruction. The world is torn by var. The humanity is groaning under the crushing \dieels of the very system supported and strengthenad by religion. But, the chieftains of religion are busy chanting the hymns. Shelley*s torn becomes extremely bitter and highly acrimonious vdiile he mentions the Brahmins vho keep themselves busy raising the sacred hymns even ^ile the groanings of tiie victims of oppression and tyranny are echoing in the atmosphere. At the height of callousness, all that they do is to harmonise their hymns with the groans, vrfiich is reflective of God* s tyranny shared by his lieutenants, Brahmins, on earth. God wishes his name to be honoured at the expe^^se of the human pleasure;

• •• burning towns, the cries of f^iale helplessness, Unarmed old age, and youtii. and infancy, Horribly massacred, ascend PO Heaven In honour of his name; (VII. 39-if2)

The remark carries considerable weight of irony that the so-called peace-lovers have themselves been the chief cause of the spread of evil and the proclaimer of truth or religion, itself has been the greatest obstacle to truth t

Eartti groans beneath religion's iron age, And priests dare babble of a God of peace. Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, Murdering the while, unrooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all. Making the earth a slaughter-house I (VII. it3-if8) Ill

The very scheme of genesis seems to Shelley to be based on jealousy, saddism and cruelty. Intentionally, the tree of evil was planted in the middle of the paradise so that nan eats it and becomes a permanent target of divine malice and misery. It is a radical departure from the Christian God >ftio is believed to be an embodiment of love. The purpose of rendering God a hateful being is the same, that is to hit hard at the very roots of religion so as to ZI&KO iv non-'functional in society. Shelley puts the same in the mouth of God t

I placed him in a Paradise, and tiEiere Planted the tree of evil, so tiiat he might eat and perish, ana My soul procure V/herewith to ^^te its malice, (VII. 109-12)

Mankind has thus been made a target of * ever-burning flame* and 'ceaseless voe* ^ ^Ich is "the doom of tiielr eternal souls". (VII, 122) Consequently, every human being is bound to suffer and perish "to fulfil the blind revenge". (VII. 125) Ironically, human beings name this revengefulness the divine justice, \diich is in fact nothing but malicloiasness of the upholders of religion that tiiiey exercise in the name of God.^ In his early youth, Shelley detested the name of Christ and expressed bitter hatred for him. The entire idea of l^e incarnation of God in the form of his son, the Christ, appears to him to be ludicurous and full of absurdity.^ It is another 112

fantastic story for him Invented by some cunning minds to seek justification of their actions, under the pretext of eliminating the universal crime;

.... so that the jew On %4iom my grace descends, those \iiO are marked As vessels to the honour of their God, Hay credit this strange sacrifice, and save Their souls alive: (VII. 139-^3)

But a vast ntnber of people should consist of iibose vdio \ri0uld undergo all tortures and tyrannies in utter lack of knowledge of any such saviour \too had edready eliminated universal crime for them. ... millions shall live and die, Who never shall call upon their saviour's name, But, unredeemed, go to the gaping grave. Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, (VII. 193-96)

Shelley feels that belief in God and religion entails personal abdication of all knowledge, wisdom, creativity, dynamism etc. a.ioA surrender all his talents and human characteris tics to His will as arbitrarily Interpreted by the priests, vAu) claim to be His spokesmen and want to hear from extremely horrified humans only these words on behalf of their Lord "•0 almighty One,/I tremble ani obey 1' (VII. l59-60) Shelley's grudge against religion was so strong that not only he repudiates the concept of the reincarnation of God but also prefers 'Hell's 113

freedom to the servitude of Heaven*. (VII. 193-9^) He was driven to this conclusion by the abominable excesses of tyram^ \^lch floxirlshed mostly In the name of religion and God, He has taken up arms against the greatest Tyrant, God, only with a view to ridding the world of tyranny going on In His name and on the strength of his supposed sanctions.

Therefore. I rose, and dauntlessly b«gar Hy lonsly'aDl unending pilgrimage^ Resolved to wage unwearlable war With my almighty Tyrant and to hurl Defiance at His Omnipotence to harm Beyond the curse I bore. (YII. 196-201)

Such a concept of God and His paraphernalia are totally out of place for the social and political reform suggested by him in the poem. His sincerest concern was to replace injustice witii justice and misery with joy. The achievement of this objective necessitated first the replacement of the metaphysical foundation of the corrupt social and political structure so as to effect the desirable changes in it and set the order of priorities right. Speaking of Queen Mab^ J,P. Guinn remarks t "It would seem that the radicals found in the poem not an echo but an intensifi cation of their own enthusiasm for attack t^n the twin objects of reform, church and state ... The poem is the essence of youthful rebellion against outmoded religious and political doctrine and practice".-^^ 1 In this perspective, Shelley's vision 114

Is Inclusive of the fading away of the concept of God along with the decline of religion, as both are inter-dependent. Soon the days will be over \ên people drew pleasure from the death of one viio was mercilessly burnt only because he said " 'there is no God* "• (VII. 13) The imreasing wisdom and scientific insight will let the man realise there is no super visory God ô sustains and sways this universe, but that there is an inbuilt po^re? of necessity vshich ec-ntr-ols all tlie creaticnc of the universe and let them be \diat they are. It is an invisible link that inter-connects all things and man to them. This *exterminable spirit' that all objects of nature contain 'Is nature's only God', which has been variously interpreted by the cunning human pride, iidiich is 'skilful to invent most serious names/To hide its ignorance*. This was a stage in the mental development of Shelley when he substituted God with necessity and considers it to be the sole all-pervasive, animating power of the material universe^ a concept îch undergoes several modifica tions and qualifications until he wrote Prometheng yi^^Mânffl- ^^ attributes he ascribes to necessity will be finally applicable to Demogorgon, the mysterious Cause containing infinite potentialities, and necessity comes down to be that fixed law through îch the potentialities function in time and space, and \Aich sets the sequentiality of events. !Qiis power of necessity suits well to social and political scheme of Shelley, as it is conceived to work 115

without emotion, evaluation, piurpose or choice :

all that the vide \dDrld contains Are but tiiv passive instruments, and thou Regard'st them all vith an io^artial eye. Whose jov or pain thv nature cannot feel. Because thou hast not human sense, Because thou art not human mind * (VI. 21^19)

Necessity is 'A spirit of activity and life', vftiich 'knows no term, cessation or decay'. (VI. i 3-^9) This 'active, steadfast, and eternal' force 'Rolls round Hie eternal universe' and moves it. (VII, 156 & 161) This force is a judge,

beneath ^diose nod Man's brief and final authority Is powerless as the wind That passeth idly by. (III. 219-22)

Shelley believes that all animate and inanimate objects piiLsate with an inborn consciousness and 'thick, feel and live like men*. (II. 23^) They are controlled by the power of Nacessity, and each and every occurence is a consequence of a preceding event. Even the slightest, faintest motion. Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws That rule yon rolling orbs. (II. 2M)-»f3) Shelley sees no chaos in the universe of necessity as No atom of this turbulence fulfils A vague and unnecessitated task. Or acts but as it must and oughc to act. (VI. 171-73) 116

S\»h Is necessity, »mother of the viorld', and 'Spirit of Nature* I all sufficing Power* (VI. 197), vhlch replaces the concept of God in Shelley, in ^leh he sees the long awaited redressal of tiie social and political ills. It is because •unlike the God of human error', it 'Requir'st no prayers or praises', (VI. 199-200) and it is also fully impartial,

lb love, no hate thou cherishest; revenge Ai^ ravouritism. aad worst desire of fame Thou knowest noi. (VI, 212-1^)

Therefore, more than a philosophic compulsion, Shelley's metaphysical thought in the earlier stages seem to have been resulted from his social and political responses. Necessity o J and denial of God for him was a kind/strategy to seal the source of tyranny and do away with the social and political once and for all.

In Shelley's opinion, tyranny is tiie first and foremost consequence to eaerge on ttie political level out of the above discussed popular concept of God, the common source of all social and political evils.^^ In the word, of Foot, "Established religior\s, Shelley noticed, had always been friendly to tyranny. By dulling men's minds and by fixing them on a life hereafter, religion had always discouraged dissent and welcomed siibservlence in life here and now .... And a crowd of well-educated gentlemen, 117

called parsons, vicars and priests, were well paid to convince their congregations that 'sinning' Included opposition to the government, the war and the squire".^-^ Tyranny and slavery also shares the connon origin; the shadows of the sane reality. Kings, their parasites and unnatural line of drones (slaves) have arisen from the common source of

vice, black loathscinc vice. From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong; From all that 'genders misery, and makes Of e&riii this tiiomy wilderness; from lust, Revenge, and murder. (III. 122-26)

Since a tyrant is also a slave to his fears and unnatural ambitions, his emotional condition is no better than that of a slave. In the absence of any service done to his subjects or ai^ effort to pull them out of their misery, he always fears a rebellion and defiance on their part. Because of his same fear, he lives a hi^ly protected life inside heavily guarded palaces. Their palaces have thousands of towers and look as big as a big city, and^guarded by 'gloomy troops' of sentlnals. Their gloominess is indicative of the way the populace of the city is treated by the king. Performing a duty against their will makes the troops gloomy. A person, living in such circumstances, cannot be at all happy, rather he would nourish in his heart the feeling of hatred, fear and doubt, the feelings which mother the 118

attitudes of vengeance, cruelty, and ruthlessness. All this has filled the atmosphere vith •The curses of the fatherless, the groans/Of those \iork produces wealth. Ihe wealth is usurped by the king even while its producer remains as much destitute and deprived of necessities of life as he ever was. Either he, or any of his dependents ever * Tastes not a sweeter meal*. (II. 57) On tiie other hand, the usurper wastes more than he consumes the grain harvested by the laboxir of a poor man.3^ Shelley regrets that generations after generations are being destroyed by the irhuman monaJTuUtial system. They are bom to produce and hand over their production to the oppressor 'Yielding its harvest to destruction's scythe' (IV. 228) One generation peri^es in this fruitless toil and vaeants the space for the succeeding one to carry on the same senseless activity. As the other generation blossoms, it develops the redness of the 'Stamp-mark* of the tyrant on its blood, 'Withering and cazicering deep its passive prime'. (IV. 230) Th« tyrants do not like to take any chances with the spirit of freedom and will power of the new generation whom they nip in the bud and spare no chance to let them raise their heads in future and cause threats. With a view to concealing, perpetuating and intensi fying his mischievoiis and oppressive deeds, tyrant, the greatest 119

ller, invents "lying vords and modes,/Qnpty and vain as his own coreless heart", (IV, 232-33) He invents evasive meanings in order to "lure the heedless victim to the toils/Spread roimd the valley of its paradise", (IV, 235-36)

From tyranny springs an utterly unjust economic system based on exploitation and oppression ever heightening the misery and suffering of the masses and widening tiie guli between the rich and the poor. Vlhen the central value in the life of man is wealth and gold and the entire value-system revolves round it, it tends to create great disparity among human beings and brings into existence the system of capitalism. Utader this system, those who are at the helm of affairs exploit the poor masses just because they are poor and do not have power to resist the oppressors and transgressors.^

Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue (V. 62-63)

A tussel may sometimes be noticed between the haves and have-nots in such a society, not aiming at achieving axt7 form of social Justice, but because the underprivileged wants to see himself in the position of the privileged and the latter in his position, and also lusts after those undeserved luxuries as enjoyed by the privileged class. The 'have-nots* conflict with the 'haves' because they seek to occupy their position by dragging them down 120 to their's. Not moved by the sense of Justice, the downtrodden are urged by vfaat their masters are a perfect model of, and such a tendency further 'grinds them to the dust of misery'. (V, 60) Taking advantage of tiie situation, the tyrants deal in the human life, and by its sale ;

Heap luxuries to their sens\]alism. and fame To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride, (V. eh-65)

The success of the malicious designs of the oppressors has filled the world with ruin, the disgrace and the woes of war. The masses are compelled to go by the will of the tyrant by hunger, famine and miseries

Beneatii a vulgar master, t'^ perform A task of cold and brutal drudgery; — Hardened to hope, insensible to fear, (V. 73-75)

Such a political order has reduced human beings to the status of pulleys of a dead machine and its Jammed parts. They are considered only the "wheels of work" and "articles of trade", as if devoid of human emotions and feelings. Ihe idea recurs in The Mask- pf ^pfthy wharft they have been named 'tools in the hands of oppressor, \dilch he uses for his own purpose. They are treated as mere objects vihich are seized upon and exploited for 121

the sake of selfish motives and Interests.

Mere \^eels of work and articles of trade, That grace the protid and noisy pomp of wealth 1 (V. 77-78)

After humanity has lost touch with the higher purpose of life, the only purpose that thrusts ItseK on it is amassing wealth and heaping gold and silver. But it is wealth that returns the compllnait by showering ruin and destruction upon theou The only objective that a statesman aims at is the abundance of wealth without Ti^ich he woxild not be able to sustain his false glory, in \diich case, the basic principle of his rule, that is subjugation, would fall out of context. So, they boast eloquently of their wealth. On the strength of their laconic tongue, the tyrants of degenerated nature befool the masses and ask them to bow to the 'glaring idol* of 'Fame*. Thus, they succeed in turning the hearts of people from the real spirit of virtue. Virtue, struggling against evil or justice is put to sleep and only a bare structure with the name of virtue remains behind. This hollow virtue serves as an opium for society, and demands of them to boGir pain and suffering just in the hope of getting comfort in the life to come.^^ The mindless man sticks to such narrow and hollow concept of virtue and gives himself upto 'bare fulfilment of the common laws/Of decency and prejudice'. (V. 105-06) As a consequence, 'The struggling nature of his human heart' (V. 107) does not remain functional arrl 122

develops a sort of Indifference. Such duped persona are not moved unless "fr\iltful waves" are driven to their door, or >*ien his son is mtPdered by the tyrant, 'or religion Drives his wife ravaging mad*. (V. 110-12)

Unimpressed by then^ Shelley knows that though kings appear to be the richest and wealthiest people as they possess gold and silver and arc the «wearers ef a cildnd ahain' (11,30), strangely enough t2ie same wealth binds their soul to objectness. Superficially, they may appear to be happy but internally ttiey are wretched in that they do not experience ai^ real spiritual joy. Those courtiers and psychophants vtoo choose to glorify their external looks call them monarchs. In Shelley's view such a title can, at the most, be a nickname, because being far away from the high moral virtues, he remains only a wretched slave *Even to the basest of appetites'. (II. 33) He hardly deserves the high office he happens to hold. He pays no heed to the needs and miseries of the poor and enjoys a saddistic pleasure by seeing them writhing in suffering, and "a sullen Joy/Pervades his bloodless heart \«hen thousands groan". (III. 36>37) He wastes more than he consumes the abundant varieties of food, in utter disregard of the fact that millions perish in famine, having no food to eat. He turns deaf and blind to the narrations of horrors cmd suffering. Their wantonness is suggestive of their excessive avarice for all sorts of material comforts 123

motivated alone by base objects,^

The ^rds Shelley puts Into the mouth of King betray his real psychological condition. Though, apparently it looks as if he should be the happiest soul on earth, but from inside he is a torn, miserable and tortured person, deeply suffering from the lack of peace. Whenever he sleeps he dreams the horriblfi dr-w-aSs, witeiieV-sI- he *reJ£&3 Oir llir ili'-Uivushl 3 and I Car haunt his mind. He cannot enjoy the real peace of mind or real joy of soul in either conditi:>n. He yearn^ for a momenta sound sleep. Astonished at his mental state, he exclaims : "No cessation I/Oh I must this last for ever ?" (III. 65) Realising that there is ao escape from this tormenting condition he seeks to embrace death in search of solace. He invites deatii to clasp him, as he has no "one Koment/Of dreamless sleep" or the "dear and blessed peace". (Ill, 67) He is askance in horror

0 dear and blessed peace I Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity In penury and dungeons 7 Wherefore lurkest With danger, death, and solitude; yet sh\jnn»st The palace I have built thee ? (III. 67-71)

He invokes the "sacred peace" aai begs "Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed/One drop of balm iQX)n ray withered soul". (III.72-3) Therefore, he realises that his is a withered soul incapable of enjoying any kind of real joy,^^ 124

Tyranny cot^pled vith unjust economic system generates war. Shelley considers var to be one of the ghastliest crimes of political tyranny, \diich is tiie climax of animosity. It showers rtdn and destr\x;tion upon both the conqueror and the conquered. Its roar deafens the ear and its din consists of nothing but groans, cries and shouts. Nothing else but death comes to the rescue of the sufferers and spreads its shroud upon thwi. Once it occurs it leaves none alive, weak or strong, and lets none survive.

All is deep silence, like the fearful calm That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause (IV. 53-^)

The only sounds that pass through the -{.csome silence are either the vails of the bereft or faint moan

With \rtiich some soul bursts from the frame of clay Wrapped round its struggling powers. (IV. 56-7)

At length Shelley dwells at the disasters of the war and its ho aftermath.

The traks of blood E5ven to the forest's depth, and scattered arms, And lifeless warriors, \*iose hard lineaments Dtfith's self could change not, mark the dreadful path Of the out sallying victors: far behind, Black ashes notes iidiere their proid city stood. (IV. 62-67) 125

Shelley holds political authorities, their supporting agencies and in particular the monarchical system responsible for stirring up the horrors of war. Looking at the ghastly scenes the spirit of Lanthe is greatly perturbed. But the Fairy consoles her by saying that it is not an • tmconnected misery' or something irretrievable. According to Fairy's analysis, doubt lessly man's nature contains the elements of evil. But tiie evil aspect alone is not to count for the bloodshed and war. The fact is exploited only as an excuse on the part of kings and warriors etc. that the war started by them ert^ted from the evil nature of man. This they do with a view to hide "their unnumbered crimes". The culprits behind the evil of war are "kings, and priests, and statesman" fran -whom "war arose". (IV. 82) The only way to eliminate the evil of war from society, is to root out the monarcht^aiL system. He suggests to strike at the very roots of monarchy and its associated establishments viiich Shelley symbolises as poison-tree :

Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall; (IV. 83)

Only thus it may be possible to change the torn world Into a garden of love "Surpassing fabled Eden", (IV. 8^-90)

Shelley reacts sharply to the repeated charge tiiat war is caused by tiie innate evil in man also because it conflicts 126

with his firm faith in tiie perfectibility of man's natiire and his original Innocence, It is the society vhich corrupts the nature of an imocent babe \4io knew notiiing of deceit and flasehood at the time of birth. Shelley asks the priests and kings to cease to proclaim that man Inherits vice and misery, \Aien Force And Falsehood hang even o'vr the cradled babe, 3tifiir;£ vith rudest grasp all iat--ural good. (IV. 117-20)

So, tiie really responsible agencies for suppressing good in a child and arousing evil in him are religion and tyranity. It is social environment poisoned by these agencies which is more conducive to developing tiie evil aspect of man.

The child. Ere. he can lisp his mother's sacred name, Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts His baby-sword even in a hero's mood. This infant-arm becomes the bloodiest scourge Of devastated eartii; Upraised to shed a brother's Innocent blood. (IV. 116)

Defining war, Shelley refused to acknowledge any kind of sincerity or necessity behind war. The only point tiiat comes to his mind is ttiat war is a superimpositldn of the monarchic power. It is a sort of game for kings playing vdiich they enjoy 127

extiberantly. The enjoyment varies from stratum to stratim. Each oppressive section of ttie society enjoys the game of war in accordance as its own involvem^it in it.

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight. The lawyers jest, the hired assassin's trade, And, to those royal miirderers, \i^se mean thrones Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore, (IV. 168-71)

Not only enjoyment, bat war is also a soiirce of material gain for them, so much so that without that tiiey may starve or live a wretched life. It is a means to capture the throne and assure one's supremacy. Their bread, their staff, their red-clad guards, their palaces are all the fruits of war. By bringing frenzy, famine and penury upon people they earn power and kingdom for themselves. *^

Such a political scene, teeming with tyranny, oppression and greed, is bound to stir up the basest and meanest attitiides in man which manifest tiiemselves in tiie form of slavery; a social evil that confirms the rule of tyranny and provides quarantee to its survival. Shelley criticises and condemns the social evil of slavery in tiie bitterest terms because it mothers further evil but also weaves its vicious circle around the mankind. The tyrants and monarchs are doubtlessly condemnable but those vho 128

remain, mindlessly and slavishly, at their beck and call, protect them and provide «eaQf to then are even worse than tyrants. The portion chiding slaves in the poem is written in the bitterest and the most sarcastic tone.

These are the hired braves \Aio defend The tyrant's throne —the bullies of his fear: These are the sinks and channels of worst vice. The refuse of society, the dregs Of all that is most vile: iiieir cold hearts blend Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride, JLll that is mean and villainous, wit& rage Which hopelessness of good, and self cont^opt Alone might kindle; (IV. 176-86)

The easiest method employed by kings to enslave people is to arouse their base instincts. They arouse their gredd for wealth, and "decked in wealth,/Honour and power, they are sent abroad/ To do their work". (IV, 186-88) These people who have no conscience and can sell themselves at a.ny price are most detestable, independable and even more dangerous than pestilence. Pestilence causes physical death to people but such saleable slaves make them hollow from inside. In return for their misdeeds, these hirelings roll in money and amuse themselves with the brightening prospects of fame and wo Idly glioi y The youlii so easily falls prey to their own ruin wrapped in gold and silver only because they are thoughtless and do not use tiieir mind and wisdom. They are "crushed with servitude". (IV. 192) It is only 129

after he has gone too far and it Is too late for him to retreat that he cherishes repentance at a time vhen his doom "Is sealed In gold airl blood". (IV. 195)

Resounding Rousseau Shelley comes closer to the Islamic concept of man as he seems to believe in the nobility of the origin of man, and repudiates the chiristian concept of man's being an orislnfll slnnAre He believes that this original nobility of man is upset or cru^ed because of his slavery, \Aiich arouses in him lowly attitudes and meanness. Money proves the most effective device Insofar as the destruction of his nobility is concerned. It spurs him to run fast on the path of self- denigration and debasement. And the temptation of money is the least resistible. Motivated by tJie same, tiie slaves are led to commit heinotis crimes in tiie name of law (legal butchery). They become as abonlnable as worms and join the conspiracy of kings to deprive human beings of their natural rights.

Or he was led to legal butchery, To turn to worms beneath that burning sun, Where kings first leagued against the ri^ts of men, As& priests first traded with the name of God. (VIII. 183-86)

Shelley sees prosperity, freedom and happiness poles apart from tyranny, slavery etc. A society which is deeply marked by such social and political evils has to be entirely 130

devoid of all happiness and freedom. '•Kings, queens, aristocrats, wars, tortures and judges —- Shelley hated them all". Remarks Paul Foot : "He was all his life an uncompromising republican and anti-militarist".^ The social scenes he portrays, whether of past or present, are all the spectacles of devastations, miseries, diseases, oppression and sufferings. The themes of freedom and happiness do figure only in the form of the optimistic future hope. The Act VI con^jrises the detailed analysis of the social and political miseries and a worldwide survey of tiie human problems and an attempt at finding out the root-cause of all tiiese evils

*It is a wild and miserable world! Thorny, and full of care, Which every fiend can make his prey at will. (IV. 12-if)

Realising so, the spirit is astonished >diether tiie world would for ever remain so or there may be some chance of its recovery from the long relapse: "Is there no hope in store ?"(VI.i6) It reflects Shelley's desperateness \dio finds the tyrannized vorld to be devoid of peace and progress^ It is full of social problems. Truth has been suppressed by the falsehood. Senseless ness and misery are triumphant and only those succeed and rejoice here viio are treacherous and dishonest and wretched.

on younder earth, Falsehood now triumphs; deadly power Has fixed its seal upon the lip of truth I 131

Madness and misery are there 1 The happiest is most wretched 1 (VI, If7-51)

However, Shelley does not allow pessimism to prevail, as he always mingles thr depiction of the social scene with his visualisation of the arrival of a better day (millenium). ^

Like tbe present one, the past societies and civilisations also underwent the similar circumstances and no less devastations were brought upon them by monarchical systems. In a general reference to historical lands like Athens, Home and Sparta, Shelley points out as to \Aiy they lost all tihieir glory and have been reduced to such a disgraceful insignificance :

There is a mtfral desert now: The mean and miserable ^nits. The yet more wretched palaces, (II. 163-65)

The freedom remains an outcast to tiiese palaces now. It is dead and only its ghost is wandering about here and there. Referring to t 'Palmyra's ruined palaces'. (II. 110) Mab recalls that tt is vtoere once 'grandeur frowned' and 'pleasure smiled',(11,111-12) From here to mi^ty and proud kings ruled over the poor humiliated people. But, fate made those arrogant kings equal to their subjects by sending a massive destruction to than, and let notiilng survive but "the memory of senselessness and shame", (II. H^-) 132

It tells 'a melaxicholy tale» and gives 'An avful warning'. The time's vulture is ready to fly away with t^e remnants of this memory. By suggestion, thus, Shelley hints at the same factors operative in the social and political set up of his day, as had destroyed earlier civilizations, Die towering Pyramids 'Besides tiie eternal Nile' (00, 126) will also perish sooner or later reijeatine the tale of the misery of those vAio were forced to undertake the

detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. (II. Iif5-V8)

The pyramids are for Shelley the embodiments of the cries and k6 sighs of the Oppressed people

Oh ) many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fan; and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, (II. huhh)

Shelley also laments deeply over the adverse change in human nature; ttiat the spirit of slavery has supplanted the spirit of freedon. The land of wise Socrates is now occupied by the 'coward' and 'fool' slaves of tyrant whose only mission in life is that he "spreads death around". (II, I77) The glorious land 133

of Cicero and Kntonlus is occupied by the utiholy, 'cowled and hypocritical morik* (II. 180) v4io only 'Prays, curses and deceives*. (II. 181) The inversion of values is therefore more tiian obvious. The social and political scene of the Europe of Shelley's day was not much different from liiat of the perished civilisations. In Europe, man's blood had become very cheap; "now the savage drinks/His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons,/Wakes the unholy song of war'. (II. 18M-86) Shelley derives inspiration to reconstruct his Utopia from his recollections about the same place which was once a centre of happiness, peace and prosperity. It used to be the busiest haunt to which all the people flocked from eversrvfaere. Strangers, and merchandise flocked ttie place, as "Once peace and freedom blessed/The cultivated plain*. (II. 202-3)

Shelley has taken into consideration the social and political conditions of the past only with a mind to locate the errors and learn a lesson from them ever to be remembered so as to avoid the same mistakes and their haaardous Implications in future. The realisation of the past mistakes will be

A warning for the future, so that man May profit by his errors, and derive Experience from his folly (III. 8-10) In the light of wisdom thus learned, Shelley considers conven tional ty to be no different from vulgarity. One vdio thinks, feels, 134

acts and lives ^ust the same way as his ancest»rs did is condemned by Shelley as vulgar. Such conventionality Is a great hindrance In the path of attaining the hl^ Ideal of virtue and revolution.

The conquered ijowers Of precedent and custom Interpose Between a king and virtue. (III. 97-99)

It is Inevitable for him to deduce 'The future from the present'• (III. 101) Unless conventionality is replaced by radicalism, no man's Soul will ever be able to assert its hunanity and no arms will come up to dash the tyrant from his throne.^ Those who spend their lives in sycophancy and are called 'courtiers' contribute no less than kings to suppress the humanity of man* s soul. In the eyes of Shelley, they are as loathsome as dirty flies sitting in the courtyard of the palace and fattening on its filth. Being lazy through and throu^, such "drones of the community", (III. 109) feed themselves on the starving poor 'mechanic's labour', ^Aa in return gets only a filthy slum to dwell airl 'many faint with toil', (III, 116)

The two factors, power and obedience, are basically responsible for causing general social and political degeneration, Powerful man is just like Jupiter of Prometlûs Dr^^yî^^, who receives all power from Prometheus and inflicts miseries on him. Not shared equally, all power concentrates in one man v*io, being vôlly autonomous, starts exploiting the same masses \4iose power 135

he represents. Thus originates tyranny. Power is also usurped often by lustful persons, in which case it "like a desolating pestilence,/Pollutes \diate'er it touches". (III.176-77) Obedience represents the attitude of lying supine to all injustice and transgression and surrendering one's will most humbly to the tyranny of a king, and never to resist oppression. Obedience is the "Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth". (Ill, 178) It popularises the submissive abjectness -vAiich is the curse of humanity. It "Makes slaves of men" and a himan being is dragged down by it to the level of a "mechanised automaton, depriving him of his natural emotional structure.^^ Once liiese two capture a society, nothing can save it from destruction. Condemning both the social evils, power and obedience, Shelley quotes the example of the destroyer ere \dio revelled in 'savage joy* by unleashing the orgy of bloodshed and ruin, and Romans did not rise up to break his bloody arm. This was an unpardonable blunder on their part as it amounted to destroy "Nature's suggestion"* (III. 192) It was only because of their being at tiie height of the 'submissive rbjectnsss' that they did not resist.^

The social problems also have been traced by Shelley to monarchy, represented by the triad of kings, priests and statesman who "blast the human flower/Even in its tender bud. In other words, the basic cause of all the human problems has been traced to the existing social and political pattern, in which, without 136

bringing about a drastic change, no reform could probably be effected, ^e Imbalances on the social and political plains are created Just because of the autocracy and arbitrariness of the political authority \diose "influence darts/Like subtle poison through the bloodless vein/Of desolate society". (IV. 105-0?)

It results in unnatural patterning of the social and political set up \jhlch disturbs tiie very nature and fabric of society. It also upsets the psychological pattern of such a group. It activates those instincts and emotions in man vdiich should normally be suppressed, and suppresses tiiose vihich must remain operative. The entire social training leads a child to grow up into a blood-thirsty beast.'^•? 1 Shelley expresses Immense grief over the fact that as soon as a new, innocent soiil opens eyes in this world, to his dismay he finds it full of desolation and wretchedness. All his hopes to see love, happiness and sympathy transpire at the very first sight of tiie vjorld.

How withered all tiie bands of natural good I No shade, no shelter from Hie sweeping storms Of pitiless power I (IV. 125-27)

An infant open its eyes in the house of a 'Vretched parents" who are over-burdened with miseries, disease and woe. They are so deeply engulfed in unnatural morality, custom and conventions and law that the "pure winds/Of Heaven" (IV. 13O-31) cannot 137

breathe, and the 'untalnting light of day/May visit not its longings". (IV. 132-33) Even before a child is born, chains are ready to fasten him. In making this point Shelley echoes Rousseau. He is deprived of all love, liberty and peace and he is "Cursed from its birth" and "even from its cradle doomed/ To abjectness and bondage". (IV, 137-38)

In a bid, therefore, to expose the priest, the conqueror and the prince, Shelley points out that they are the traders of falsehood and their lusts "Deep wallow in the earnings of the poor". (IV» 239) They revel in savage joy in adding to Mie nuinber of slain people. Their excessive aggressiveness reflects their deep-rooted cowardice and criminal mentality. They are the loathsomest slaves ever lived on earth. They live in full luxury without least deserving it. Their entire life-style is conspicuously marked by listlesness and insolence, and 3ret their Ixists are unsatiated. Owing to their criminal attitudes, the life has become hell. Their yout^ has become "A vain and feverish dream of sensualism", (IV, 251) and their manhood is blighted "with unripe disease". (IV. 252) Death-wish, norbidity and nervousness have become their characteristics and they have become "Incapable of judgement, hope or love'. (IV. 256) Because of tiieir deep-seated malice, the above mentioned triad of evil protracts, the ills radiating from them and the future of marikind will be under threat even after they -would have been turned to 138

ciist, a. 'u: ir lllii are Geir-nerr.n-itl.r-. '•lo'" ':'•<•'"• -r r:r^ ••. nev; sarHi^S^ sprin:" up "i\ji aro^md tiieir j^rave.s 'ir/c receivl:^ nourisi-'.-ejt fro' their corpses •^e-ir venor.oiis l^rvdt: ': Icl. tlic- succeeding generitions eot and die.-^ Since he fi .J- tlie disease of tyranny, slavery and r.onnrchy to be very iccr.-roote ., he has earlier advised to hit at tie roots o-'' it, de-iJliest a::vi most : aii£.T-ant effectG,

The causes o!" adversity nnd misery rooted in the .t.i. .] 1 s"'Gpt asi'ie h-.- the irresistiolo 'o'^ce o'' ;..at rl-.lis. . J-. 139

viiat carries even more weight Is the point that he does not trace the origin of the causes of human misery only to the false or unjust economic system, but more to unnatural attitudes of human nature vhijah have their origin in their false metaphysical beliefs. Hence, he markedly departs from that shallow and simplistic approach to human problems vfcat later came to be termed as Marxism. The dogmas give birth to selfishness and thence springs tfcc hcrribie coEKsrce, the mother o£ all other miseries like slavery, poverty, wretchedness etc. Cumulatively, all this gives rise to capitalism in which the economic system does not move by need but by lusts and ambitions,^ Once, it getting right conditions,/flourishes, it massive influence prevails upon everything. Such an atmosphere does not allow any human virtue to exist and guide the human bdiaviour.

Commerce 1 beneath vdiose poison-breathing shade No solitary virtue dares to spring, But poverty and wealth witii equal hand Scatter their withering curses I and unfold The door of premature and violent death, To pining famine and full-fed disease, (V. Mf-if9)

The disparity causes a great imbalance in the society. And both wealth and poverty enrich and strengtiien each other in turn as a consequence of close interaction, A microscopic minority enjoys luxury at the expense of the labour of a vast majority. The same opens the door for innumerable social evils and the society is 140

cursed by that to tlie core.^^ It leads to the only unnatural consequence that the human life is ensnared by capitalism and controlled by the only false value, gold, vhich acquires the status of God in the hearts of ttie materialistic people. Every section of society, high or low, bows to worship this Lord. "Die 'vulgar great', the vainly rich', the miserable proud', and 'the mob of peasants, robles, priests, and kings' worship and rever the power that is set ultimately"to destx-oy them ail, and "grinds them to the dust of misery".

Commerce has set the mark of selfishness. The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: Before \Axose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, tiie miserable proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, (V. 53-58)

Once the spirit of selfishness possesses one's mind, one can go to any extreme to achieve his ulterior motives. The dominance of the selfish attitudes shears a society off its real Joy and fills it with the 'bitterness of soul', 'pining regrets', and 'vain repentence'J and

Disease, disgust, and lassitude, pervade Their valueless and miserable lives. (V. 2^7-^8)

Shelley sees liardly any distinction between intensified selfish ness and religion, v^iich is for him rather a formal term denoting selfishness. The cunning oppressors assure the perpetuation of 141

their selfish deeds In the name of religion. Religion and selfishness are competitors in crimes and falsehood. Selfishness, the twin-sister of religion, is an attitude that tries to excell all other wanton horrors. It is totally frozen, unimpassloned, spiritless. It tends to hide

With flimsy veil of Justice and of right. Its unattractive lineaments, tiiat scare All, save the brood of ignorancs: at once The cause and tiie effect of tyranny; (V. 28-31)

Selfishness, therefore, is sustained by ignorance, for which it provides right conditions to prevail. In this regard the role of religion, from \Aiich almost all the social evils flow, proves of a great help, ^e faithful slaves of God are the greatest Hers of all the times and their tongues are venomous. Their cherished hobby is to massacre the masses. In one hand they hold the sword and In t3ie other the banner of peace and brotherhood. Such a banner is only a bait to attract people so that they may be massacred en-masse. Such barbarous savages speak of love and mercy while their hands are sanguine with blood. They

Babble of love and mercy, vfellst their deeds Are marked with all the narrowness and crime. t (VII. 2»+2-l+3)

Shelley does not turn pessimistic at the realisation that the world has become a dungeon of miseries, troubles and 142

disease, and that it is full of crime, misery, falsehood, mistake ani lust. He was rescued by his philosophical inference that absolute falsehood or, in other vjords, absolute negativity or positivity is not possible to exist. But, this "eternal wo rid/Contains at once the evil and the cure". (V. 3O-31) The evil and good are coexistent, and do not exist independently. They lose their individual identity by mutual disintegration. Evil looks evil only in contrast with good. In fact, Shelley hints at the existence of a well-balanced and well-proportioned system in the universe. Whenever any disturbance is caused to the natural equilibrium of the operative values, the same become ill-productive and bring forth unwanted results. The term evil suggests a consequential Imbalance caused to the natural proportion or equilibrium of values. This natural value-system also possesses an inbuilt force of self-correction. When the disturbance caused to it exceeds the limits, it recoils upon itself and destroying evil reasserts on its original position. In this philosophical point lies the optimism of Shelley v^o believes that

Some eminent in virtue shall start up, Even in perseverest time (VI. 33-3lf) because •every heart contains perfection's germs'. (V. ^h7)

The dilemma of mankind, tiierefore, is not some superficial economic or political factor only. It is man's vulnerability 143

to this or that false doctrine based on the misguided negative attitudes -which form a vicious circle vAiich humanity is not able to step out I and

Thus do the generations of the earth Go to the grave, and issue from the womb (V. 266-67)

But, the inborm virtue, that lies at the core of man's existeince. has got a strong capability of changing the world. In order to bring home the same idea Shelley employs a recurring metaphor, the one employed in The Revolt of Islam and Ode to the West Wind. He suggests that "All germs of promise" are inherent in the nature of man, vdiose origin never changes, however corrupt it may be for the time being. It is. Just as the fallen, dry and deshaped leaves apxjear to be only waste \^ich they are not in fact, because in them lies the food for new growth. The dead leaves "fertilize the land they long deformed" (V, 12) and cause the fre^ growth to come vcp in all Its glory. Just as the positive quality of leaves is not separable from them even after they become dry, similarly the original essence of man's nature containing the *germs of promise' does not become extinct. However suppressed and dimmed under a particxiLar circumstance, it always retains its potential existence in man, ever ready to unwind itself into actuality

Till from the breathing lavm a forest springs Of youth, integrity, and loveliness. 144

Like that which gave It life, to spring and die. Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart. Is destined to decay* vjhilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love. And Juigement cease to wage unnatural war With passion's unsubduable array. (V. 13-20)

Shelley visualises, therefore, ttiat, although the upsurge and dominance of man's negative attitudes play havoc at present; out of the same chaos order will be bom because all chaos is "destined to decay". The experiences of injustice and destruction, in fact, enrich man's sense of justice from •vdiich will sDring up finally all his positive qualities. At a tender age Shetfiy showed awareness of the law of universal harmony and balance of nature, a power itiilch sustains Itself in the physical being.

all things speak Peace, harmony, and love. The universe. In %iture's silent eloquence, declares That all fulfil the works of love and joy, — (III. 195-98)

But, man, 'the outcast', always rebels against nature owing to his miscalculation and often demonstrates a strong tendency of deviating from it. He Indulges in so many acts that go deadly against himself and cause him sometimes irreparable damage.

He fabricates The sword ifrfilch stabs his peace; he cherlsheth The snakes that gnaw his heart; he ralseth up The tyrant, whose delight is in his woe, Whose sport is in his agony. (III. 199-203) 145

But, the law of universal harmony allows flexibility upto a certain limit. Vftien the distortion crosses that limit, tills universal morality returns furiously to its original position. In the due process it destroys every object that obstructs its way. In other words, according to Shelley's ImDllcations, evil grows to a certain extent after vhich it explodes and destroys itself; an Idea modified by the time he wrote Prometheus Unbound. Shelley, In keeping with this idea, visualises the return of the universe to its state of perfect harmony named by him as 'Jove',

Yet slow and gradual dawned the morn of love Long lay the clouds of darkness over the scene Till from Its native Heaven they rolled away. (IX. 38-ifO)

Crime and vice vAiich had long been victorious against Hope and had cast the shadow of gloom over the world of man, lose their relevance now. ^ey had long sanctified all deeds of vice and woe, but the evil had assumed such an enormity t^at it was bound to explode, and the same happened. It was ' ... done by her own venomous sting to death' (IX. h5) In the absence of Crime and Woe, both Passion and Reason are free. Passion can now fly freely uriilndered by any hopelessness, and Reason also is not fettered by religion. Human consciousness feels now completely free and enjoys the eternal bliss. The adolescents as well as adults enjoyed complete mutual confidence and peace and freedom, the source of real pleasure. ' 146

The deadly germs of langour and disease Died in the human frame, and Purity Blessed with all gifts her earthly woJShipDers. (IX. 62-6if)

In tiie ideal world of Shelley's vision, neither avarice, cunningness and pride would exist nor care. Courage of soul and will would be at their climax because of the absence of fearfulness and prevalence of 'virtue, love, and pleastre'.(IX.??) In the absence of any distorting or distiirbing agency, the hunan nature will be able to retain its originality and purity. The strings of human soul will produce a perfect harmony and melody. The delicate and finer strains would not be distrubed by any 58 tyrannical interference. Life would be characterised by love.

Love constitutes an important underlying connective theme in the poem, that binds all the social and political themes together. It is also the basis on which rests the future hope of Shelley, ^he entire poem is called by Shelley a 'plege of love'. (Dedication, 12) Shelley has focussed attention on the manifestations of nature scattered all around and observes that underneath the superficial contradictions and paradoxes there exists a perfect harmony, ^e entire universe is a symphony of the cosmic love. It is the spirit of love that balances and maintains the equilibrium of the entire universe and makes it possible to give rise to life and mind; The 'golden harvest' and "life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees" are all the manifes tations of "Peace, harmony and love", that indubitably pervades 147

the universe. If ve have ears to hear, "Nature's silent eloquence, declares/That all fulfil the works of love and ^oy, — " (III, 198) Shelley regrets that man deliberately abstains from pondering over nature and deriving laws from it, Man fails to realise that the basic law of nature is disinterested ness, love and equal treatment. The sun does not shine brighter on a palace tiian on a thatched hut. ItZso because love is impartial and free from prejudice.^^ The idea reminds one of Wordsworth \*io repeatedly suggests to learn lessons from nature. In tile ideal world of future, the effect of 'consentaneous love inspires all life' (VIII, 108) and changes a wilderness into a highly fertile and productive land. It was hatred because of which the area had been dry and sterile, and it is love because of ^ich it is teerming with different types of life. Out of love, the mother earth allows trees to sue . oourishment from its bosom and the myriads reward her with pure perfectness, Mai^ an image has been employed by Shelley to highlight the virtues of love and show how everything "bludties into love"?^ Under the blush of pure love, hatred finds no room. Even a lion forgets to kill and thirsts for love. Pleasure is not vitiated by anything. All bitterness is past. It is the same type of beauty and love for iirfaich Shelley yearns in To a Skvlark . The last Hot of Prometheus Unbound also embodies the same idealism and perfection, but doubtlessly in a much more subtle and philosophical way, llils concept of love symbolises perfect harmony at the social, political 148

human and sentimental levels. According to Shelley, chastity will lose Its relevance then, as there will be no encroachments and excesses and no lust. Chastity, In his opinion, Is a dull, selfish and cheap virtue. It Is only "senselessness and frost", (IX. 86) Since, love will not be subject to excesses or chastity, prostitution also will not exist to poison "The springs of happiness and life". (IX. 88) Complete mutixal confidence will exist between man and woman, untlnged by hatred and jealousy. In such a situation, the path of virtue will not be as circuitous and hurdled as it is now.

Woman and man, In confidence and love. Equal and free and p\ire together trod The mountain-paths of virtue, vftilch no more Were stained with blood from many a pilgrim's feet. (IX. 89-92)

Shelley abhorred the subordination of sex and love \diat he described as 'the heyna, lust'. But, lewdness or promiscuity also did not fit in his scheme of things. Foot observes : "He detested dirty Jokes of every description. So bitter were his attacks on the lewd humour of the popular theatre of the time that he earned himself and undeserved reputation for humourless. He hated obscenity and pornography. He inveighed against the Roman pornographers from Catullus onwards —^ and against the idiotic bawdiness of the early EngLlsh playwrights".^

Alongwlth social and political criticism, Shelley also incorporates certain ideals and moral values to be borne in mind 149

\^lle shaping the future state of affairs. This vision is complete in the sense that it does not comprise only the condemnation of the existing state, but also suggests as to v^at it should be. Fairy addresses Lanthe and refers to those in laudatory terms irfho make sacrifices to vanquish 'Earth's pride and meanness', and burst 'the icy chains of custom'. (I, 125-26) The message 'Avake 1 Arise I', (I. 129) in this early poem recurs in The Revolt of Islam also. It suggests as if the idea of arousing and awakening mankind to effect some kind of social and political reform had been very much there from the first on the back of his mind.^2

Repeatedly, Shelley has highlighted 'virtue, in v*iich he sees the only way out of all human miseries and problems. Addressing the king, longing miserably for mental peace, Fairy points out that real peace does not choose to descend on colossal palaces erected on the blood and bones of the poor, but the place it loves to dwell in is 'virtuous heart*. (Ill, 7^) Shelley implies that virtue harmonises man's life with the universal morality of ttie laws of nature, as a result of which true peace descends on one's heart, the greater reward than \diich Is certainly not Imaginable. The true peace remains miles off from those hearts v^ich are full of vlce.^ The reference to the distorted psychology of king serves to clinch the point that the king is yearning for peace because he is morally a bad person, full of vices, vAiose "slumbers 150

are but varied agonies" i/rtiich "prey like agonies on the springs of life", A moral lesson derivable from this point is quite relevant to Shelley's religious thought. It amounts to say that there is no after-life comprising hell and heaven. The virtuous vjho enjoy the real peace of soul is in heaven, and one who lacks it is in hell. The metaphysical concepts of heaven and hell are the creation of bigotry, because " ,.,, earth in itself/ Contains at once the evil and the cure", and "all- sufficing Ifeture can chastise/ Those i»dio transgress her law", and she knows "How justly to proportion to the fault/ The punish ment it merits", (III. 80-85) So, the king's suffering is just a chastisement of the nature's law of justice. His wretchedness has reached an extent where he takes pride in his woe, takes 'pleasure in his abjectness' and hugs 'The scorpion that consumes him'. Nature rewards him tiii:is for the miseries he inflicts on others. Willingly, he has confined himself within a prison and deprived himself of all the virtues of life to the extent of dehumanising his soul. Now no tussle goes on between the man in him and the king. Being no more than a slave to convention, he has become vulgar. Shelley makes it clear that since the law of nature concerns Itself with attitudes and not with persons, it cannot necessarily be either antagonistic or favourable to some class of people. Ifeture's reward or punishment depends on an attitude's being vice or virtue. That is what Shelley means by 151

saying, "Nature rejects the monarch, not the man;/ The subject not the citizen" (III. 170-71) Nature does not reject man as such but it is opposed to the role he plays as king or slave. It is opposed to the king-dimension or subject-dimension in man, and not man or people. It is only in the capacity of a king or subject that one enjoys the privilege of issuing tyrannical comnandments and tiie other feels bound to comply with them, for "king/ And subjects, mutual foes, forever play/ A losing game into each other's hands,/Whose stakes are vice and misery".(III. 17l-7lf) Virtue is neither to comnand nor to obey but to live as equals : " ..... virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys". (III. 175)

Here we feel as if Shelley accept; anarchy as the most coveted positive value of the future social and political state of human society. The absence of supervisory authority is a guarantee of peace and prosperity. In it he differs from Plato v^ose influeace upon him is undebatable. But, he is very much with Plato inasmuch as the concept of a moral Utopia is concerned. Shelley has suggested some moral principles for the desirable functioning of the human society, and Plato also recommends the bannishment of poets from his republic on moral grounds.

Shelley identifies reason with virtue and superstition with vice, and visualises Incoming of the era of the former. The 152

hel^tenlng of reason in man will ultimately enable him to realise that 'discord, war, and misery* are the manifestations of vice, and 'peace, and happiness and harmony* are the manifes tations of virtue.

And \^en Reason's vice. Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked The nations; and marklivi perceive that vice Is discord, var, and misery; that virtue Is peaccy and har-pln^s? and hanaony; (III. 126-30)

The age of reason Is set to mark that stage In the human history when "kingly glare/ Will lose Its power to dazzle", (III. 13I-32) and the final ruin of the Institution of monarchy will come, and

its authority Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed In the regal hall Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood*s trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth Is now. (III. 133-38)

Thus, through the predominance of the enriched reason will come the final defeat of flasehood and the long-awaited victory of truth,

Shelley expresses his anguish also at the erosion of high ideals and perversion of values. He holds the oneness of mankind to be basically the most important, which is in fact the 153

storehoTise of harmony and happiness. But this priceless value has been sacrificed at tiie altar of wealth, the demigod. It is harmony and happiness that elevates his nature to great heights of nobility. It is a source that Yields to the wealth of nations; that \ih.ich lifts His nature to the heaven of its pride. (V. 80-81)

Man deprives himself of peace and harmony falling prey to irresistible selfish motives. As a result, the tower of his hope is pulled down to earth. It leaves no in^julse alive in man but that of selfish gain and no passion but that of "slavish fear". Extinguishing "all free and generous love" in man, (V. 86), it destroys the entire real self of man and trsuisforms him into a beast devoid of every moral sense and an embodiment of brutality and selfishness.^

it destroys, — Leaves nothing but the sordid lust of self. The grovelling hope of interest and gold, Unqualified, unmingled, unredeemed Even by Hjrpocrisy.

(V. 89-93)

Shelley's belief in the potential of perfection in man is unshakable. He seems to believe man to be the creation of some \iltimate, unknown reality in its own image.

Yet every heart contains perfection's germs

(V. ll+7) 154

Even the wisest of all sages or scientists a"^ the manifestation of only an aspect or a dim shadow of the perfection lying in him in the form of potentiality. It is so because as compared to the antiquity of universe, he is just "a week and inexperienced boy" v*io was "Pioud, sensual, unimpassloned, unimbued/ With pure desire and universal love". (V, i51 & 152-53)* The same universal love and selfless desire let the potential of perfection unfold. It is the same pure soul or 'cloudless brain' (V. 15^) vdiich is of the hi^est significance to man. If it is free from all social, political, psychological or religious taboos, it is capable of doing wonders. Such a mind cannot be vitiated or repressed by any power except death. 'Untainted passion* and 66 •elevated will' (V, 155) issue from the same cloudless brain. In the external realisation of litierent perfectness, the materialis tic bent of mind also proves a hurdle, which reduces the entire life to a mere commerical activity.

But mean lust Has bound its chains so tight around the earth. That all within it but the virtuous man Is venal : (V. 166-69)

Despite the apparent corruption of man's nature, the real self at the core of his existence remains unsullied. He may sell off his entire personality, mortgage all talents and be oblivious of his real self. The price prefixed by selfishness may bur the 155

vhole of him except for his inner priceless real self, which is his "resolute and unchanging will". (V, 171) Man's free will 67 cannot be destroyed and killed by any means.

Nor the vile joys of tainting luxury, Can bribe to yield his elevated soul To tyranny or Falsehood, thou^ they wield With blood-red hand the sceptre of the world. (V. 173-76)

But to achieve tiiis end it is imperative to ource life of commercialism and to reestablish love as "the solace of all woe" (V, 189), free from being bought and sold.

The vice of 'falsehood' poses another hazard in the way of strengtlienlng reason and virtue. Hie corrupting attitudes of falsehood do not bring anything glorious or invaluable, but only gold and wealth "to pay the pangs/ Of outraged conscience". (V, 197-98) If man could overcome the vice of good, he would certainly succeed in winning back his freedom never to lose in future. Human conscience constitutes the 'nobler glory' at the core of man's existence, the real human element in his animal physique. It is eternal, being beyond life or death. It survives as siach even after man's physical death. It is too Invincible to give in in any case, Deatii is the best compliment it receives from 'Power's avenging hand', (V, 221) which is the "sweetesi; last and noblest title" for it. This human conscience survives under 156

the heaviest materialistic pressures and temptation. It rather generates "a life of resolute good", "unalterable will", "quench less desire of universal happiness" and eternally unexhaustible 68 wisdom, ° Therefore, in the opinion of Shelley, laying down one's life in the cause of freedom and truth is the most sacred and ennobled way of being virtuous. Towards the end of the poem, the spirit speaks about preferring death to the slavery to tyrant or bigot. She instructs the Spirit of Lanthe to bear on the hardships and miseries bravely and continue war against all tiie social and political corruptions and evils until either she achieves her goal or embraces death in this way. Her goal must be to root out the basic causes of evil : tyranny and falshood. Unless the roots of tiiese two are hit hard, human misery ^^dll persist. She assures Lanthe tiiat if she firmly dedicates herself to this task, no obstacle vdiatever can prevent her from achieving her goal. Only her determination could defy and defeat evil's "fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will". (IX. 198) Resolute mind, sincerity and goodness, freedom from 'heart-withering custom's cold command, (IX. 201), loftiness of passion, purity and invincibility are the qualities which make one successful in life and achieve one's good. A person possessing all such attributes cannot be dissuaded by being ensnared by the meanness of the world. 'Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish" him, (IX. 203) Such are the persons who are truly virtuous and full of hope and enjoy "The spotless life of sweet and sacred love". (IX. 208) After putting in her 157

mind all sudi Ideas of optimistic feelings, the Fairy asks Lanthe*s spirit to wake yxp to the world of realities, and enlightened ani entiiused by such knowledge should undertake the task of awakening the mankind and ameliorate their lot 69 socially and politically, ^

The future hope of Shelley, therefore, is strongly marked by optimistic liotes. He visualises ths auvent of a millenium of a complete and perfect social and political peace and harmony. His feeling is founded on this poet' s belief in the Capacity of human nat\re of harmony with the rythm of the universe. The trouble starts at a discordg^t note between the two. VJhen tiie human nature regains its naturalness by freeing itself from the shackles of man-made ideology, the harmony is automatically achieved between the human nature and the external nature, the point \faere the world enters the sphere of prosperity and eternal bliss. The social and political future of Shelley's visualisation will be "no longer Hell", because "Love, freedom, health, had given/ Their ripeness to the manhood of its prime". (VIII. 15-16) It will be an era of full maturity of human consciousness vdien harmony would poor all its stores of himaan bliss;

And all its pulses beat Symphonious to the planetary sphere: Then dulcet music swelled Concordant with the life-strings of the soul; It throbbed in sweet and languid beating there Catching new life from transitory death, •— (VIII. 17-22) 158

This occurs to Shelley in his way of exploring the reality of the existence in a social and political context. His optimistic vision sustains itself through his insights into the upward spiral novement of history. Shelley is aware of the kinetic nature of time vAiich incessantly oscillates between the extremes in order probably to strike a balance. As justice and disharmony assume dangerous proportions, the pendulum of time takes a backward turn njnd r.cvs.-^: en towards ti:e othsr c-rtraiae cf ^ay. health and freedom. She believes that time is already in the process of reaching the positive extreme, and sooner or later miseries and troubles have to be left far behind.

The happiest is most wretched I Yet confide, Until pure health-drops, from the cup of joy, (VI. 51-52)

Soon the Nature will blot "title blood-stained charter of all we" in mercy from the look of earth. (VI. 55 & 57) Passion and ui^olluted reason shall combiningly succeed in making the suppressive attitude subside. Passion's "wandering wing" ani Reason's "firmer tread" are sufficient to cause a shameful defeet to oppressive moods. The same will make "mightiest monarch's arms" powerless, his loud threat "vain", his frown "impotent", ani the "priests' dogmatic roar" ludicurous, and the "weight of his 70 exterminating curse" light. The disappearance of all such evils assiires the dawn of a new era about \diich Shelley's firm 159

faith can't entertain any doubts :

Oh I rest thee tranquil; chase those fearful doubts (V. 26) and How sweet a scene will earth become 1 Of purest spirits a pure dwelling-place, Syn^onious with the planetary sphere. __ (VT. 39-U-i)

The last line deserves special attention in which the planetary sidieres symbolise the universal order that functions perfectly. As a consequence of his harmony with nature, man "Will undertake regeneration's viork", (VI, ^-3)

The start of the above 'process WDuld change the wasteland of Earth into a fertile region full of greenry and productivity, pouring out from within itself bliss and happiness in the form of beauty. How strange it is tiiat the land viiere birds were not allowed to chant their melodies and where nothing like love existed, the same places now

Teem with countless rills and shady woods. Cornfields and pastures and >4iite cottages; (VIII. 75-76)

In the future world of Shelley, haunts of cruelty and barbarity will be blessed with peace, love and purest affection and no limit 160

will be there to tlie delight of people :

And fertile valleys, resonant with bliss, Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave, VJhich like a toil -worn labourer leaps to shore, To meet the kisses of the flow'rets there (VIII. 103-06)

In those days, the element of fear will completely vanish. The sense of alienation rroui among human beings and between them and other creatures will also be totally removed. No sense of distinction, superiority and inferiority etc, will be found any longer. Disease and suffering will also disappear and a heavenly pleasure will become a common experience.

Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame; Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here, Heason and passion cease to combat there; (VIII. 229-31)

The world becomes the 'Paradise of peace', (VIII, 238) which is reckoned the centre of the universe "Whose rays, diffused through out all space and time/ Verge to one point and blend for ever there", (IX, 6-7) The 'one point' referred to here is earth which has now become 'The reality of Heaven', (IX, 1) The earth of Shelley's imagination accomodates only the pure, gentle souls.

Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place I Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, Langour, disease, and ignorance dare not come : 0 Happy Earth, reality of Heaven I

(IX, 8-11) 161

This earth of perfect social and political peace seems not only a mirror-image of the heaven of scriptures, but also its essence and reality. Shelley visualises such a perfect social and political order beyond space and time where man's consciousness would acquire a renewed shape. It will be an "end of all desire and will/ The predict of all action".'7'' (IX. 17-18) This earth will be devoid of every agency of oppression, poverty and famine. The palace of monarch-slave will collapse \dience flowed s"uch evils. The shaky 'tower' symbolises gone-by oppression and political injustice. It is swaying against the stern storm since it has lost its stability.'^ The religious agencies will also not exist in the happy future to generate slavish attitudes and fear. The 'roofless isles' of cathedral suggest the same idea. The freedom from religious dogma will rid the society of faith and slavery.

In this spectacle of past, present and future, a three- dimensional image of man emerges; man a reality of conscioTisness, man in past, and man in present. The reality of man is his immutable, eternal consciousness which is central to his being. It is the chief controller of his personality. Apparently, the hianan personality may undergo many changes, but the core of his existence, which Shelley names 'loftier extiajt', is never affected by them.

The chief perceives the change, his being notes The gradual renovation, and defines Each movement of its progress on his mind. (VIII. Iif2-»4i+) 162

Shelley compares the past man vdth the future man and fiiKis them no match. The pre-milenium man's consciousness was less mature because he had suffered less and thereby learned less. He vas a vulnerable being, prone to all attacks and temptations. He was far removed from his nature and trutii. In that state man remained for a long time 'the train-hearer of slaves*. (VIII. 19^) He was only The mimic of surrounding misery, The jackal of ambition's lion-rage. The bloodhound of religion's hungry zeal. (Vin. 195-97)

His real self hidden under a number of guises, he was everything but a human being. The post-millenium man of the vision of Shelley is totally different from the wretched man of the past. At the peak of the maturity of consciousness, he will be the master of a pure mind and heart, exercising all his impulses in the natural form, and retaining his original innocence and purity. His only pursuit will be central bliss and perfection, which will give him a kind of moral immortality. All his cruelty and beastliness would leave him for good. He would also give up killing animals and consuming their flesh. Since he will not break the law of nature, nature will also not avenge herself.

The poem also projects Shelley's concept of time, which assumes deeper philosophical dimensions in some later poems. For him 'Time's veil' is eternal In which all its three aspects past. 1G3

present and -future are closely interwoven. And that is vdiy, underlying the changing spectacle of time there can be felt a common nexus ^lAiich is absolute and everlasting. This absolute truth is constant and beyond the pale of time in actuality. From within time's 'eternal veil* (VIII. 12) events and incidents beam forth in a sequential order. In futire vrorld of perfection, aielley visualises the disappearance of the changing dimensions of time, ^z vill fola upon itself and recoil in an eternity from iirtiich it may again release itself into actuality in the form of past, present and future. Time will not then have to play the same destructive role as it had been playing in the pre-millenium world. In fact, it was time only which was the ruler that destroyed and extinguished everything. Even the strongest objects like Pyramids were a subject to time. Time was the only monarch in vAiom and by viiom everything existed in space, as long as it is so permitted. This last dimension finds no room in the perfect world.

Even time, the conqueror, fled thee in his fear; That hoary giant, •vrfio, in lonely pride So long had ruled the worLd, that nations fell Beneath his silent footstep. (IX. 23.26) Therefore, Shelley holds the human 'will' and 'consciousness' to be eternal and beyond the reach of time. Everything in the vorld succtimbs to time, but time yields to virtuous will and sympathies of soul. It means 'will' is the strongest. If the 1G4

povrer of 'will' is exercised, Time's mightiest current can be checked or at least given a new direction. The entire universe is the manifestation of the grandest will of God, a little iDortion of which has been infused into man, so it is the only thing capable of creating its own time.

Time was the king of earth: all things gave way Before him, but the fixed and virtuous will, The sacred sympathies of soul and sense, That mocked his twcy and prepared his rail. (IX. 3I+-37)

In this early work. Queen Mab^ Shelley has embodies his social and political thought in a systematic and comprehensible manner. He holds the monarchy and all its associated institutions to be chiefly responsible for all the social and political evils and miseries in the world. From it spring tyranny and exploitative commerce viiich divides the humanity into two conflicting blocs. He criticises religion in a very bitter manner for supporting the unjust and illegitimate system of monarchy. Though, he advocates for the annihilation of monarchy in strongest terms but, at the same time, also points out that all evils proceed from the fsilse human faith and superstition. From the same source slavery and cowardice also flow. If man sincerely wants any real reform, he has to give up all the false beliefs, including the concept of God and religion based on it. Only then the mankind will be coTirageous enough to ttiink in terms of overthrowing the systems lGf>

of cruelty and oppression. He points out the influences of evil in each and every section of society and calls for a massive social ani political revolution. We have observed some philosophical themes also emerging from the social and political context, which makes his vision of the past, present and future into a compact i(4iole, Shelley is optimistic about the future of mankind and believes in the perfectibility of human nature which will ultimately overcome his social and political immaturity and change the world into a perfect paradise.

How the social and political tiiemes acquire deeper dimensions, how Shelley proceeds from allegory to a subtler mode of expression, symbolism, how the youthful rhetoric gradually given in to maturer reflection and how from the prosposition of the institutional reform Shelley moves on to combine it with the reform of individual has all to be seen in The Revolt of iRlnm^ the subject of o\ir next Chapter. 168

1. -bte otj Queen V.^n by V.m, Shelley, n. -'36 (All references to the poem in tliis chanter are fror xhe Co:r:-Dlete ?o e-fclcal Works pr Percy 3-'.?sslie ohellev^ ed, 1. 'hitciiinson, Londo!:,

2. 101a. 3. Grabo, Carl : Prouotliejan "Jnbound, Ai'i Interprct.-ition. 7niversit;- of li^rth Carolina Press, 1^3^} P. 11. h, ibtes on ^;ueen Ilab by Mrs. Shelley, r. 036, 5. Ibid., r,, 837. 6. Letter to Bditor, The Exaiuiner, June 22, 1321, OD. cit.,

(1812^. An Associr^tioft of Philanthronists (1 S1 2) . and Hubert Cauvin (1bi~ 8, Car.erson, K.i-'. i Tlie XP^^- Shelley. London, 1951, p. 2^r1. 9. Not on Queen Mab by lirs. Shelley, TD. 837. 10. Shelley to Elizabeth Kitchener, December 10, 1811 op. cit., lo\, i; ::. 3^0. 11. Shelley to Thomas Hookhan, August l3, l3l2, ori. cit., /'ol. I, p. 32if. 12. Ibid., Jan. 26, I813, '^1. I, p. 350. 13. -'arriet to li's. Iv^igent, I-iay 21, I813, Vol. I, p. 368. 1^. Kiedwin, Thomas : The Life of P.2. Shelley^ London, 1913, p. '+6if. 15. On life, p. 19. 16. Letter to Kogg, 3 Jan. 1-11. 17. Letter to Elisa'oeth kitchener, Jv:iiie 11, 1811, 167

18. Ibid., :bv. 2'+, 1311 -3. >a -an. 2, 1 n 2. 19. p. 812. ^0. VI, 100-107. 21. VI. 1lif-17. 22. VI. 122-138. 23. VI. 13^38. 2h, IV. 203-207. 25. IV, 211. 26. YI. 72-85. 27. VI. 93-100 23. '71. 119-121. 29. VII. 115-26. 30. ^VII. 131-'B.

ii.Qm>w/rv.J.iy>hjdJile>?

6l+. III. 85-99. 6^^. V. 79-93. 66. V. m-7-58. 67. V. 165-76 (for detail) 68. V. 21^-30. 69. IX. 189-211. 70. ?I. lf5-^6. 71. IX. 1-22. 72, IX. 92-102. CHAPTER V

SOCIAL AI^'D POLITICAL kLLR-lL9.^1

L li THE REVOLT OF

I S L A k See 1 the wide wasting ruin extends all aroxind, Our ancestors' dwellings lie sunk on the ground, Our foes ride in triumph tiiroughout our domains, And our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.•

This tiny voice that acquired a higher volume later by 1817, passing through the vast cosmic domes of Queen Mab^ sufficiently reflects as to how Shelley's mind had been preoccupied witix political themes since the early days of his poetic life. What is partially true of his first big work Queen Mab becomes vividly obvious in the case of The Revolt of Islam^ that is the social and political tSiemes of tiie latter are presented in a more coD^ehensive manner as Shelley acquired intellectual maturity at an extraordinary pace. The poem is an "experiment on the temper of the public mind, as to how far a happier condition of moral and political society survives, among Mie enlightened and refined, the tempests which have diaken the age in \diich he lives". The poem is pregnant with Shelley's ideas about society, govertxnent, progress and religion, representing "a succession of pictures illustrating the growth and progress of individual mind aspiring after excellence, and devoted to the love of mankind".^ It shows a strong determination and devotion to arouse in the readers a 170

"virtuous enthusiasm for those doctrines of liberty and justice, the faith and hope is some tiling good, v*iich neither violence nor misrepresentation nor prejudice can ever totally extinguish among mankind"^ T^e Revolt of Islam^ incorporating all his aforementioned social and political ideas, zeal for reform and dreams of revolution, very well represents his Utopian civilisation of a society undergoing the revolutionary upheavals. 'ilie criticism on tyranny, aristocracy, energy, poverty, inequality, scarcity of food, monarchy and Christianity is scattered throughout the poem. The poem resounds with the powerfully delivered message of revolution peciiliar to the Shelle3ran philosophy. The point that especially involves our interest vAiile studying this poem is Shelley's obvious digression from the tendency of coping with the social and political evils on the surface of human society or, at the most, tracing them to the doctrine of necessity. In Queen Mab Shelley is at a loss to deal with good and evils as meaningful concepts as they appear to be lost in Fairy's cosmic view of things. But, in The Revolt of Islam^ Sh^ley' s growing awareness of the problem of evil as the origin of the manifestation of ills on the social and political plain camot escaue our notice. It reflects Shelley's advance as an ethical thinkers as well as leads us to believe that the substance of his search is In the process of acquiring a core. The economic, social and political exploitation of masses, the tyrannical rule of monarchs, war, ambition, ar*^ a i such evils for 171

him that bring forth only death and ruin. This long, purposive poem laden with social themes gives vent to his impassioned reformative zeal to ameliorate the lot of suffering humanity both on the social and political plains. He shows how the interplay of unrealistic attitudes in social life produces a wretched political state and vice versa. The political evils are those whence flow a stream of other innumerable evils. Here also, Shelley hold? thp highest a^^Mtrary Authority wholly resT>onslble for it, just as not only in Queen Mab but also in a poem of 18IO he condemns the unjust political authority for inflicting death and ruin i:Q)on poor markind :

Ifcnarchs of earth I Thine is the baleful deed. Thine are the crimes for vAiich thy subjects bleed. Ah I When will come the sacred fated time. When man unsullied by his leader's crime, Despising wrath, ambition, ponpand pride, „ Will stretch him fearless t^ his foemen's side ? '

Kings and tyrants are those hateful persons whose

Ambition, power, and avarice, now have hurledo Death, fate, and ruin, on a bleeding world.

Nevertheless, the visionary shelley is not pessimistic about the future of mankind. The writer of the line 'If winter comes shall spring be far behind' had proclaimed much earlier :

Kings are but dust — the last eventful day Will level all and make them lose their sway; Will dash the sceptre from the monarch's hand. And from the warrior's grasp wrest the ensanguined brand.^ 172

Such political criticism comes to us in The Revolt of Islam with far greater maturity, depth arid profundity. The very artistic fabric of the poem under analysis projects s\jch symbols and images as clearly portray the relentless onslaught on the corrupt political autliority. But, the political criticism, too, is multi-dimensional which is the typical of Shelley's approach in general. The sequence of events in the poem passes through certain dialectical str.gcse ^*s first r.tags is thst cf the 'ftrn; earth' of the prevailing stagnation and corruption. The same accounts for the second stage of calling into existence its own anti-thesis in the form of tiie roused feeling against gross injustice and oliier equally disturbing evils. The fierce, violent, bloody tussle between the thesis and tiie anti-thesis results into a great political upheaval in the society, vdiich is constitutive of the third stage. Shelley's approach is neither purely optimistic nor pessimistic and nor even a hotch-potch of semi- germinated ideas. It reflects rather a combat started by the spirit of virtue against the malforces of evil, in which the 'Serpent' (the symbol of knowledge and good), who may be for the time being defeated though, was sure to overcome the seemingly "unconquerable wings" of 'Eagle' (the symbol of Evil). What enlightens and enthuses Shelley is the realisation of the essence of humanness which is in its embryonic stages and sure to dominate the thought of the world sooner or later. In the 'Preface' itself, he proclaims to "only awaken the feelings, so that the reader 173

should see the beauty of true virtue, and incited to those inquiries which have led to my noral and political creed, and that of some of the sublimest intellects in the vrorld". The poem aims at making known Shelley's "impatience at 'all the oppressions which are done under the sun'; its tendency to awalcen public hope, and to enlighten and improve mankind ....". The series of delineations which comprise the poem, brings to

12 eternity of genius and virtue". Mankind appears to him "to be emerging from their trance", ^ and that "I am aware, methinks, of a slow, gradual, silent change. In that belief I have composed the following poem". fbt anything Imaginary but the living experience of tyranny and oppression set his mind at work to produce the poem. "I have seen the theatre of the more visible ravages of tyranny and war; cities and villages reduced to scattered groups of black and roofless houses, and the naked 15 inhabitants sitting punished upon their desolated thresholds". There is another dimension of the poem on which Foot throws light in these vrords : "Queen Mab is an angry, sparkling denun ciation of society and the principles upon which it is founded. The Revolt of Islam declares that man and woman, brother and sister, thou and I, acting togetiier can change the world, and can sustain even the pain and humiliation of counter-revolution. There is throughout the poem a confidence and ease of mind which is missing from almost all his other work'i 1 '5 b ^ 74

This is the prospective in which the social and political dimensions in The Revolt of Islam should be considered. The society depicted by Shelley is a stagnant pool of political deterioration. Being completely devoid of the spirit of the political ,1ustice and love, the \iiorld apTjears to him to be only the 'tyrant's garbage'. It is as filthy, rotten and lifeless as a heap of dirt. The society is siiffering at its worst under the tyrannical and cruel rule of oppressors. In his atheistic vein, Shelley makes an ironical comnent through a character, •woman', tiiat this is the 'garbage* over which God of Evil or 'Victor Fiend rules, and the same is distributed by him among his hypocritical, malicious and disguised agents as a 'vile reward of their dishonoured years'(1. ^28)

thou may'st hear that Earth is now become The tyrant's garbage, which to his compeers, The vile reward of their dishonoured years, He will dividing give. (11. If26-29)

The land in v^ich the revolution takes place in the poem is fatally infested with ttie intensified and enhanced woe, mischief and destruction. People have been used to bear the yoke of slavery and oppression, so much so that they had no shame to abide liiat blasting curse. The land in which I lived, by a fell bane Was withered vcp (11. 69^-95) 175

and .... all vied In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust etc, (11. 698-99)

On account of the suspension of love and desire for freedom, the world vJiich otherwise should have been a home of the happy spirits is just a dungeon for the cursed and damned narrator, Il'ir dweiierc oi tne city, to which he goes, possess all those marks which despair inherits from murdered hopes. The terror- stricken people are so much unaware and ignorant that they go on wearing chain upon chains of slavery and, thus, thrust themselves into a still deeper prison.

This vital world, this home of happy spirits, Was a dungeon to my blasted kind; All that despair from murdered hope inherits They sought- and in the helpless misery blind, A deeper prison and heavier chains did find (11. 712-17)

Bondage,in ^Aiich people are deeply sunk, is the main factor of destroying and wasting them mentally and physically,

Shelley detests the tyrants and kings, the oppressors of mankind, who are in fact the embodiments of callousness and barbarity. Othman, the capt;ured tyrant, who is pardoned by the innocent multitudes despite his unpardonable crimes, plans secretly, instead of being grateful to his merciful people, some 176

ominous designs against his benefactors

As those vAio pardoned him, he might have ended His days in peace; but his straight lips were bent, Men said, into a smile A»Aiich guile portended (11. 2Dh0^h2) Castigating the oppressive power, Shelley holds the general people equally responsible for accelerating the process of political deterioration. It is their own inertia, lack of will power and desire for freedom, and many other shortcomings that the oppressors have been able to rule them so irresistably and freely. It is the public awareness and consciousness on which in fact depends the existence and survival of any kind of social or political system. In the very beginning of the poem, the 'narrator' says that upon hearing the age-long story of miseries of human life he wept unwilling tears. The tears are unwilling because mankind was itself responsible for its miseries, as it always tends to look hostile to knowledge and wisdom and readily succumbs to the

Traditions dark and old, \Aience evil creeds Start forth, and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds, (11. 683-81+)

The protracted bondage demoralises the victims to such an extent that undoing their plight becomes unimaginable for them. Though the oppressed citizens of the Golden City bitterly 177

realise that falling victim to the ill-will of tyrants and exploiter is shameful on their part, none dare to step forth and uphold the banner of truth. It is shocking that all the victims of oppression yield without showing any resistance to the ageiKy of their own ruin; not only this but they worship it also. Slaves, the most humiliated beings, loathe their own paltry state but do not dare to support those who hold uncon ventional ideas, and go on vorshipping the power that was the religious God of convention. Shelley chides those people who were capable to rise up and pull down the agencies of their own ruin, but they were contended with Just an idea that some day or the otiier they vould be rewarded for all their present sufferings. Shelley's condemnation of such an attitude corresponds with his non-theistic and agnostic thought and fits in his social and political philosophy. The oppression stayed on because none wanted J* to go away. Suspension of tJie logical, analytical and rational faculty, absence of refined sensibility of justice and a lack of freedom to exercise free will, make humanity highly vulnerable to be easily subjugated by tyrants. None can save such people from falling into the wretched, shaneful state of bondage, who ... in tiieir helpless misery blind A deeper prison and heavier chains did find, And stronger tyrants s — a dark gulf before, The realm of a stern Ruler, yawned; behind, Terror and time conflicting drove, and bore On their temDesbous flood the shrieking wretch from shore (11. 715-20) 178

One of the most distressing features of the attitudes of slavery is that it arouses treachery in enslaved persons v*io engage themselves actively in resisting tiie process of amelio ration and progress of their own people just for the sake of some petty selfish ends. Shamelessly, they hire themselves out to the OTipressive forces and hasten their own ruin. The same is the tjrpe of people who attempt in the poem at disrupting the post-

rcvciuticn caim Py trying Zo SZ-AV and rou&e others. Had they not been seized by the watching troops of re bells, a lot of innocent blood would have been spilt.

Those sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead Stabbed in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare. (11. 1771-73)

Shelley's contempt for such self-seekers is evident from his comparing tiiem to "rabid snakes" that "sting some gentle child/ Who brings them food". These traitors are true or sincere to none, including themselves. Since traitors do not fight for any hi^er purpose and tiieir sole aim is to gain some timely benefit, they are the embodiments of cowardice. Hearing the shouts of the victorious rebells

In sudden panic tiiose false murderers fled, Like insect tribes before the northern gale: But swifter still, . . , (11. 1783-85) 179

Their flight symbolically anticipates the incoming of the era of peace, a recurrent theme in his poetry.

The juxtaposition of two contrary attitudes of treachery and loyalty to purpose automatically highlights the significance of the positive values in life. As one of tiie rebels caught the fleeir^ traitors and "pointed on his foe the mortal spear"(1.1790), Laon rushes forth in order to save his life. The rushing Laon projects an Image of forbearance incarnate "I rushed before its point, and cried, 'Forbear, Forbear 1' (1. 1791)

The political deterioration and the general inertia notwithstanding, Shelley also suggests from the very beginning to divert the instinct of hatred towards injustice, tyranny and inequality so that it should intensify the process of revolution. The opening scene of the poem shows the snake entangled with the Eagle in a combat. In it, though he could not defeat the Eagle finally, he wounds him and lets him fly away only 'wearily*. It symbolically hints at the loosening grip of tyranity and the gradual upsurge of the constructive social and political awakening. It focuses our minds on the continual conflict between Good and Evil, \Ailch necessarily takes place as the society gains social and political consciousness through the sound understanding of facts. As the spirit of 'good' enthuses their minds by the animating, free tiioiights, they are impelled by an inner urge of responsibility to trigger off a similar combat to defy the tyrannical power of 'evil. Having started with a passive 180

resistance, their straggle fast grows Into a bloody combat in v»hich the rebels may have to sacrifice everything :

Such is the conflict -^when mankind doth strive With its oppressors in a strife of blood, are alive, And each bosom of the multitude Justice and truth with custom's hydra-blood Wage silent war; when priests and kings dissemble In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude, When round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble, The Slake and Eagle meet — the world's foundation tremble • (11. Hi5-23)

Under the influence of the gnostic philosophy and his nontheistic ideas, Shelley condemns both the priests and kings in one breath, as they do not appear to be separate but are compleraentry entities. The most horrible kind of brutalities result particularly from their joining hands togetiier. Despite their verbal proclamations about piety and virtue, the ecclessiastics go hand in hand with the oppressive power in order to help them successfully carry out their mal-designs and conspiracies against mankind. Though, the hearts of priests and kings tremble at the cry of revolt, they either disguise themselves by wearing the gestures of happiness or frown at others. This they do with an intention to let otiiers form an impression as if they are indifferent to menacingly growing challenge. The *woman' in the po«ii utters a political prophecy to the narrator by saying that the Eagle's is a "dearly won" battle against the Serpent at a great expense. The morale of people is to be further boosted to brush aside the tyrannical 181

rule. The 'Victor Fiend' is not going to have any more chances to continue his age-old treacherous activities. It was "omnipotent of yore" (1. ^30) v*io ri^Led in the ijast unquestion ably. People, on the strength of knowledge, have also been growing stronger day by day. It has almost grown into an equal opposition, vdiich has made the 'victor Fiend' quail and fear(1.^30)

Omnipotent of Yore, now quails, and fears His triumph deadly won, which soon will lend An impulse swift and sure to his approaching end (11. 1+29-32)

This 'victor Fiend' is aptly comparable with the omnipotent Jupiter of the Prometheus Unbound^ viio similarly quails and fears at the threatening approach of Demogorgon to put an end to his unjust rule.

Awareness, intellectual enlightenment and social and political consciousness are the means for Shelley to bring about a successful revolution. Laon and Cythna, through their speeches, exhaust tiiemselves to inspire the multitudes and entliuse than with the spirit of revolt. Cythna plays no less an important role to make people aware, conscious and enlightened. Rather, in a sense, her vrords prove more worthy and effective as they fire the imagi nation of the people she addresses. She calls the long suppressed slaves to unite and shower ruin upon the heads of tyrants. Her 182

unswerving determination is reflected in the following lines :

,., I am not weak, And though my cheek might become pale the viiile, With thee, if thou desirest. will I seek ThroLigh their array of banded slaves to wreak Ruin upon the tyrants (11. 1010-1^+)

Millions respond to her call "In the high name of truth and liberty" (1. 3570). Through the persuasive eloquence of Cythna, the thoughts of Laon take deep roots in the hearts of people, at which Cythna hints,^^ Her words carry an obvious prediction about the collapse of the prevalent social and political structure of society. Owing to the painstaking efforts of laon and Cythna a general awakening takes place and the arrival of 'revolution' becomes so obvious that it could be sensed in the air as a •visioned swound*. One could feel that a "pause of hope and the city bound", in the manner of the "silence of a tempest's birth". (11. 3563-6if)

Here also, like in Queen Mftb^ Shelley stipulates the disappearance of the concept of anthropomorphic God, a permanent source of generating power that obstructs justice, peace and prosperity. The new call for liberty variously stimulates the minds of people. They feel tihe old conventional god disappear from the scene as his presence was never required, though his irrelevant name is still exploited by those hypocritical and selfish kings 183

who want to hide the rotten, deserted altar. His disappearance is followed by the nobler values of life :

.... Hope is strong, Justice and truth their winged child have found I Awake I arise 1 until the mighty sound Of your career shall scatter in Its gust The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground Hide the last altar's unregarded dust. Whose Idol has so long betrayed your Impious trust.

The more the desire for freedom strengthens, the more the revolution intensifies. The changing political situation has been portrayed by Shelley in the language of symbols and images. The resounding resonance of 'liberty' shouted by multitudes has thrown the tyrante and other political authorities into a stunned position. Simultaneously, the prospects of revolution are growing more and more clear. As the watch of love is kept around those "ruthless bands" day in and day out, a sudden pause is felt over the land. It is the same pause of suspense that precedes the heavy storm. It is "a trance which awes/ The thoiights of men with hope"(11.1650- 51). It is just as the sound of a \diirlwind dies suddently, confounded by the fierce blasts of cloud and waves. In such a situation, the horrified mariner "Feels silence sink upon his heart" (1. 166^), Rebels are rescued by the desire of freedom from succumbing to the Dread that kills;

... may freeman ne'er Clasp the relentless knees of Dread the murderer I (1. 1656) 184

The bloodshed in the coiirse of revolution is disdained, and a wish is expressed that the people shotold not face a situation in which the blood of innocent people is shed. Violence further strengthens the hold of tyranny and enriches hatred and oppression.

If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice Of bondf?. •— from ^invery to cowardice A wretched fall 1 —uplift tiiy charmed voice I Pouron those evil men the love that lies Hovering within those spirit — soothing eyes — Arise, my friend, farewell 1' (11. 1657-62)

Laon also appears as a symbolic projection of the universal human values, particularly compassion, tolerance and forbearance. For instance, in a swift attempt at preventing his follower from killing a traitor, Laon gets his uplifted hand transfixed by his spear, "and the blood/ Gushed round its point", Laon smiles at it and addresses the blood saying it should flow until the cause 1R to >»diich he has devoted his life is achieved.

The uncompromising attitude of masses on the points of liberty, equality and justice almost ensures the incoming of a new era. Laone, realising the fast advancements of 'revolution' hails and welcomes it on the emotional level s "Victory, victory to the prostrate nations 1" Under the spell of ecstasy she indulges in emotional outbursts using the beautiful imagery, and 185

announces that in front of the sublime intent "kings shall turn Dalel" and "Almighty Fear/ The Fiend God", as He will hear the "charmed rame" of them. "Hie conventional God with all his paraphernalia will be utterly defeated by the new Just God. Finally, over the "lost empire" of old God will be enthroned "Truth witii Joy",^9 Needless to say that God assumes here the value of a symbol of the political authority.

The roused feelings of liberty, fraternity, truth and equality complete the preparatory stages and reach the verge of materialisation, where the hollow political structure erected on the foundation of utter falsehood is about to collapse. "The tyrants of the Golden City tremble/ At voices which are heard about the street"(l. 1532). The revolutionary process assumes such proportions as nothing could submerge its upsurging tide :

Murderers are pale upon the Judgement seats. And good grows vile even to the wealthy crove. And laughter fills the fane, and curses shake the throne. (11.1537-39)

Shelley does not become unmindful of the projection of the universal values even while depicting the climax of the revolution. These non-theological values have not only been cherished by him but shown to be very mach functional at each step of the revolu tionary process. Liberals, the upholders of the same values, become victorio\;s by breaking into the Golden City and overcoming 18B

the resistance of the hirelings of the tyrants. At this juncture the two attitudes have been brought under focus between vihich there exists a vrorld of difference. The tyrant's slaves vere notivated to fight only by the lust of money and other material rewards that they expected from the king. Whereas the liberals fought only for the sake of re-establishing the society on its natural foxmdation, and not for any immediate, narrow, material benefit. Their mind dwelt much beyond the level of base instincts. They were motivated by the selflessness and ardour of Laon and Cythna -vAio are the ©nbodlments of "universal morality. Their entry into the city marks the fall of the tyrant and a sense of delight fast spreads among the myriads. The entire environment including even the voiceless objects of nature, seems to share the happiness and joy of liberals for the only reason that one more effort has been made to make the life of man consistent with the immutable laws of nature. PO The liberals pour into the city through its hundred gates :

... like brooks which to the rocky lair Of some deep lake, whose silence then awaits, Throng from the mountains \dien the storms are there; (11. 1856-58)

Brooks or water stands for the state of regeneration or the revival of faith, and also for fertility and prosperity. Liberal^ victory marks the ensuing of a new era of contentment and joy. A 187

warm reception is given to them by shedding a thousand flower- inwoven crown, "The token flowers of truth and freedom flair" (1. 1861), shed by the "angels of love's heaven" (1. I863). As Laon approaches the desolate Imperial House his ejres are caught by the sight of the aghast, fallen tyrant, sitting dumb upon tiie "footstool of his golden throne" (1, I898). Whereas the 'Imperial House' is a symbol of the fallen political system bassd on tyranny anci Oppre&slon, tiie' tyrant staxids for the deflated and the most contemptible agency of the power of evil. His fall denotes the removal or at least timely suspension of that evil authority from the sphere of hiiman politics. At the same time, it also indicates the victory, though for the time being, of the power of good. Or, in sum, the latent potentiality of 'good' engraved in the human element has been conceived in an artistic manner by Shelley.

The catastrophic situation in which the tyrant, Othman, has been placed because of the success of revolution, makes him compare his carefree past to adverse future. Along with other 21 characters the reader also shares the cathartic effect. The king seems to be lost in a gripping trance as he is unable to accept the loss of his glory, power and position. The gradual but painful realisation of the fact that tiie royal staff (sceptre) rules no more and that "from gold the dreadful strength was gone/ Which once made all things subject to its power" (11. 1965-66) left him to no extreme of wonder. He was all the more astonished 188

as he hallunciated that "hour by hour/ The past had come again"(ll. 1967-68). Whoever saw"such awful change befall"(1.1971 ), "Of one so great and terrible of yore/To desolateness"( 11.1969-70), he also underwent the similar purification. As the tyrant found himself amid the huge multitude, he forced himself to the reali sation of his downfall and fainted :

.... that lonely man Then knew the burden of his change, and found, Concealing in the dust his visage wan, Refuge from the keen locScs which through his bosom ran. (11. 1977-80)

So cataclysmic is the turn of events that the multitudes of rebels also fall into a trance for some time, Qmerging out of whidi tiiey were seized upon by hatred for him.

'And he is fallen 1' they say, 'he who did dwell Like famine or the plague, or aught more fell Among our homes, if fallen I the murderer Who slacked his thirsting soiil as from a well Of blood and tears with ruin I he is here I Surk in a gulf of scorn from which none may him near (11. 1993-98)

The words show the natural outburst of the long suppressed emotions. On the other hand, it highlights Shelley's unflinching attitude towards tyrannical rule and institutionalisation of society. Recounting the misdeeds of the tyrant, the enraged multitude loses temper. They viould not let the Tyrant go free 189

^who had exploited them and Inflicted atrocities on them. They could not contain themselves longer and burst into shouting .... 'He vflio judged let him be brought To Judgement 1 blood for blood cries from tiie soil On vrhich his crimes have deen pollution wrought I Shall Othman only unavenged despoil ? Shall tiiey v*io by the stress of grinding toil Wrest from the unwilling earth his luxuries Perish for crime, while his foul blood may boil, Or creep within his veins at will ? — Arise 1 Aiii tc high justice make her chosen sacrifice. (11. 1999-2007)

These lines shed light on the fact that the essence of human nature cannot be permanently conditioned by any social, political or economic factors. It is immutable in the sense that it possesses an inherent tendency to reassimilate itself to its natiiral proportion. It is so because the human nature is controlled by the universal values operative internally as well as externally. Their proportion may be distrubed for the time being under any casual pressure but not distorted for ever. The voice of manfe conscieme may be suppressed for the time being, but it cannot be silenced once for all. Man's natural and innate aversion to injustice, inequality and tyranny immediately manifests itself whenever it finds the right conditions.

It needs not be reiterated that despite disapproving religion, Shelley strongly pleads for a universal type of social and political morality. During the early and middle stages of the 190

evolution of his poetic thought, Shelley rejected downright the use of violence in aity form. During the course of revolu tion or after, Laon and Cythna strictly prevent their followers from indulging in any kind of bloodshed, arson or massacre. The upsurge of negative emotions Is never allowed to cross the limit of justification. The universal principles of love, liberty and justice have been celebrated everyvftiere. Resorting to the means \^ich was tsrpically characteristic of the Tyrant's slaves proves nothing else but that one set of oppressors has been replaced by another. Condemning violence, the 'old man* declares :

If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice Of bonds, "—from slavery to cowardice : k wretched fall I — (11. 1657-59)

He further advises to abstain from bloodshed or violence and adhere to the all-pervading principle of love :

'Uplift thy charmed voice 1 Pour on those evil men the love that lies Shoverlng within those spirit ^soothing eyes — Arise, my friend, farewell 1 (11. 1659-62)

The same thought is in tiie process of assuming deep philosophical dimensions in Prometheus Unbound viiere Shelley clearly suggests that tyranny or hatred can be uprooted only by the force of love, 191

and not by the use of further violence. In the po«n unier discussion, love Is celebrated as the only element vdilch may hold fast all the ingredients of the socio-political strmture of a society. As already hinted earlier, on one occasion, some miscreants start slaying the unaware, victorious rebels, they react furiously and rush forth to kill some of the murderers.

... And then revenge and fear Made the high virtue of the patriots fail : One pointed on his foe the mortal spear 11. 1788-90)

But, Laon, projected here as the functional symbol of love and mercy, actively prevents him from doing so.

I rushed forth before its points, and cried, •Forbear, forbear 1 (1. 1791)

Laon sets here an unprecedented example of compassion by pardoning them for their deadly crime, Laon, in a very sad tone addresses those arrested and reprimands them in a soft and forgiving tone, making them realise that they had killed those who were their own brotiiers, who had pity for them and •v*io were bent upon gaining freedom from tyrant for their own sake. He says : 'Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain. You murdered them, I think, as they did sleep 1 Alas, -vAiat have ye done ? The slightest pain V/hich ye might suffer, there were eyes to weep But ye have quenched them »— ' (11. 1801-05) 192

He further says that they were the upholders of the Ideals of love, truth and freedom but "Ye stabbed as they did sleep — but they forgive ye now" (1, 1809). These words make it almost obvious that Shelley primarily believes in the corrigibility and ref0rmability of man's nature, \Aiereas the use of violence and assertiveness may only prove the corruptive factors. The kind word of Laon has its effect on them all, and a reconciliation based on love, affection and repentance is achieved.'^'^ All become friends and "Thus the vast array/Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day" (11. 1835-36), Love and freedom are the principles that enrich the society witti the blessing of equality :

And did with soft attention ever draw Their spirits to the love of freedom's equal law (11. 1871-72)

Shelleys thoroughly humanistic attitude is evident from Laon* s pardoning not only the assasins but also the ruthless Tyrant in vjhose name all the atrocities had been committed. Instead of despising and scowling at the Tyrant, Laon pities him much and tries to soothe his "rugged mood" with pathetic \jords. The Tyrant glared on him as a "toothless snake" might do with the "sullen guile of iU-dissembled hate", vAiile pride and fear held deep debate in him. The Tyrant was unaware that the curses he used to mock would drag him by hair.^B 193

That the adversity teaches man ^at he is reluctant to learn otiierwise and stimulates those softer instincts and emotions which lay otherwise)5sleep, is implied in another episode. laon nurses grudge for the 'child' that the Tyrant had begotten from Cythna. The Tyrant cries out, "She hungers, slave,/ Stab her, or give her bread !" His tone seems to Laon as "sick fancies in a new made grave/ Might hear". Hearing that the child was starving Laon trembled.

Along with discarding violence, Shelley condenns the spirit of vindictiveness with equal force. Instead of indulging in revengefiol activities, he believes in working for the estab lishment of justice. Slaughtering the opponents and shedding blood for blood does not amount to justice but to reaching another extreme ^justice, possibly avoidable. Suspecting the outrageous crowir to turn violent and kill the Tyrant, Laon swiftly advances forth to prevent them from any such act, exlaiming "What do ye seek ? \Vhat feeu: ye',/ ... 'tiiat you should shed/ The ok blood of Othman?'"^^ Laon, no doubt, is not in favour of the kind of justice (blood for blood) demanded by the multitude. In an attempt to cool them down he reminds them of the high and ideal values on \^ich their revolution was based — love, sympathy, compassion etc. He persuades them to pardon the Tyrant and rot to kill him :

' ... if your hearts are tried In the true love of freedom, cease to dread This one poor lonely man. (11. 2010-12) 194

His further pleading suggests that the true love offreedom should be shared by all: "let him go free; until the worth/ Of human nature vdn from these a second birth" (11. 2015-16), Chiding the insistent multitude Laon bitterly retaliates "What call ye Justice?" (1. 201?) According to his point of view, justice Is a>t to kill one who is found guilty. But, Justice is not to indulge in criminal or immoral activities at any cost. Doing a crime for eliminating a crime is a double crime. He makes the angry rebels silent as well as repentant by daringly questioning them : "Is there one who ne'er/ In secret thought had another's ill ? —/ Are you all pure ?" (11. 2017-19) These vords echo Christ as he asked those, -v^io were bent upon stoning a fornicator, to begin by that person A*IO had never committed any sin in his life, and there was none to come forward. He also puts them on blush by inviting : "Let those stand forth who hear,/ And tremble not", upon \*iich moves none, Laon, then, reprimands them all and says, "Shall they insult and kill,/ If such they be ?" (11, 2020-21) Enraged he goes on uttering the bitterest truths. Laon announces that "Justice is the li^t/ Of love, and not revenge, and terror and despite"(1.2025) His words exerted an immediate influence on people, and frowning crowds turned into a piteous one. They "cast gentle looks where the lone man was lying". (2028) The same blood-thirsty crowd then began sobbing "In pity's madness", and "a solace sweet/ His very victim brought". (1. 203^-) 195

Shelley illustrates In the poem how the allies of the established socio-polltico-economic order spare no effort in suppressing and crushing the spokesmen of liberty, since they visualise their ovn ruin in the victory of liberals. The startled morarch and the clergy of the Golden City hurriedly take to arms at the very first indication of the rise of a new force. Their sole concern is to achieve the purpose of supcressing the new voice of rebellion either by hook or by crook. The clergy also, in league with the political authority, becomes active in providing the religious sanction to v^t the Tyrant was about to do for persecuting and harassing the liberals. The 'degraded' armed men of king burst Into the dwelling place of Laon to arrest him.^^

Physical torture and external pain helps one again extrovert perfection, vtoereas the meditation perfects one internally. The tortures and punishments inflicted upon Laon and Cythna let them be acquainted with the crude realities on the level of experience, so that their ideals might be harmonised witii the practical realities. The Tyrant's soldiers bind Laon tl^t and place him on a high rock from where he could watch the scenes of the barbarity of tiie Tyrant. It instantly reminds us of Langland's Piers the Plowman , in vdiich a high tower has been symbolised as the same as hinted above. Shelley dexterously depicts as to viiat happens to those \rtio speak truth in face of 138

adverse circumstances and advocate the cause of liberty, equality and revolution.

... a stroke On my raised am and nciked head, came down. Filling my eyes with blood —— \*ien I awoke, I felt that they had bound me in my swoon, And up a rock which overhangs the town. By the steep path were bearing me : below, The plain was filled slaughter, -—overthrown The vineyards and tiie harvests, and the glow Of blazing roofs shone o'«r the v*iite oceaji^s flow,--

The image is comtjarable to the bound Prometheus. Or, perhaps, the latter is the mature, developed form of the former. It hov reflectsZ.the deep philosophical themes had been very much present in the sub-conscious of Shelley even while writing The Revolt of X<^3^8\pi- Laon also learns wisdom while suffering like Prometheus. Though the process of suppression continues for some time, eventually it exhausts because the rebellious sentiments upsurge with a renewed vigour vjille suppressed. The Tyrant could not suppress the roused feelings of liberty and justice. Putting Laon on torture and Cythna in imprisonment, he becomes satisfied as if he had won the battle. In his Joy he "sung/ Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered tribes among". (11, 1501-02) Resorting to the violent means of oppression and terror, a tyrant can add only fuel to fire of freedom that burns within the soul of liberals and keeps them restless until they attain to their final goal.

Tyranny makes desperate attempts at retaining its fast- 197

fading glory i "tyranny disowns/ Their claim, and gathers strength arouni its trembling thrones", (11. l6i9-20) Though reaching its approaching end, it still shows resistance to the upholders of liberty. Tyrant's guards maintain resistance "Fearless, fierce, and hard as beasts of blood'.' (1. 16^0) "Carnage and blood" has been their food, reflecting their destructive temperament and attitude of mercilessness. "Ill has come tiielr good". (1, IG'H-S) TO love they have turned stoues, having no slightest sense of sympathy and affection for common man.

Shelley has also brought into question the integrity and genuinness of the so-called intelligentsia. Its double-standards and lust for luxury have been made the target of hard-hitting irony. As the process of revolution begins in the poem, the favourists of the present regime also become active, including the educated persons and scholars. Their main task is to convince lor deceive) people logically tiiat raising hue and cry against the government would be of no avail. It would only incur, they claim, the wrath of the rulers and the people would have to suffer.

Besides using violent means the Tyrant was applying some other methods in order to discourage the rebels, "The tyrant knew his power was gone" (1. 3576). ^e was intent upon making up the lost situation being motivated by "Fear", the "nurse of vengeance". (1. 3577) Since he felt his powerful force to be 198

Impotent he exT)loited "perfidy and custom, gold and prayer" (1. 3579) and "i(*iatsoe'r". Hence, it is obvioTis that he was interested in power rather than in reforming the lot of people. On the other hand, it has been the historical role of the priests that a majority of them always speak for the estab- lishmaat, provided their interests are safeguarded. Tyrant, probably, aware of that, "tj-'ro-ighout the street the priests he sent/ To cruse the rebelsl' (11. 3583-8^-) Ironically enough, "To their God did they/ For Earthquake, Plague, and Want kneel in the public way" (11. 358^85). Since priests were not much different from those intellectuals in whom people put faith for their hoailness, maturity and awareness, but \iiio blatantly preached that liberty is a step ftowards downfall of which one should not expect any good :

'And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell, From seats \diere law is made the slave of wrong, How glorious Athens in her splendour fell, Because her sons were free. (11. 3586-89)

Their dishonesty as well as treacherous nature are reflected by their utterly false argument to support slavery ani bondage "that among/ Mankind, the many to the few belong,/ By God, and Nature, and necessity". (11. 3589-91) Thus, "with the falsehood of their poisonous lips" they try desperately but in vain to thrust such absurd ideas into the heads of determined liberals. 199

They also charge the young liberals to destory the "pe=ice of slavery" by "wild hopes" which the old tim^s and men had quelled the vain and the free". The thrust of their lame argument is that it is only through "toil and misery" on the earth that "we might avoid the hell hereafter". (1. 360»+)

Shelley also, under the influence of Godwin, considers the government to D€ a necessary evil. In his opinion, tr:e investment of unlimited power in some authority necessary makes him into an irresistible evil force. The same generates, as a natural conseq\xence, a whole class of slaves who are entirely devoid of free will being unaware of the worth of exercising it. The same are exploited to carry out the malicious and irhuman Blots against humanity in general. The tyrannical rule thinks only in terms of its own preservation, and it turns utterly ruthless towards people about -vdiom they think only in terms of swords, murder and massacre. Not that they do not possess the instincts of sympathy but all their sympathies are reserved for their fellow-oppressors. On the whole, it seems as if govern ment is a league of oppressors organised against mankind. When Othman is defeated by the rebels and forgiven as well, he secretly seeks the help of the neighbouring tyrant. There come pouring "The armies of the leagued kings around/ Their files of steel and flame", on account of which "the continent/ Trembled, as with a 7one of ruin bound,/ Beneath their feet", and "the sea shook with 200

their navies' sound".^"^

All shades of tyranny, Shelley is well avrare, assume one colour of opposition in the face of the rising liberalism. In the poem, the threat posed by liberalism brings all the tyrants together who used to be otiierwise deadly enemies among themselves. Responding imnediately to the call of the fallen Tyrant, they join hands with each other to save a common cause; the preservation of the despotic rule. Hurriedly, they rush to his rescue as if "they knew his cause their own, and swore/ Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars"'(l. 3853)* ^^ was really a "strange truce" in the sense that it was enemies who come shoxilder to shoulder in order to save oneof their fellow-enemies.

The counter-revolution puts the process of revolution in the reverse gear. It has also in its fold innumerable holocausts — massacre, fire, destruction. The efforts of establishing a free, welfare society along the universal values meet an utter failure. The sudden outburst of blood and fire caused by the treason and treachery of the Tyrant makes unsurmountable grief fall over Laon who weeps "in rage and grief and scorn". (1. 2361) The political tyranny knows no compassion for mankind. After the counter attack of tyrannical forces the whole place was on fire : to For/the north I saw the town on fire. And its red light made morning pallid now, (11. 2362-63) 201

The "yells of victory and the screams of woe" grow higher and louder. At the same time, the massacre of liberals starts and

... the fearful glow Of bombs flares overhead — at interwals The red artillery's bolt mangling among them falls. (11. 2368-70)

The cruel massacre makes the blood flow on earth like rain water and a vast number of people are killed. Laon himself beholds \>rlth a grieving heart "their red swords flash in the unrisen sun" (1. 2373) The horrifying spectacle presents the monarchy in its true colours and questions the justification of its existence. It has been painted as a monster who gets his nourishment from the human blood. Laon views in the large field "The stain/ Of blood, from mortal steel fell o'er the fields like rain". (11. 2387-88)^^ The despot's "bloodhounds" were i»w giving full play to their "gluttony of death" over the unarmed and unaware multitude. They were reaping "A harvest sown with other hopes" for their master with loud laughters.-^

What adds to tiie heightened sorrow of Laon is the assassi nation of Dr. Lind, the old wise man, in -vriiich Shelley recognises yet another defeat of knowledge and wisdom: once more the 'Snake is wounded and defeated by the 'Eagle'. By suggestion Shelley hints that it is in the failure of wisdom and knowledge -vAiere the social and political bondage lies. 202

Laon reaches the outraged village which projects the picture of the Inmense destruction and desolateness caused by the Tyrant's troops :

There was a desolate village in the wood Whose bloom — inwoven leaves now scattering fed The hungry storm: it was a place of blood, A heap of hearthless walls; the flames were dead Within those dwellings now, — the life had fled From all those corpses now, —*-but the wide sky Floodeci with llguonirig was ribued uverhead By the black rafters, and arourildid lie ^. Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

The subsequent ghastliness, staring eyes of the corpses and the water mixed with salt bitterness of blood, that Laon had to drirk to quench his thirst, all symbolically imply the total non-justi fication of the monarchical rule.

How the inhuman attitude of tyranny derange the minis of people and deprive them of their personalities can be seen in an only alive but demented 'woman' who was so greatly shocked by the destruction wrought by the tyrant that she imagines herself to be 'plague'. The woman, wandering in the streets, wears a fierce look, and has been "withered from a likeness of aught human/ Into a fiend, by some strange misery" (11. 276O-61). In her fanciful madness, she tiiiEiks, she being plague has killed all those people and is potent enough to kill still more. Her pouncing upon Laon and gluing her burning lips to his and laughing "With a 203

loud, long and frantic la\agh of glee", again symbolises the misery that had "befallen the society".^^ So she does, as she thicks Laon will thus die of plague. Shelley feels digusted to call those 'men' vdio had done all that. The spectacle makes him equate monarch with the worst kind of beasts. They are exactly the "multitudes of moving heart less things/ Whom slaves call men" (11. 383O-31)

Brutality reaches its climax vhen the same Tyrant vihose life was spsored by the con^assionate rebels, set his mind on taking a hideous, shocking, unjustifiable, loathsome, and quite an unexpected sort of revenge upon them. Escorted by "The steel/ Of hired assasins", the "Tyrant passed", "through the public way". Seeing the multitude of "his country's dead "in his way he was shocked for a monient as the man in him had come out. But, goon it shrank back into the dark shell of the brute-monarch, and soon he began smiling on his achievement, as "his footsteps reel/ On the fresh blood". The great genocide reassures him of his wortti as a king. He is amused and thinks happily • "Aye, now I feel/ I am a king in truth". After grabbing once more the seat of power, the first thing done by him is to order that "the torturing wheel/ Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,/ And scorpions; that his soul on its revenge might look".^^ This certainly constitutes a very strong condemnation of monarchy within the political framework of the poem. 204

Once the tyrant is reassured that he has become as powerful a king as he vas earlier, his resurging savagery knows no limits. The basic attitude of monarchy can be read in his ferociously ordering his soldiers to return and first "slay the rebels". In an astonished mood he chuckles : "Why return/ The victor bands ?" Then most savagely he shouts at them saying : "millions yet live", to be slaughtered, for "Of whom the weakest with one word might turn/ The scales of victory yet". It also betrays the concealed fear of the king about the pers\iasive eloquence of the truthful liberals and in particular of Laon. He groans "Let none survive" of his own subjects, and commands his men to "Go forth, and waste and kill".^

fflielley's social criticism in this poem does not emerge from casting a mere cursory glance at some superficial problems, nor does he suggest superficial remedies. Through the lines of this poem he seems to progress from pure allegory of Queen Mab to the symbolism of Prometheus Unbound; a journey from substance to essence. Here, he perceives tiie problem to be deeply rooted in the moral bankruptcy. It is the deviation from treading the track of the natural laws governing tiie whole universe and betrayal of "Uie catholic morality — deliberately on the part of the social leaders and Ignorantly on the part of the masses — that have driven mankind to the dark dungeon of the calamities: social, political, religious, ethical, economic etc. And, it has 205

all taken place on account of the lack of a factual knowledge of the natural scheme of things. Ignorance is the greatest factor of degeneration. Had masses been aware of facts, they would not have proved go susceptible to the treacherous acts of their social pedagogues. The lack of true knowledge totally deprives th«n of a touch with the realistic, ratiocinative and healthy attitude towards life. Only a massive spread of knowledge could make the prevalent calamities vaporise automatically. Only thus the legendry 'Serpent* of the poem can venture to challenge and injure the 'Eagle' and, though defeated for the time being, could let him fly away only wearily. To a considerable extent, Shelley seems to be indebted for his social criticims and ideas to the thoughts of Rousseau, Paine, Wo lis to nee raft and Godwin etc., even though his gnostic penchant and personal viewpoint give it touches of originality.

The beautiful and fascinating world appears to Shelley to be wrapt in the dark mist of gloom caused by the cancerous decadence and degeneration. The social ignorance has reached such a threatening height, the poet grieves, that

none wandered forth To see or feel ; a darkness has descended On every heart; (11, 708-10) The long standing tendency of piirsuing false ideals and persis ting spiritual degeneration has caused the darkness descend on 206

every heart. Ifo doubt, this lowly hiiman state is irksome for the poet, but \jhat Is above all tormenting is the attitude of annoying rxjnchalance and senselessness of people towards their miserable plight caused by ignorance. Under the prolonged period of adverse circvunstances masses have developed some sort of complacency and betray no wish to have the surroundingcaltered. In the words of the narrator of the poem :

This vital world, this home of happy spirits. Was a dungeon to my belated kind; All that despair from murdered hopes inherits TtiQy sought, and in their helpless misery blind, A deeper prison and heavier chains did find,

They aabhor the life they are bound to lead owing to their own inertia without any desire to change. Instead of rising up to shake off the gnawing evils of society, they tend to indulge in them often and incur ills. Their distressing pessimism has grown to a point where they cannot help but gaze with a hopeless detachment at the goings on around them :

Well might men loathe their life, well might they turn Even to the ills again from which thev sought Such refuge after death 1 -^ well might tiiey learn To gaze on this fair world with hopeless umooiern

Portraying the wretched society of his day Shelley feels it very difficult to pull along a life of dianay and distress, devoid of any tinge of happiness. It is no less than a curse to breath in the suffocating environment of insincerity, frustration, viles 207

and snares, in which a sensitive mind feels itself reduced to \gortiile3sness of a loathsome ominous worm. What Laon speaks about the iiihabitants of the Golden City is true to a great extent of the society of Shelley :

For the tread life's dismaying vdlderness Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless, Amid the snares and scoffs of human kind, Is hard ... (11. 832-35)

In the words of William Blake, Shelley's predecessor, these are the people \diose Sun does never shine, And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are fill'd withthorns*. It Is eternal winter there. (Holy Thursday II) ^1 ,,, mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness', marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban. The mind-for'd manacles I hear. (London by Blake)

What Cythna asks the sailors, the hireling slaves of the Tyrant, who are taking her out of the cave after the seven years of imprisonment, further confirms Shelley's abhorrance of his society. Answering her one young sailor, speaking his heart out, describes his society as a bloody, callous and deteriorated 208

one; \*iere hard grip of ignorance allows none to nourish even a single thou^t so much so that there :

... all things best and rarest Are stained and trampled : — years have come and gone Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known no thought; — ... (11. 3^17-20)

The social degeneration of the originally innocent and pure human beings is an aftermath of a persistent debasement of values. Treachery of tyrants and ignominious subjugation of masses have caused that the :

Dark time had there its evil legend wrought In characters of cloud which wither not (11. 3^5^-55)

The persistently steady decadence of society is so damaging that it has reduced life to absurdity, so much so, that even the idea of death does not seem to have a sense of refuge, rest or relief. Sleep, too, fails to relieve the anguish. Life is but another name of despair, perplexion, frustration and confusion having no purpose or aim. The predominance of utterly negative and false values has completely robbed the life of its natural glow and glee. Laon gives a realistic account of this rotten state of affairs highlighting the feeling that one is driven to a darker futtare where no ray of hope might penetrate s

Not death ——death was no more refuge or rest; Not life — it was despair to be 1 — not sleep 209

For Fiends and chasms of fire had dispossessed All natiiral dreams: to wake was not to weep, But to gaze mad and pauid, at the leap To ^Aich the Future, like a snaky scourage, Or like some tyrant's eye, viiich aye doth keep Its withering beam upon his slaves, did urge Their steps; they heard the roar of Hell's sulphurous surge. (11. ^297-^307, IX, CII, 2if 7)

The masses of the Shelleyan society appear here to be Miltonian 'fallen angels' burning in the sulphurous flames of tyranny and slavery. Even the fair morning of a society resting on false ideals and unreal values, Shelley realises, "Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare" (1. M+85). Whatever artificial display of pleasure and superficial glare is found there serves to further intensify one's discontent and misery.

Portraying the process of degeneration at length, Shelley records certain apparent syn5)toms of the malady -vdilch has made the life of a commorEsr hell; the rootcause of viiich is surely'ignorance'. Scarcity of sound knowledge of the facts of life, and especially reason, gives rise to decadence. Evils take firm roots in such a society in proportion to the illiteracy. The vacuum created by the evaporation of tiie positive, natural values is fast filled in by the utterly negative ones. Tradi tional faith, custom and religion also lavishly contribute to it. Hatred, fear, cowardice, slavery, sycophancy, treachery, hypocrisy, woe, distress, greed, siQDerstition and a host of 210

others rampantly outweight all ottier features and intensify the process of degeneration. Social institutions become the den of evils and instead of vrorking for the social amelioration and emaiteipation they, acting quite contrarily, help further vrorsen the conditions. Church goes still further and view with other worldly institutions to harm mankind by its deceptive, selfish tricks. Men, consequently, have to lie in the same bed of pains ani miseries that they have made out of their own misdeeds and misconcepts. Cythna weeps to see man badly victi mised by institutions on account of the lack of knowledge and use of reason, -vAiich has rendered him dumb, inactive and coward :

Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile Because they cannot speak; and, day by day, The moon of wasting science wanes away Among her stars; ... (11. 3679-81)

The moon of science and reason has gone behind the dark cloud of ignorance ard people, groping in the dark, desperately turn to superstitions and miserably fall prey to worshipping the '•foul idols" which further thickens the sonibre "and like blight or blast/ A shade of selfish care o'er human looks is cast" (1. 368^) This society of a spate of social evils is comeived of a "winter of the wrld" (1. 3685). In this ruthless, murderous age many "Sons of the earth" have faded away unrecognised and unrewarded and in viiich men of knowledge 211

Die. even as the winds of autumn fade, Expiring in the fro re and foggy air (11. 3686-87) of ignorance. These lines ' • , seem to suggest, some autobiographical touch reflecting the stoniness of his society to Shelley* s ideas. At the hei^t of pessimism, the masses fail to distinguish between their friends, \4io they repulse, and foes, whom they admire, and feel delighted in the destruction of their own benefactors. Towards the end of the poem, as laon reveals his identity to be burnt at pyre by blood-thirsty hypocrites, a glow of hopefullness and happiness retun^to the eyes of distressed public, vdiose own Messiah he was. Their's was a "fierce and monstrous gladness" (1. Mf^O) The ignorant and deceived masses, under the wrong in5)ression that the arrest of Laon would reform their lives, are startled at the renewed vibration in the air : "from his dull madness/ The starvelling ;r

Scattered all around are the evil-manifestations in a society operating along the principles of evil. Slavery and bondage are at full bloon: in it. Evil is the only stimulus 212

which notivates and rules the people therein, irrespective of tiieir social rank. People vie with each other in their evil-deeds. This all-pervading evil has engendered in the Golden City two poisonous things s lust and fe^r, which together have paved the way for hatred. Fear combined with lust has tied strange fellowship through mutual hatred, making life insufferably bitter, Laon is grieved at heart by observing these major social evils : "all vied In evil, slave and despot, fear with lust Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied, Like two serpents tangled in the dust. Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust." (11. 698-702)

It is all because the society has given in t.o evil, which has

"made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest, And minister to lust its joys forlorn. Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn«" (11. 979-81)

Intensified hatred leaves no room for love, the controlling power of the universe. Under its spell kin slaughter kin, and war begins : " 0 War I of hate and pain/ Thou loathed slave." The war of hatred destroys the texture of love within no time : "The battle became ghastlier; in the midst I paused, and saw how ugly and how fell 213

0 Hate I thou art, even vhen thy life thou Shedd'st. For love," (11. 2»+70-73)

Divorcing the natural law of love, mankind has given itself upto the pattern of "lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly" (1. 3282), ^ence flow all wrong and fraud. Fear and despotism have so deeply penetrated into every mind that even

"Children near their parents tremble now, Because tiiey must obey," (11. 33O6-7) This happens because :

"... Hate is throned on high with fear her mother, Above the Highest — and those fountain-cells, Vftience love yet flowed when faith had choked all other. Are darkened ...... and life is poisoned in its well,"

The same theme echoes in some of tJie Blakian poems as well, like "A Little Boy Lost", "Chimeney Sweeper", "Poisonous Tree", or the "Nurse's Song", Inspiring the sailors, Cythna warns them against hatred -vdiich is for her a shapeless fiendly thing/ Of many names, all evil, some divine". Accompanied by "Self- contempt" it takes the shape of "mortal sting". It destroys all whatever it takes hold of; "It turns with ninefold range, as 214

with its twine/ When Amphisbaena some fair bird has tied" (XXI, C VIII, 217)

Cythna exclaims s

"There is deliision in the world ——and woe, And fear, and pain —we know not vAience we live", (11. 3759-60)

Under the spell of fear and hatred, people fail to act by their reason ard fall prey to instincts and impulses and dig their graves deeper. The fear-stricken multitiide that adored Cythna and Laon a little while ago, hurriedly prepares a pyre for burning them alive. In it, quite ironically they visualise their salvation.

"for fear is never slow To build the throne of Hate " Hate is fear's "mate and foe". So the 'fear' "Scourged forth the maniac multitvde To rear this pyramid —tottering and slow, Plague-stricken, foodless, like lean herds pursued By gadflies, they have piled the heath, and gums and wood,"

The next morning multitudes gather round the pyre waiting passionately for the arrest and burning of their own heroes, Laon and Laone. "^ey were dying but standing still : "Madness, and fear, and Plague, and Famine still Heaped corpse on corpse, as in autumnal woods The frosts of many a wind with dead leaves fill Earth's cold and sullen brooks .... " 215

On the other hand, the 'fear of hell' aroused by hypocrite priests grows into a panic, "which did kill/ Like hunger or disease". (11. ^186-8?)

Earnest, benign, calm and loving 'stranger', Laon, disguised as Cythna, hints that political and religious institu tions themselves stand responsible for driving society into unspGakaDle misery. Addressing the Tyrant, his cunning senate, the 'Dark Priests' and 'haughty v/arriors' , he declares boldly :

"Ye Princes of the Earth, ye sit aghast Amid the ruin ^ich yourselves have made -«- Yes, Desolation heard your trumpet's blast. And sprang frcm sleep, — Dark Terror has obeyed 3SDur bidding l" (11. if35i-55) and Which cannot pass so soon, and Hate must be The nurse and parent still of an ill pro•j geny", (11. ^357-59)

From this emanates a miserable state of affairs in which people experience at every step a feeling of guilt and woe, faithlessness and treachery, and selfishness and frustration. The society robbed of its noble values strays like a wreck in an ocean of 'guilt' and 'woe' :

"Out of that Ocean's wrecks had Guilt and Woe Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought." (11. 721-22) 216

In the population of Golden City one could easily see the reflection of Shelley's own society. The Golden City suffering from evils carries an imnense weight of irony, vdiich brings in the typical Shelleyan tinge of anti-utoplanigm. With negative emotions aroused, people, loathing their life, always tend to evils. An overwhelming stagnation and inertia have seized upon people. They Just gazed on this fair world with hopeless unconcern. Life is reduced to mere dismaying wilderness : "Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless", (1, B33) Everyone has put on a cold, passionless look of nonchalance which often grows into callousness. According to Laon, it is the age of "Sad hours" \Aiich has "baffled hope like ice still clung to me". It reflects insincerity and betrajral which are the commonest features of Shelley's day s

"And tiiat this friend was false, may now be said Calmly —that he like other men could weep Tears which are lies, and could betray and spread Snares for that guileless heart \Aiich for his own had bled."

So distressing it is to live "amid the snares and scoffs of human kind" (1, 83^) that Laon could have put an end to his life had he not been full of insurgent thoughts to reform it all. It is Cythna's love that gives him inspiration, encouragement and strength while the whole society is devoid of it. Coldness of kith and kin and imperviousness and flashood of friends and the absence of truth, faith, sincerity or love is a source of deep torture to Shelley. 217

Highly disgruntled with the poor status and limited rights of vcman, Shelley stresses the need of the positive and healthy emancipation of her ^^o in fact brings up generation after generation. The rank and condition of vroman may serve, to the mind of Shelley, as a reliable gauge to measure out the pace of progress or retrogress of a society, Ifo persecution, harrassment, coercion, compulsion or unnecessary incarcerations may ever be justified to be practiced with her. Being morally equal to man, she has every right to lead a life of her own choice unhindered by any external barricade. The recurrence of similar ideas in the poem help form a clear Idea of women emancipation as concerns Shelley,

The poem stigmatizes the society darkened with the c\irse of woman's enslavement and disregard and reducing her to the status of animals, totally devoid of free will or thinking. By enslaving her man has made life a deadly draught for her. Cythna says so to the sailors inciting them to revolt against the society i

"Woman as the bond slave dwells Of man a slave; and life is poisoned in its well." 11. 331^-15)

V/hat is even more painful is that she has been enslaved by the man who is in fact deep-s\ihk himself in slavery :

'•Woman 1 —she is his slave, she has become A thing I weep to speak — the child of scorn 218

The outcast of a desolated home; Falsehood, and fear, and toll, like waves have worn Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn, As calm decks the false ocean : — well ye know Vfliat woman is, for none of women born, Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe. Which eve from the oppressed to the oppressors flow." (XV C VIII)

The backward, unsocial, illiterate ani slave-like woman may prove an irremovable hinderance in the path of the social revolution of the dreams of Shelley :

"in their home Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear The shape of woman ' • • « " (11. 1050-51)

Just as the achievement of complete liberty is inevitably the first step towards social revolution, the elevation of woman to a humane status is the first step towards attaining liberty. A man cannot be free unless woman, from whose womb he is born, is freed; in which lies the secret of the deliverance of the entire mankind. Men born of such women can never think of resorting to the revolutionary means against oppressors owing to their inherited evils of cowardice and sutanissiveness. Shelley condemns confining her to the corrT:«ption of a "closed grave" (1. ^Ch7), The grave question faces him : "Can man be free if woman be a slave ? Chain one vrfio lives, and breathes this boundless air, 219

To the corruption of a closed grave I Can they \Aiose mates are beasts, condemned to bear Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare To trample their oppressors ? (X, pp. 213-1^)

Equal treatment of vroman is a pre-requisite for establishing an ideal and just society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. Only then the domestic peace can be guaranteed assuring the ruture prosperity and progress. Cythna resolves to devote herself to the emancipation of vronen, in viiom Laon perceives the hope for the freeing of one half of the wretched mankind :

"Never will peace and human natiire meet Till free man and vroman greet Domestic peace; and ere this power can make In human heart its calm and holy seat, This slavery must be broken,"

It is Cythna, the rebellion incarnate, who undertakes the arduous task of arousing passions for liberty by making people aware of the universal law of liberty ani truth : "great is the strength Of words — for lately did a maiden fair, Who from her childhood has been taught to bear The tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise and make Her sex the law of truth and freedom bear," (11. 1569-73)

Without resorting to violent means, she succeeds in working up a rebellion merely by her magic eloquence. J.T. Coleridge, a 220

critic of Shelley, comments that the social and political revolution cannot be brought about by only magniloquence. Something more TDTactical and concrete is required. Coleridge further argues that if it vere so, Othman as v/ell as the cruel watchman, could easily have been subdiiced by her eloquence and ix>t violated her chastity.^^ But, he fails to understand that Shelley T)oetically wants to infuse all the reformative %eal and passion in Cythna, the embodiment of mancipation. Woman, being free, believes Shelley, is full of vronderful powers and sublime spirit. Cythna,equally shares Laorfs purpose, who says :

"Thus Cythna mourned with me the servitude In \^ich the half of marikind were mewed Victims of lust and hate, the slaves of slave" (11. 985-87)

She, like a free, wise and determined rebel walks among people communicating to them the message of liberty and revolt. She was all words, burning, firing passion against the dominance of negative values like scorn, unnatural death, hatred or pain. She is wisdom and innocence syntheslsed.^° Nonetheless, the point should not go unappreciated tiiat she has been Inspired by a 'man', Laon. In creating ideas therefore, implies Shelley, woman is only indirectly involved, -vAiereas man is directly involved. All the same, she may play a vital role in getting ideas popularised and actualised. Women, vAio knew nothing but bear oppression and 221

tyranny as their duty, now listen to the magic words of Cythna bewildered, and are greatly moved. Responding positively, they strive to step out their luxxirious dungeons, from the dust of "meaner thralls", from the "oppressor's wrath", and from the "caresses of his sated lust". They, emerging out of their opprobrious conditions, congregate around Cythna to adapt then- selves to a new way of life by revolting against the oppressors. Her magniloquease is so impressive and her logical argumentation is so forceful that even the "armed slaves" of tyrant who have been sent to quell '"her power" are enticed by her, like some "thunder-gust" is "caught by some forest". The rebels bend to their chiefs under the suell of that young maiden. 37

"Thus she doth equal law and justice teach To vjoman, outraged and polluted long; Gathering the sweet fruit in human reach For those fair hands now free, \Aile armed wrong Trembles before her look, though it be strong; Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright, And matrons with their babes, a stately throng I

(XXI, IV, p. 159)

Her effort let the 'Love' prevail, the only uniting force t

"lovers renew the vows which they did plight In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite" (11. 1601-02)

The inborn rebellious Impulse and hatred of tyranny made Shelley an uiKompromlsing critic of suppression in every form and every place, even though its expression may vary in 222

keeping vrith the circumstances. He had fought against supiaressian physically at Eton, and later both as a poet and thinker throughout his life. He always had a grudge against the economic disparity prevailing in his society and vaguely believed in the equal distribution of wealth. Abjectness, he thinks, is one of those evils of society which ought first to be removed. It was all on the contemplative plane until 1812 when he visited Ireland and observed the appalir^ consequence of poverty personally and developed irrepressible grudge against the faulty economic system vAiich made the wealth flow from the poor to the rich. From Dublin he writes to Elizabeth Hitchner on March 10, 1812:

"I am sick of this City and long to be with you and peace. The rich grind the poor into abjectness, and then complain that they are abject: They goad them to famine, and hang them if they steal a loaf".

To him the sight of peasants vdiose condition was worse than pigs was insufferably tormenting. Being intellectually and poetically concerned, he seriously reflected over the problem of despotic barons, abject poor, tyrannical rich, starving manufacturers, drowned babes and increasing poverty, analysed it and suggested some remedial measures. His Tsamphlet Address to the Irish People-^ (Feb. 1812, Dublin) records certain facts regarding the problem. In all the classes of society "excepting those within the 223

privileged pale" he sees tlie condition "singularly unprosperous". Even the privileged suffer in all but material satisfaction. They suffer "in the loss of dinity, simplicity and energy, and in the profession of all those qualities which distinguish a slave-driver from a proprietor."

The Revolt of Islam elaborates how the poverty en-'en ir innumerable social evils like ignorance, narrow-mindedness, greed, slavery, economic exploitation and faithlessness,

"There is the wisdom of a stern content '/flien poverty can blight the Just and good. When Infamy dares mock the innocent, And cherished friends turn with the multitude To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood"

Cythna is deeply grieved at heart by the selfish wickedness of the world that has augmented poverty, A privileged few live in golden palaces vdiile the overvdaelming majority dwells in roofless huts or squalid cells. Cythna resolves to spread the spirit of love to replace the economic disparity and unequal distribution of wealth; the rootcause of abjectness. The pathetic condition of the downtrodden moves her badly :

"Yes I will tread Pride's golden palaces, Through Penury's roofless huts and squalid cells Will I descend, wher'er in abjectness Woman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells;" (11. 1036-39) 224

It is poverty tiiat makes men coward. The sailors who have freed Cythna from her prolonged dark-cell-imprisonment do cowardly obey their tyrant just because they have to earn bread for themselves and their families. They dare not rebel against their oppressors as they are scared of starvation and hardships. The same is true of the hireling soldiers of the tyrant v4io do have potential strength to overthrow the oppressor but are hindered by the cowardice caused by the inevitable necessity of hunger. They know right and wrong but fail to admit it owing to their weakness. Poverty makes them greedy also. Those vho were ready to sacrifice their lives for Laon and Cytiina, rush to fetch them to be burned only because they were promised to be rewarded gold. Poverty, therefore, remains to be one of the greatest scourges for a society — the mother of other innumerable social evils.

Thoroughly analyzing the economic problem of his day in his pamphlet, A PhiloROPhical View of Rpform. published the same year I817 as The Revolt of Islam^ he puts forth certain specific points suggesting sane remedial measures. He recommends the abolition of the national debt, dibanding the standing army, abolition of sinecxires, abolition of titles, making all religious equal before the law, and making Justice cheap, certain and speedy. He proposes, in effect, a capital levy upon the rich "Who alone could, and justly ought to pay." The pamphlet shows how genuinely concerned he was about the widespread abjectness 225

in his day. He looks at the wretched mankind not only objectively and from a distance but he comes closer to them, tries to share their feelings, and prescribes remedies for every social ailment. Being fully alive to the masses' plight, Shelley always planned their betterment, as Mary Shelley points out :

•'.,t. he caught opthalmia through vicitine the poor distributing blankets at Mar low in 1817; he would go out of his way to give a beggar his last shilling or his shoe." ^0

Eversince his adolescence, as we have already seen, Shelley had been entertaining anti-religious and, in a limited sense, nontheistic traits; and developed a strong grudge in particular against the practised religion of his own society — Christianity. Being a total non-conformist, he refuted the practical as well as theoretical validity of this religion. Christianity is conceived by him as a means of curtailing the social rights of human beings; a kind of divine cruelty and saj:ctified persecution against liberals or free-thinkers. It is a force tiiat militates against the high pursuit of virtue. He also deplores the anti-humanistic proclivities of the over- zealous clergy and the crusaders.

He loathed traditional Christianity to the extent that he never wished himself being identified as a christian. Remaining a total non-conformist, he nourished a revengeful spirit against 226

the faith of his own people which, instead of being humanistic, is thoroughly inhumsm insofar as its practicability is concerned. According to him, as we see in the poem, three things are the greatest hinderances in the path of revolution; incapability of the confined woman to respond to the radical message of Laon and Cythna, hoary crime, and the false religion and corrupt clergy. Ironically the social and Dolitical frame-work of the Golden City closely resembles the contemporary society, with which Shelley was concerned, deeply engrossed in the religion of superstitions. PerhaDS, Shelley could have agreed to the Marxian definition of religion, ie, 'the opium of society'. As the hypocrites, disguised as the ecclesiastics, sense the danger of defiance from liberals, they immediately come forth with all the 'sDiritual' force at tiieir command to curb down this new voice of liberty of truth under tiie mask of godliness and piety. Religion, no more than a fraud, always remains alert to suppress any urge of liberty. Cythna hints at the fact :

"Thou knowest a curse would wear The shaue of woman —hoary crime vrould come Behind, and Fraud rebuild Religion's tottering dome," (11. 1051-53)

As the texture of every religion is basically vroven around its own idea of God, Christianity also has its own particular view of it. Shelley aims to hit hard at the very root 227

of Christianity by vehemently advocating the non-existence of God, which maae it easier for him to refute Christian religion as a divine revelation. He repudiates the God of theism vdiich dwells somewhere outside the universe. The God of old Testament is a callous, cruel God, tDlacing faith in whom means to deny belief in virtue. Such gods are nothing but the creation of human fancy and incredible to reason. "What then is a 'God'?", writes he to Elizabeth Kitchener on June 11, 1811, "It is the name vdiich expresses the unknown cause, the superstitious origin 1+1 of all existence". Casting aside the traditional Christian God, he speaks about the God of his own belief,

"I acknowledge a God, but merely as a synonlme(Sic) for the existing power of existence ... It is therefore the essence of the universe,"

Laon gropes to find out the most summary way of eradica ting religion by denying God, because he has been observing its adverse effects on ttie social and political structure of the society of the Golden City, He realises that it is the religio^a belief that prevents masses from paying any heed to their own betterment. It is the first impediment to be overcome on the track of revolution.

Cythna preaches the similar nontheistic views to the enslaved sailors. She tells them that whatever exists there 228

in the human society is the creation of man's own mind and doing. Man toils for his own good. There exists no immortal power havinp; any purDOse or consciousness. If there is a God, He cannot have a "human mood". One who builds anythir^ in human mood cannot be a God.

"Ye toil for your own good — Ye feel and think — has some immortal power Such purposes ? or, in a human mood. Dream ye Lhat God thus builds for man in solitude?" (11. 3231-3^)

In Shelley's opinion, all evil flows from man's tendency of creating God in his own image. "What then is God?" (1. 3235).^^ God is for him a term applied to that state of mind viien it fails the total apprehension of reality. Be vdiatever He is, God is entirely devoid of the human impulses, feelings and instincts.

"Ye make yourselves, and give A human heart to vdiat ye cannot know." (11. 3235-36)

Shelley ridicules the very idea

"As if the cause of life could think and live." The immortal power, God, is the utiknov/n cause of life and an insensitive one, v^ich has no life or mind like the one -vriiich His creation, man, has. Had it been so,

" 't were as if man's own works should feel. The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow, and show And he ".:e like to them 1" (1L37-38-HO) 229

He means that God could never be like His own creation, .lust as nan's creation cannot be like man. He goes further to weaken the accepted concept of God by attributing all social evils to his name. The Implication is that had God been like man, he v/ould have never let such abominable calamities descend on and spread in the world as the inhabitants of the Golden City have been afflicted with. While,

rxaguw xb J. 1 we To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow, disease, and Want, and worse Necessity Of hate and ill, and Pride and Fear and Tyranny;" how on earth God can be imagined to be having human feelings and emotions. The question "What then is God ?' recurs in the sajne dialogue of Cythna with the sailors (in C VIII, St. VI). Answering, Shelley conceives of God as an object of contemplative imagination vAiich enables one visualise God's glory reflected in the natural phenomena.^ It is as if some fallacious reasoner, some "moon struck sophist", (1, 32^-lf) watches his ovm Image and worships his own form. In a like fallacious manner, men also conceive of God as their ovrn form and, thus?worship thanselves, and visualise his "likeness in the vrorld's vast mirror shown". (1. 32^8) It remains only "an innocent dream" (1, 32^-9) if is unmingled with the element of fear. But v/hat happensZtliat this idea, polluted with the element of fear, becomes fatally fallacious. Thereon a "faith" grows on "Nursed by fear's dew of poison"(l. 3250) whose dominance compells men believe such nonsensical things as 230

"God has aDpolnted Death On all -who scorn his will, to wreak immortal wrath." (11. 3251-52)

Christian God is a callous "'God, T^o the necessity Of rule and wrong had armed against mankind, His slave and his avenger there to be';"

Next Shelley proceeds to expose the hypocrisy and Savagery of the self-declared champions and preachers of this religion. They befool and enslave mankind and indulge in incredibly absurd, nonsensical and inhuman acts. They are in league with oppressors. Obviously, it is the corrupt, deterio rated state of clergy and the most dishonest, shameful, fallcious and damaging attitude of ecclesiastics that compells Shelley to have a fully averse opinion about the church and its God along with its ministers. He fast grows cynical about those who say "they have seen God, and heard from God." He cynically mocks even those who claim that God's "will is our law" which is for Shelley a 'rod' to "scoui^es us into slaves". Priests and kings who are believed to be "his strong ministers" (priests, kings, custom, and domestic sway) as a means of bringing "Man's freeborn soul beneath the oppressor's heel". Custom and conventional faith offshoots of religion, are for Shelley merely the means of enslaving free martkind.^ Carrying the argument further, Shelley ridicules the general belief "that God will punish wrong". To 231

hold such an opnion is never less than a criminal "blunder, since it is for him to "ndd despair to crime, and pain" (I.3263). Ekiually ridiculous is to say that :

" .... his red hell's undying snakes ... Will bind the wretch<^n whom he fixed a stain, Which, like a plague, a burdisn, and a hane, Clung to him v4iile he lived; ^—

Belief in God, Shelley apprehends, is exploited to provide justification for letting dark clouds of suffering loom large upon mankind instead of dispelling them. Those who wish to enjoy especial privileges in society and retain their high handedness adhere to such notions and propagate them profusely. They have vested interests in holding that "The will of strength is right" (1, 3269), Tyrants desolate the human state with lies so that "they may rule" (1, 3270) over them for ever.

3c c]. siastics of Shelley's day moved their "poisonous lips "but to tell lies and support an unjustifiable social set-up. Deceiving people to bear "toil and misery" for the sake of a 'God' vdio is "armed against mankind", they entice them by saying "For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter" (1. 360if) , They want people to live the worst kind of 'today' at the pretext of a vague optimism of tomaroow. Cythna exclaims :

"•,• and, day by day. The moon of wasting Science waves away Among her stars; and in that darkness'vast The sons of earth to their foul idols pray, And gray priests triumph; and like blight'or blast A shade of selfish care o'er human looks is cast. (11. 3677-81+) 232

The paradox is insufferably tormenting for Shelley that those viio should have been the paragons of virtue and mercy being the follower of Jesus, the Lamb, are butchers in disguise. Even the supDlication they make are reflective of their crimes, hypocrisies, pretended piety, befooling of masses and aberrations etc. Yet, so diameless are they to think that they are still very close to God. The following example depicts them in their

•crus CO i our ;

" '0 God 1 they cried, 'we know our secret pride Has scorned thee, and thy worship, and thy name; Secure in human power we have defied Thy fearful might; we bend in fear and shame Before tiiy presence: with dust we claim Kindred; be merciful, 0 king of Heaven I Most justly have we siiffered for thy fame Made dim, but be at length our sins forgiven, Ere to despair and death thy worshippers be driven." (CX,St.XXVII,p.238)

As these priests feel their own lives endangered by famine, they invoke God's mercy aai benevolence by reiterating "be merciful again". But, the most fantastical and Ironical is the argument woven in order to demonstrate their deep faith in God and loyalty to His decrees — stabbing, making "The Earth an altar", and worshipping iod with the innocent blood of God's own children. Instead of changing the world into a citadel of love and peace, priests are busy reddening it with the fresh blood of mankind. It reveals their blood-thirstiness and barbarous o 33

mentality of priestly-looking wolves. They are quick and eager to kill all those \*io do or may differ with them on any religious point.^^ Tolerance is alien to them :

"Greatest and best, be merciful again Have we not stabbed thine enemies, and made The Earth an altar, and the Heaven a fane, Where thou wert worshipped with their blood, and laid — Those hearts in dust which would thy searchless works have weighed ?" (XXVIII, cx, p. 239)

Thus, Shelley's criticims against clergy intensifies and grows harder. All preachers appear to Shelley "a tumult of strange names". In furious rage, he declares all prophets to claim only the God of their own faith to be the only real God, This bigotry Shelley rejects altogether :

"And Ormoze, and Christ, ... Moses and Buddh, 7erdusht, and Brahm, and Foh, A tumult of strange names, ... " and " ... each ringing votary ' gan to throw Aloft his armed hands, and each did howl Our God alone is God I' ..."

However, a jumbling of all these names together hints at the confusion of Shelley's mind in that he fails to distinguish between the prophets and Gods like Moses and Christ, and between Buddh and Brahm the former being an atheist and later being God, 234

The perspective of Shelley's criticism is vdde enough to include the bigots of all times. Priests take a very care of the matter that common men should never come in direct contact with the real spirit of the religious scriptures. They greatly fear that if the light of knowledge is "kindled once, its beams might pierce the night" (1. ^-083) To let the idols of faith and tyranny stand erect it requires a thick darkness of ignorance to prevail. Shelley loathes and discredits both faith and tyranny which, in his opinion, are interdependent and coexistent. The end of one means the ruin of the other.

The hypocritic shallowness of the belief of clergy is obvious from the fact that tiiey join hands with the men of opposite faith at opportune occasion, with a view to punishing their co-religionists. They set those afire -vAio aberrate from the established faith, but make truce with those who despised their craddled idol and tiius they want to cool down the wrath of God by sacrificing God himself. They claim to fear God and breed jealous hatred of man in their breasts. The savage, brutal priests sense "In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine.

In love and beauth, no divinity —" (11. If5^1-1+2)

The extreme cunningness of the priest of_poem is clearly betrayed by his remakrs about Laon and Cythna as if they were the root-cause of the vengeancf^ of God on people. Arousing the base passions of people, he advises them to adopt a policy of 235

vengeame against the two atheists, so that God may to curb his lastly minister and close the gates of death. Putting the tvo liberals on trial can alone subdue the wrath of God. Rhetorically, he arouses the passions of fear and hatred to hammer in the point that unless God's foes are killed, His pe stile me would keep gulping men. The divine rage of priests could not be pacified unless Laon and Gythna are caught to be burnt alive. The high priest decrees a pyre of expiation to be pilea high, to pxiur high inflammable venomous gums on it.

"... and spread forth below A couch of snakes, and scorpions, and the fry Of centepedes and worms, earth's hellish progeny I" (11. if132-3^) and "Let Laon and Laone on that pyre. Linked tight with burning brass, perish 1 then pray That with this sacrifice, the withering ire Of God may be appeased.' 11. ^135-38)

This clearly brings into focus the irrational, dogmatic and beastly attitude of the followers of -hrist.

Shelley's greatest objection to the belief in God is that the false priests attribute to God a horrible image which shows him to be only blood-thirsty, abominable and merciless, devoid of even the slightest sense of pity :

"on a throne V/ith storms and shadows girt, sate God" (11. If 114-7-^8) 236

Shelley staunchly believes that God, the creation of man's imagination and embodiment of fear and hatred, can never be the governor of the universe.

Aroused by tiie furious and awe-inspiring speeches of the priest, the people bum with "hellish mockery "a huge nimiber of the supporters of Laon and Cythna, their true benefactors, Ir. c. hope to appease God's >*riitii, - Shelley's implicit suggsstion here is that faith is nothing but a means in the hands of tyrants and their agents to provide a justification to their exploitation and Oppression,

Shelley shows intense bitterness for religion in P, neral and :;hristlanity in particiilar, and despises priests v^o are wrapt in the darkness of ignorance. They sing "bloody hymns" and their

" ... garbs betray The blackness of the faith it seems to hide."

The inner darkness and moral bankruptcy outshine the dress they wear. Clergy is the main mischief-maker and chief corruptor of the society. The tyrant looks quite ready to pardon Laon after he has revealed his identity, as swDrn by priests. But priests grow insistent to break the vow on the pretext of remaining true to God, They shriek as they are consulted and declare that it was impious to keep their oath and not to break it. To the high 237

priest killing an opponent seems a trifle matter v*io cries :

"... 'OLord, to thee did I betray An Atheist; but for me she would have knovra ... the glory be thine own l"

Religion, therefore, corrupts the social order more than anythir^ else. Good-natured men are made to feel the rage of negative emotions causing every mental and physical suffering. It is the bloody and false and cold faith that has long held the world in awe.

This poem of reformative motivation has been "devoted to the love of mankind" , In which "There is no quarter given to Revenge, or Envy, or Prejudice. Love is celebrated everywhere as the sole law which should govern the moral world."^^ Love connects human being with himan being insofar as its physical • aspect is concerned. But rising above this mundane level, Shelley's passion of love evolves into something more than a physical aptitude and is transformed into the "divine repenthe"; a "bond and sanction which connects not only man with man but with every tiling which exists". Therefore, his concept of love involves two implications. It is physical as well as metaphysical, "tiie one abstract and universal the other concrete and earthly".^'' Shelley believes love to be the omnipotent force governing, at tiie lower level, the human relations and, on the higher, controlling the great system of the universe, including the social and political relationships of hiimans. 238

At tie lover level he adir.its no checks and bounds on the passions of love. He apparently seer.s to have become interested in free love theories by the time he -^^ote Zostro7,r.i (i'ar-A\:ig I0O9). "Love like ours", exclainis Verezzi to l:atild•^ "wants not tlie vain tie of human lav". The saTie ther.ie was f-urther intensified and developed into a major doctrine in the plot of 3t> Irvvne. a novel he wrote a few months later. >Hs conaennatiion or tne mstitutionaiisation or nunan passions in the forr.:s of :r.arriage and his v;ish to see woman to be ecual to man in every respect and to confer their love as they saw fit made Shelley admire Lawrence's Em-pire of Hairs with its South Sea Island Code of Sex morals. Free love, ^ust a theory ^-ith Sodwin, beca-v.e an enthusiasm for Shelley whereby he got an incentive to turn upon the social lavs and restrictions in the sphere of sex. The following lines of the poem reflect his rebellious creed :

"I-'an and woman Their common bondage burst, may freely borrow. From lawless love a solace for their sorrow."

Shelley v/ants to replace the conventional faith and religion by the universal concept of "fearless love"; an ideal principle for the society of his dreams. So say the old man of The Revolt of Islam : "KLnd thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds Abound; for fearless love, and the pure lav Of nild equality and DOace, succeeds To faiths which long have held the world in awe. Bloody and false axnd cold : " (11. 15V0-W0 239

Some similar ideas vie come across in Blake's poems like "The Garden of love" or "The Sick Rose".

Love is treated by Shelley as the most vital element of human nature, so much so that without it a society cannot be suppossed to enjoy peace and harmony. It is the degeneration of love into a sort of frustration and allurement and "blight and snare" that accounts for an overall deterioration of society. Without the spirit of love the world has changed into a place enveloped within a thick sombre, abounding with evils like distress, dishonesty, falsehood and treachery etc., where hearts are hard ani cold "like weights of icy stone" and "lifeless clod". People are devoid of all the soft passions for each other and wear a thick nonchalance.^^

The suppression of some unusual desires in Shelley found an outlet in extravagantly idealizing woman. The shadow of the idol of his thought was his persistent quest for creating an idealised vjoman who is at once a sister, a friend, a leader of men, and a sexiaal mate as Cythna — "vdiose chief qualities are her vigorous intellect, her will power, and her Amazoniam heroism" —is for Laon. It seems to be under the Platonic concept, according to vAiich the reality takes two forms on the physical plane : male and female, and this is v*iy they feel irresistibly attracted towards each other, %rfiich is normally termed as 'love'. She is in the spiritual sense his "own shadow",^-^ 240

a "second half, far dearer and more fair" (1. 875), and all he has to do is "to love inhuman life, this sister sweet"(1.88U-). In Cythna, therefore, Laon visualises his ideal concept embodied vho later becomes his sister-wife. She is for Shelley "like the bright shade of some immortal dream" (1. 872). In order to consummate their love they lie close to each other "as twin phantoms of one star" (1, 2627) to make time and fear unfelt by having a sexual union. Love strengthen^, the social bonds and "blendCs) two restless frames in one reposing soul". The real warmth of love and friendship comes to Cythna and Laon as he

"felt the blood that burned Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall Ai'D'o;-'! my heart like fire; ... (11. 2631^-36) and Two disunited spirits vrtien they leap In union from this earth's obscure and fading sleep, (11. 2639-^0)

Love imbues individuals with confidence and courage and brings invincible power to them, Leon and Cythna* s indulgence in love "Counfounded thus/ All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one/ Unutterable power", and makes "fear and time unfelt" (1. 26M-9). With the united hearts and twined limbs are "linked a sister and a brother" "to celebrate a bridal-night" with "the gentle night/ Of earliest love" that smothered the "cold Evil's power" (1.2685). 241

Therefore, love is tiie only force that can undo the evil- effects.

People are born because of love and just to love, and never to hate. The very existence of man is indebted to love :

"Such is Nature's modesty, that those Who grows together cannot choose but love. (11. 2666-8V)

But, the ignorant society comes forth with its conventions, faith and slavery to set hurdles in the way of love and helns spread hatred. VJhereas, a society can live in utter peace and love :

"If faith and custom do not interpose, Or common slavery mar \^at else might move All gentlest thought;"

Such hinderances have surely to be removed for bringing in the era of love, the universal principle of harmony.

Without favouring sexual onarchy, Shelley advocates free unrestrained love to be practised by common people. The only law he admits is that compulsion and force should never be resorted to in the affair of love. Mutual consent and complete understanding are inevitable, to which the union of Laon and Cythna is a precedent. They cling to each other after reaching a 242

particular state of knowledge and mutual understanding, and also because •

"love had nursed (them) in the haunts ^Vhere knowledge, from its secret source enchants Young hearts with the fresh music of its springs, (11.2698-2700) just as the great Nile feeds Egypt. Love without mutual involvement is nothing but "a loathsome agony" when "selfishness mocks love's delight" (1. 2876). Without tiie passionate feeling on each side love is "Foul as in dream's most fearful imagery/ To dally with th3 mowing dead" (U. 2877-78), and reduced to a mean sensation of hatred and repulslveness before which are "All torture, fear, or horror made seem light/ Which the soul dreams or knows", (11, 2879-80) In siich a case, one may feel nothing but the spirit tightened in "fleshly chains" (1^ 2882) struggling in vain. This is viiat Cythna remarks about her own experience of "unregarded love" (1. 1907) referring to the painful exijerience v^n she was forced to have a sexual inter course with the king, "a heartless beast, a pageant and a name" (1. 287^).

Love brings confidence, magnetism and nonpareil courage to man. laon fearlessly stabs three of the hirelings of the king who had arrested Cythna. Secondly, as he was lying amid the corpses, Cythna, on a dark steed, a-oproaches him. Such an unexpectedly -old step makes their enemies flee. His love,Cythna, 243

says "Mount with me, Laon, now 1" which he does. It implies symbolically that the fallen mankind can be approached and rescued only by love,^^ which is a boat of "rare device".

Love is the real source of inspiration for attaining a higher intent. This love for individuals, thinks Shelley, evolves and develops into a nobler benevolence of mankind. In the moments of great distress viien Laon suspects Cythna to be dead, he does not lose courage, because he is well-aware of the higher purpose of life which he has undertaken to fulfil. Laon speaks :

"Where was Laone now ? —The words were frozen V/ithin my lips with fear; but to subdue

Such dreadful hope, to ray great task was due",(ll.188V-86) The distressing loss of the personal love was subdued by his nobler love for mankind, ^e engages himself in thinking that in what need the great throng might be, because the night was aDproaching.

It is again chiefly the spirit of love that brings about a reconciliation between the warring foes and friends of Laone, who proceed in one group to the city in Joy. -^ey "became one nation/Made free by love", 5/ virtue of the great unifying force, love,the disputants got transformed into "a mighty brotherhood/ Linked by a Jealous interchange of good" (lU l8U0-M). Their 244

Splendour and magnificence was not a false show, it was rather

"A glorious pageant, more magnificent Than kingly slaves arrayed in gold and blood, When they return from courage, and are sent In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement." (11. ^?'h2-k

An ironical contrast has been worked out here. On the one hand are those determined liberals "^^tic are fast united by love without any compulsion of any kind. And, on the other, are those hirelings who are faithful in their slavery to the tyrant. Thoughthey are arrayed in 'gold and blood', they are devoid of that look of magnificence and glory vAiich the liberal procession abounds with.

Love in its wider connotations is the only agency, suggests Shelley, which can make individuals as well as society in general v;iser, happier, more sincere and more enthusiastic. It gives constructive purpose to life. It imbues one with courage and confidence to attain the sublLmeat heights in life. It confers upon men the finer knowledge. The negative feelings of hatred, jealousy, envy, and enmity are replaced by all- embracing, eternal, and universal principle of love. Those vAio have converted from hatred to love are exchanging the warm and affectionate looks. ^-^ The spirit of love generates that wisdom which can cast off the thick sombre of ignorance and blindness 245

in faith. One of the coveted results of Laoa's revolution is that :

"Religion's pomp made desolate by the scorn Of Wisdom's faintest smiles ... • • « And love made free, —- a hope v^ich we have nursed Even with our blood and tears, —until its glory burst." (11. 3139-VO)

Almost similar thoughts echoe in BlaJce v*io equally hates restraints upon love imposed by church or such agencies.

Not only in the moments of success but also in the hour of distress love has been held In high esteem. Though Cythna's speech may reflect dejection throughout her prolonged talk as it is made after the doubtful future of the intended revolution, her belief in liberal, ideal values has not bee shaken. Apparently, with a dark future ahead, she has a staunch belief in love. Cythna says : Yet Laon, dearest. Cythna shall be the prophet of love". (11. 36UO-ifl)

Love has been accorded a rank higher than wisdom by Shelley, though it comes next to wisdom. Cythna entreats :

"Yes, Love when Wisdom falls makes Cythna wise: Darkness and death, if death be true, must be Dearer than life and hope, if unen^oyed with thee" (11. 3773-7>+ 24fi

In love, therefore, lies a solution to all social and tiolitical problems, a palliative to all distress, remedy to all miseries and a balm to all pain, individual as well as social. In order to bring back prosperity, peace, affection and dignity to society it is inevitable to rely on it. It is very sad that there exist certain agencies on the earth vAiich spare no effort in obstructing the flow of love. Religious bigotry and fanaticism are two such great deterrents, which have made Laon part with his "Fair star of life and love" arai his "soul's delight". Miserably, with a broken heart they "parted then, never again to meet !" (1.^278) The accent of love could make no difference to indifferent things, "The wind passed by/On which those accents died, faint, far, and hingeringly (1. if287).

Shelley expresses his unshakable belief in love in those lines where Laon and CytJina are about to be thrown onto pyre. In this moment of unbearable torment, they are still smiling and reading the expressions of unsatiated love on each other's face. Bodily perishing, they transcend into the world of perfection. They feel every other thing except themselves grow faint and disappear. In liie grand finale of the poem, love is celebrated as supermost value of life. They feel "Ml light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fall" (1. ^581+)

The individualistic, protestant moral system of Shelley is chiefly based on the universal law of love —the regulator of 247

the \^ole universe. His second emphatic stress is on the principle of truth. Realising the cruie fact that the external conduct of man is predominated by the agencies outside him like religion, convention, tradition, government, social pressure and domestic habits, Shelley incites to deny every external pressure and advocates to act according to one's acumen.

Giving the human Imagination and sympathy a considerable weightage, Shelley proceeds in his poem to incorporate certain ideal, universal and humane values to ensure the peaceful coexis tence and progress of hunan beings, This is surely vAiat adds to Shelley's intellectual superiority that he strives to build up a new value-system annihilating the conventional, unfit and unjust one, of course, from his particiilar view-point. And he is not content with condannation only.

Owing to the lack of wisdom and knowledge, an ordinary man Is unaware of his realvalii and of the true relationship between his self and society, ^e cannot lead a happy life as the cunning exploiters would be alert to subjugate and bully him. Faith also creates an un;ontreliable fear in his mind hindering him from making any real progress and thus the whole society is made stagnant, Laon, in his reformative zeal, could grow round his heart the adamantine armour of the power of the weapon of the words of truth-icid widom, H© is "A minister of truth "emerging 248

from tine "wisdom's tower".^^ Wisdom and knowledge make Laon and Cythna the happiest souls on earth :

"but wiser far, for we Smiled on ttie flowery grave in which were lain Fear. Faith, and Slavery; and mankind was free, Equal, and pure, and wise in wisdom's prophecy." (11. 3123-26)

The promulgation of trJith is a by-product of the spread of knowledge and wisdom. The prophesied change is due the to the wise, eloquent advocacy of Cythna of/.Revolution i

"For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid Ifeture, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love, — " (11. 3523-2if)

The search for truth begins from within, as Cythna so affirms by questioning tiie hireling soldiers "is the truth/ Within your soul ?" (1. 3^36). ffothing can guide mankind from the"labyrinth caves" of religion and slavery but the ideals of "Justice, or Truth, or Joy" (1. 3291 )

In order to e stablish an idealistic society one has to grasp the reality about life, which is for Shelley neither law, nor religious faith, nor even obedience to God or to his ministers. "To give to all an equal share of good", "To track the steps of freedom", "To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot", "To own 249

all sympathies, and outrage none" and "To sit and smile with Joy" or "To live, as if to love and live were one", are not achievable through custom and religious faith and law, which lead rather to catastrophe; nor linder the leadership of those "vAio bow/ To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know" (11. "^305-06). Truth and wisdom t)revail and "Scorn, and Hate,/ Revenge and selfishness are desolate" —, These would be efficiently replaced by the desirable values, and "A hundred nations smear that there shall be/ Pity and Peace and Love, among the good and free 1", as indicates Laon invoking the image of wisdom. Truth, th~ only deathless voice (1. 1l8), has been collated with Justice and Hope, the two other essential values, in a very Mil tonic tone :

"Hope is strong. Justice and Truth their winged child have found I Awake I arise I until the mighty sound Of your career shall scatter in its gust The thrones of the oppressors, and the ground Hide the last altar's unregaraed dust. Whose Idol so long betrayed your Imnious trust I" (11. 777-83)

Love is of course treated as the most essential and coveted basic vali» for the new society that serves as the under lying cementing or binding force; and the absence of i^ich causes degeneration, stagnation and stei-ility about the society (11. °hO-h5), Love alone could replace, believeBCythna, the condemnable, fallcaious conventional ideas prevalent in society. It is a thing which "to 250

the hearts of wandering men/ Art as the calm to Ocean's weary wave".^7 Love, "which none may bind, be free to fill/ The world, like light", would put an end to conventional "evil faith" which had "grown hoary/l^ith crime" (11. ^^36-37). "And love ariijoy can make the foulest breast/ A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest" (11. 3395-96).

Optimism and Hope are also the vital factors that help a lot to fructify ttie efforts of bringing about a revolution. "Look r»t so, Laon —^ say farewell in hope", suggests Laone. All the nobler values like love, justice, liberty and hope get embodied in Laon's personality (11. 2296-98). Their future hope is twofold : physical and metaphysical, ^e aspires to a non- existant life of everlasting beatitude, which vrould be the reward of their struggle in after-life. The long term effect of the revolution initiated by them were surely bound to be positive and fructifying, ^o says Cythna s

"0\ir many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, Our happiness , and all that we have been. Immortally must live, and burn and move, When we shall be no more;" Or, "0 dearest love 1 we shall be dead and cold Before this morn may on the world arise; Would'st thou the glory of this dawn behold' ?" (11. 369I+-96)

Justice, another significant value, if practised on every social level, can guide hunianity out of slavery and 51

"r'^liglon's labyrln!: caves". (1. 3292)

During the course of regeneration one must not repent for the past dead deeds. Cythna insists :

"Reproach not hine own soul, but know thyself, Tbr hate anotiier's crime, nor loathe thine own," (11. 3398-99) because "It is the dark idolatry of self. Which, when our thou^ts and actions once are gone, Demands that man should weep, and bleed and groan; 0 vacant expiation 1 Be at rest. The past is Death's, the future is thine own;" (11. 339-9'+)

Peace, innocence and vegetarianism also figure in the poem. As Cythna speaks to the victorious multitude that :

"Ky brethren, we are free 1 The fruits are gloving Never again may blood of bird o:- beasts Stain with its venomous stream a human feast." (11. 221+2-1+5)

Shelley, too, like Wordsworth, dislikes man's over- interference with his natural growth. He declines to allow the institutions to corrupt the original nature of man. Cythna, like Lucy, vAio grew in 'Sun and Shower' , dwells away from the world of institutions, leading a life of "a free and happy orphan 252

child (1. 1^^-3)". She has played and enjoyed "By the sea shore, in a deep mountaln-glen;/ And near the waves, and through the forest wild". It was nature to rear her up and nurture to form into an ideal, stately, young woman, full of courage, confidence and boldness. Since Cythna has always been amid nature, "woe cannot be her own". She has reconciled herself to "Storm and darkness; Nature has taught her to stand erect for the truth in the face of stormy opposition of falsehood.

Shelley is indubitably indebted to Rousseau's "Return to nature" and Voltaire's views on freedom to put these words in the mouth of Cythna t

"Be free 1 and even here, Swear to be firm till death." (11. 3^^-^l)

Despite coming across on several occasions in the poem the same ideas, symbols, figures of speech, mannerisms of style, and supernatural machinery of a lively fancy as in Queen Kan^ we notice a marked advance in Shelley as a social and political thinker. No Doubt, the Temple of the Spirit in The Revolt of Islam is modelled on the Hall of Spells in Queen Mab, but the indiscrete cosmic view of things of the latter appears to be in the process of being replaced by the concretness of the concepts of good and evil. This developing theory marks an advance over the necessitarian theory of the earlier poem. The first canto o 53

epitomises the forces of good and evil vihich will be seen at •work upon the lives of the two chief characters of the poem, Laon and Gythna. The social and political dimensions in the poem, already discussed above, lead us to the realisation that whatever happens on the surface of human social and political b^aviour is traceable to the interaction of the same forces locked in eternal conflict. Symbolically, it gets representa tion in the struggle between the serpent and the eagle, we find an obvious clue to it in the words of the woman who conducts the poet to the Temple of the Spirit v*iile she recounts the strugple of good and evil from the inception of the existence. Though the critics like Peck and Fairchild tend to categorise this theory as Manichaean, more appropriately it seems to have come to Shelley from the Zoroartrian fancies of John Frank Newton. Again, thotjgh implied Voltaire in the eighteenth century that once the evil was crushed, it would vanish for ever, Shelley could not relinquish his belief In the possible resurgence of evil. Nevertheless, it does not constitute an anti-thesis to his radicalism -vAiich acquires a new philosophical dimension in another representative poem Prometheiis Unbound. The chief radical speech in The Revolt of Islam is Cythna's speech which marks the beginning of the bloodless revolution envisaged by the poem. In this speech she addresses the sailors v^o rescue her from her Andromedean rock. In this way, Shelley's social and political characters reflect an evergrowing new awareiiess 254

of the problem of evil in the poem. And tiie process as a vAiole shows Shelley's advance from general to particular, from substance to essence, from allegory to the mode of symbolic expression and from surface to the core which reaches climax in Prometheus Unbound. It is also reflective of the celebrated romantic introspectiveness. Fay be Shelley has not been able to solve the riddle of good and evil in The Revolt of Islam, but his reflections servfi as a bridge between the utterly radical world of Queen Mnb and the highly ideal world of Prometheus UnboundT the next subject of our study. 255

1. The Irisliinan's Sone. Victor and Gazire Volime, October, 1809. 2. Preface to She Revolt of Islam, p. lOO (All references to the poerr> from The Com-nlete Potg>tlcal Works of Percy Bvsslie 3hellev^ ed. N. Ibgers. Vol. II. Oxford^ 1075. 3. Ibid., p. 100 h, lines : Dedicationj K, 31-35. 5. Preface, p. 101. 6. Canto I, XXXIX, 1+69-72. 7. War (1810) 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Preface to The Revolt of I slam ^ p. 100. 11. Ibid., p. 101. 12. Ibid., p. 103. 13. Ibid. , >:, 101. 1^. Ibid., p. lO'-u 15. Ibid., p. 105. 16. 685-93. 17. 357^76 18. IX, GV, p. 166. 19. 6, C5, n. 181. 20. 11. ir^if7-5^ 21. XXVII, c5. 22. XII, C5, p. 167. 23. XT/, C5, p. 171. 2h, yDcn.li, c5, p. 173. 25. 11. 1158-61 2S. XI, C3, p. 1I+7 27. IV, GX, 232. 28. for detail V, C ^71, p. 18I+. 29. VI, C VI, p. 185 30. VII, G VI. 31. XLVI, GVI, p. 196. 32. XLVIII, C 6, p. 197. 33. VII, C 10, n. 233. 3^. VIII, c 10, p. 233. 35. Barcus, \Jo/rr\J^B^ \ S'lellev : Hie Gritical "leritage^ Lordon, p. 132. 258

36. lines l576-8lf. 37. X:-:, Canto IV, 1^9. 38. and also A PhllosoT)hic,3l Vle^.' of Heforn 39. lines 16O3-I6IO. kO. Tote by i:rs. Shelley, 13. 272. h^. h, if3, III. h2, Gythna repeats almost the same phrase as appears in the letter to Eli2&beth Kitchener on 11 June, 1^11, and answer is almost the same. U-3. The idea that God is an invention of man's imagination recurs again in Canto Z, stanza XXX. God is one's c;;n "heart' s image" : "Thus they with trembling limbs and pallid lirs '.Worshipped their ovn heart's image, dim and vast." Cil. Vo5^-55) Uh, St. VII, C ^/III, p. 213. 1+5. They are no less cri^el than tyrants as they hasten to put him to death \';ho did not share their unbelievable^*th,c/C- CXXXIII, D, 2^0. h6, XXXIV, T). 2'M, h7. XIV, C II, r,. V3'r2. V8. XLV, C 10, 2^3. V9. Preface to "Tne Revolt of Islam" 50. Essay on Love (p. 120) 51. Bogers, '-\ : "Shellev at V/ork", Oxford, 1967, D. 37. 52. St. VI, C Dedication, p. 108.

53. 1. 87^-. 5^. XIX, C 6,T3.1"8 c: XX, C 6,TD.I89. 55. XVII, c V, 169. 56. XX, c 2, p. 135. 57, XI, C 8, p. 21^. liiALiili H

C' ^ J. /i Jj 1^'2 POLITICAL* 2il.s^-sioi:^

I K p R 0 11 E T H S U 3 u :: 3 0 U N D,

i: A S K OF A :' A R G ^I Y AjJD ~02.aER

PLAIS WITH Erp'j.^^i.s 0^: T

PHILOSOPHIC HL BASIS OF

SHILLEY'S IDEAS Cast in universal terms, Shelley's Prometheus ^^n^^»^n^] a product of his maturest days, emlaodies total evolutionary process of man's advancement towards equality and freedom, from most ancient times to the glorious future. The social and political thanes in the poem are not as apparent and direct as in some earlier poems, as the similes, metaphors, images, etc., have undergone an intensive philosophising effect and carry deeply philosophical meanings. Both the eloquent rhetoric of Queen Mab and tediousness and confusion of The Ravolt of Islam have been mastefully overcome by the poet in this poem composed over a stretch of around one year between the latter part of 1818 and the early months of 1819, to which the last Act was added towards the end of 1819. The work was accomplished in Italy, vAiere he had gone to lead a life of exile, shaken in health and persecuted by a narrow-minded and hypocritical society as depicted in the earlier poems. The social and jwlitical themes lie shrouded in thick mist of mystical meanings vfaich, tho\igh not vague, often tend to elude the reader because of tiieir abstraction and delicacy of distinction. About the least imperfect poem, viiich Shelley wrote for five or six person, Mary Shelley aptly remarks : "It requires a mind as subtle and penetrating as 258

his o\m to understand the mystic meanings scattered through out the poem" J The reformer Shelley of earlier vrorks turned a philosopher here. His impressions about the French Revolution ani the consequences of recent sporadic eruptions of revolutions for freedom throughout Europe and Afnerica made their contribution in giving a particular philosophical shape to his social and political approaches. In Prometheus Unbound he reaches the conclusion tliat no revol'-;tionary measure, whatsoever, is capable of giving a concrete shape to the ideal of good in any of its shades, unless it is safeguarded by love. The principle of universal love alone can save the release of good from degenera ting into a self-oppressive and, therefore, a self-destructive force. Obviously, it implies that a few political reforms and mere overthrow of tyrants and eccel^iastics might not bring about the golden era, the achievement of i^ich demands, in fact, the indispensable change in the very nature of man; love must supplant hate. And this seems to be the central theme round which the entire fabric of tiie philosophical social and political visions has been woven.

Shelley's poetic drama deviates on various occasions in content and approach from Aeschylus' Prometheus Uriboung, from is which it derives but to which It/no sequel in tiiat Shelley has recast a great many of Aeschylus' details and speeches with a view to exploiting the inversion of the mytii for bringing home o 59

his own view of the perfectibility of the human spirit as he had "bourdless faith in the perfectibility of manl'^ The purpose necessitated an intensive recasting of the legend so that Prometheus, representing "hi^est perfection, must be saved from looking weak, hedonistic apostate of Aeschylus' version who preferred a shameful submission to tyrannical Jupiter to tolerate pain for principles. According to conventional myth, Prometheus was being tortured by Jupiter for rot revealing to him the secret that Jupiter' s marriage to Thetis would produce a son who would surpass and, overthrow him. By ultimately revealing it to him, Prometheus secured his own release and prevented the marriage, but at the same time humbled himself and assured Zeus' supremacy. Shelley abhorred such a voluntary enslavement, the real cause and guarantee of all tyranny. And he was, in truth, "averse from a catastrophe so feeble as tiiat of reconciling the champion with the oppressor of mankind". Moreover, the "moral interest of the fable, vftiich is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language and quaiiLng before his successful and perfidious adversary".^

Unlike Aeschylus', Shelley's Prometheus were never to divulge the secret to Jupiter which by implication brings the responsibility of the fall of Jupiter squarely on the shoulders 260

of Prometheus, and does not ©ffer a choice to Jupiter either to marry or abandon Thetis. The refusal to yield the 'secret' or the 'fateful vord*, symbolising the 'will' of Prometheus, the only thing kept back by him \^*lile giving all power to Jupiter, ultimately brings about the fall of Jupiter, the Tyrant. This is \riiy Shelley prefers the Prometheus of his drama to the Satan of Pamdise Lost^ as he states "Prometheus is, in my judgement, a more poetical character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandisement, vhich, in the Hero of Paradise Lost, interfere with the interest". From his arbitrary and tyrannical Jupiter, Shelley eliminates every possibility of softening in the course of time as opposed to Aeschylus' Zeus. For Shelley, only One Mind, Prometheus, is capable of possessing complete freedom and not Zeus as in Aeschylus' scheme of things. Giving full freedom to Jupiter would amount to admit absolute tyranny. Aeschylus holds Prometheus sinful for transferring unde^^^^ved powers to mankind out of his excessive love for them, in addition to his defiance of Zeus's supremacy. But, Shelley locates all power and divinity in the h\jnan spirit to reliquish any of vAiich remains man' s essential sin. Therefore, in Shelleyan version of the myth, Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfection of intellectual and moral nature, impelled by the purest -and the 261

truest motives to the best and noblest ends".^ In such a background of recast and inversion of Aeschylus' myth, the mythopoeic drama of Shelley focuses on the sole end of elimina ting evil from the himan nature and society v^iich is where the poem starts assuming the social and political dimensions. Under the impression of man's perfectibility Shelley believed, Mary Shelley tells us, "that evil is not inherent in the system of the creation, but an accident that might be expelled .... Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no evil, and there would be none .... that man could be so -oerfec- tionized as to be able to expel evil from his own nature, and from the greater part of the creation, was the cardinal point of his system." Although Shelley defends himself by saying that he dedicated his "poetical composition solely to the direct enforcement of reform"''' his "passion for reforming the world" is in no sense subdued in this philosophical mythopoeic drama as well. Himself he corroborates this view while writing about the completion of the first Act of Pyojqetheus Unbound^ as he says, "I consider poetry subordinate to moral and political science, and If I were well, certainly I should aspire to the latter; for I can conceive a great work, embodying the discoveries of old ages, and harmonizing the contending creeds by which mankind have been o ruled. "° On poetical and philosophical levels he seems to under take the same task in Prometheus Unbound. 262

The poem opens with the description of the unbearable sufferings of Prometheus, the benefactor, as he is chained to a bleak precipice in the Indian Caucasus and undergoing his age long torture, ^e must endure endless \K>Q until Demogorgon is activated to cause the fall of Jupiter, the omnipotent ruling tyrant, and Hercules releases Prometheus to be reunited with Asia and retire to a cave. At the very outset we are confronted with the question of real Being, as to in vAxat capacity Jupiter rules over the world, in vAiat sense D©nogorgon is his creator and superior to him and •vAiat is the power called Demogorgon. A little pondering over the issue, even though the dramatic action is so laden with philosophic meaning, may help solve the pproblem. Prometheus, unlike viiat many say, does not seem to be Man, but he is the entire being, the experimental aspect of the existing reality. He is the eternal Sole Intelligence or One Mind, of \diich humans are non-eternal portions that are bound by ttie illusions of Time, Chance, Occasion and Change etc. Jupiter appears to be the distorted projection of the same all-irxilusive Intelligence, and Demogorgon is the realm of infinite possibilities vAience every thing flows into actuality or being of time and space and to which returns, ^t has to be seen how by miscalcula tion and unnatural actions the One Mind, Prometheus, brings upon itself numerous ills •vrtiich chain the modified partial manifesta tions of One Mind, the humans, in numberless social and political evils. 263

The good sense, Prometheus, made efforts on various occasions to make its will prevail and eradicate every form of tyranny. But, its own shadow or distorted pro;)eotion outran its effort by asserting itself and suppressed the 'will' of One Mind, the purest sense, on all occasions. The good sense does rx3t come from without and is not a superimposition on the human mind, but it rises from within the cavernous depths of the human mind. The • all-enduring will' (I. 11^) of the Titan arose .-frcxn within the bosom of the earth 'like a cloud/ Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy'1 (I. 157-58) The rising cloud was proceeding towards building an atmosphere around the earth from which it had flown out. It symbolically suggests that an end to all tyranny and o-ppression was approaching, but at the last moment 'The falsehood and the force of him v^o reigns/ Supreme" (I. 127-28) and Jove's 'fierce omnipotence', (I. 1i5) implying the negative aspect of human nature, prevailed and did not let the positive side prevail. Realising the threat to his supremacy by the rise of the good sense, Jove reacted tyrannically against his own Creator and chained him to suffer tortures. The earth laments the same :

And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust. And one almighty Tyrant with fierce dread Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here. (I. 159-62) 2G4

Its only consequence was to be that the entire evil-ridden universe fell into greatest catasli^orh of all the times. It rolled in agony and burned and was shaken up badly by a strong Q tempest. In the grief-stricken atmosphere, mankind suffered from all sorts of miseries like famine, plague, disease etc. Tyranrty and hatred do not exist independently. They exist only as shadows of love and justice, in case of the weakening of which the shadow grows darker, Jupiter also exists independently and exercises his evil and destructive power only because Prometheus let it be so;

Although Jupiter has been branded as the most notorious agency in the world, 'Foul Tyrant of both Gods and Human kind'(I. 261+), he is not capable of nrevailing independently upon the will of Prometheus. It is ^ secret for not revealing which the Titan is chained.

'One only being shalt thou not subdue' (I. 265)

It is the same invincible 'will' which would brinp about the ultimate overthrow of Jove. A deeply ironical example 2Gn

of It is that Jupiter, at the will of Prometheus, in his phantasm, pronounces the curse against himself, vhich none else d

Rain then thy plagues upon me here. Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear; And let alternate frost and fire Eat into me, and be thine ire Lightsing, and cutting hail, and legioned forms. Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms. I. 266-71)

Such is the distorting and disparaging power vdio comnands the respects and obedience of the common masses and has been busy blasting them and inflicting on them all pain. Its 'malignant spirit' is moving over all things filling the earth with woe and agony and 'To viiom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow/ In fear and worship'. (1.(28^85) The Titan volcanically breathed his curse upon Jove for his destruction and envisages a time vAien the obnoxious hold of 'all-prevailing foe' will weaken and his •"Infinity shall be/ A robe of envenomed agony" (I. 208-9) and his "Omnipotence a crown of pain,Ao cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain" (I. 290-91), yet Jove has flourished and will ever do so under the same curse until it was withdrawn.

Though now thou sittest, let the hour Come, \Adien thou must appear to be 2G6

That which thou art internally; Ani after many a false and fruitless crime Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time. (I. 297-301)

Shelley regards all forms and shat)es of social and T)olitical evils to be various manifestations and shades of one c- ntrcl evil, Jupiter, vhich sticks to the minds of many as the basic concept of God to mould their actions accordingly, ^his very 'concept' has been responsible for causing recurring bloodsheds and protracted enslavement of htman beings. Time stands witness to it. The Spirit of the Hour alludes to the same in its long speech towards the end of the third Act :

And those foul shapes, abhorred by God and man, — v^ich, under many a name and many a form Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable. Where Jupiter, the Tyrant of the world; And which the nations, panic-stricken, served With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless, And slain amid men's reclaiming tears, (III. IV. 180-87)

The shadow of One Mind (Jupiter the God) demanis total obedience and surrender of all to him. He is not agreeable to anything less than that. Through Mercury he seeks of Promethetis to submit the 'secret' known to him alone and thus eschew his wrath :

... 1 tiiere is a secret known To thee, and to none else of living things, 2G7

which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven, The fear of which perplexes the Supreme: Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne In intercession; ... (I. 371-76)

The submission to God is not sought through love or sympathy but fear, hatred etc. symbolised by hell. Even before coming to the point Mercury had already mentioned the powers of the •Torturer' armed "With tiie strange might of unimagined pains" to "scheme slow agonies in Hell" (I. 365-67) Kercury is commissioned to direct all those intensified pains unto Prometheus. It suggests that unlessZbow to him in blind submi ssion, Jove never withdraws from tormenting him beyond all limits, Mercury, therefore, asks Prometheus "to blend thy soul in prayer", (I. 376) and

'Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart: For benefits and mee--'- submission tame' The fiercest and the mightiest, I. 378-80)

But Prometheus would not divulge that 'secret' to Jupiter, as it would ensure both the tyrannical spremacy of Jupiter and eternal enslavement of mankind. In two ways Shelley deviates here from Aeschylus' legend: the secret has nov^ere been worded and Prometheus never submits, whereas in Aeschylus secret is 2G8

vorded and Prometheus humbles himself by subirdttirg. Determined not to submit his 'will' which \vDuld ultimately cause Jupiter's overthrow, he draws Mercury's attention to the fact that

Evil minds Change good to their own nature. I gave all He has; and in return he chains me here Years, ages, night and day '• .... (I. ^^1-80

He believes that all the social and political evil flows from this very surrender to the shadow of 'Good', the fountainhead of evils. ^That is why, he chooses to suffer and not to sxirrender. Each and every object echoes the great misery of Prometheus to the extent that it seems as if the entire universe is filled with only one thing, misery. Under the omnipotence of the false God, Jove, everything has vanished or lost its individual significance. Only the 'will' of One Mind can check the excesses of its dark shadow. Only good sense can expose his falsehood and relieve the wrongfully enslaved humankind througli its deter mination for not to submit; Prometheus says

.... me alone, vAio checked, The falsehood and the force of him \*io reigns Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves Fills your dim glens and liquid wilderness: (I. 125-29) From the shadow of One Mind nothing can flow but agony, tyranny , pain etc. and from One Mind flows only good sense, kindness and 2G9

wisdom.''^ The entire paraphernalia of Jove, Mercury, tempest- walking hoimds and furies are all his supportlnp apents, through \,;ha.-he efficiently inflicts tortures upon mankind represented in Prometheus, '^he delight of furies at the idea of torturing the bound Prometheus knowns no bounds.

The hope of torturing him smells like a heap Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle I. BBV-fO)

Furies, failing to inflict the desired pain, are scolded back by Kercury, 'Jove's vrorid-wandering herald' (I. 325) to gnash their foodless teeth beside the streams of fire and wail, so as to enable themselves to take the deepest bite. The she summons more efficient Geryon, Gorgon, Chimaera and Sphinx, who are the subtlest of fiends to perform the task of inflicting the severest pain on the helpless mankind. Indirectly Shelley condemns the utterly unjustiMable and gruesome practices carried on in the name of the false God by its many self-appointed lieutenants. If the situation has to be interpreted in the absolute political terms we may quote Cameron who holds that 'Furies' stand for "all the satellites and agents of court and state by means of which —as well as by its armies —- the ruling aristocratic class kept itself in power".''^

Shelley entertains no doubts about the fact that the sufferings of mankind had to last as long as the subservience to 270

false God Is not relinquished. Prometheus is ready to suffer and wait until the rule of Jove comes to an end. He seems to have gone above desire or fear vhlch has enabled him to bear so steadfastly and patiently the uncountable 'years to come of pain' which 'last while Jove must reign: nor more, nor less/ Do I desire or fear', (I. h^5-^^) and he proclaims: 'I would not quit/ This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains'. (I. ^26-2?) Instead of giving in to the oppression, Prometheus gets more and more determined and challenges Furies to pour out whatever miseries they have in their possession : 'I laugh your power, and his who sent you here,/ To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain'. (1. ^73-7^) To all the new ho yfel's he responds only thus :

'Pain is my element, as hate is thine; You rend me now : I care not' (I. ^77-78) and 'I w igh not what ye do. but vAiat ye suffer. Being evil. Cruel was the power which called You, or aught else so wretched, into light. I. 1+80-82) Such a steadfastness and invincibility originates in the righteous ness of his cause. His superiority lies in his being the master of himself, vrtiereas the Furies etc, are mere slaves.

Shelley's belief in tiie perfectibility of nature is so great that he is not ready to admit the subservience of the human 271

soul never extinguishes, although it may fade and grow dim for the time being under the shadow of some adversity :

All else had been subdued to me; alone The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reDroach, and doubt, And lamentation, and reluctant prayer. Hurling up insurrection, ... (III. i. 5-8)

The spirit of doubt in man rescues him from total or permanent subservience and urges him on disobedience to and rebellion against all superimposed false concents of God. Jupiter wonders as to how even 'eldest faith' and 'hell's coeval, fear' (Ill.i.lO) could not successfully contain the rebellious man and his spirits of doubt. Despite all his efforts to crush the soul of man, he 'yet remains supreme over misery,/ Aspiring, unrepressed' (III. i. 16-17) In Shelley's opinion, therefore, tyranny and oppressive rule flourishes only on tiie strength of terror, cruelty, st^jpression etc. with special thrust on snatching away the humanness from man, and bannishing sympathy or love.

As to the question vho is the real centre of power in the imiverse if not J\;5Diter, Shelley takes recourse to a sll^tly unconventional answer. It is in his opinion Demogorgon, the Imageless, Shapeless, dormant darkness, viiom he visualises as timeless and spaceless realm of infinite potentialities, in which every thing has its origin and existence, but viiich is neither a 272

Creator mr created. This might be explained probably in the light of his belief in the non-duality of mind and matter and 'thought' being the soul reality, a belief v*iich absorbed his attention even after v;riting Mont Blanc in 1816, In the light of the role played by Demogorgon and Jupiter it seems implausible to assume Demogorgon to be necessity as does Cameron who says, "(Demogorgon)' is not only necessity or Fate in a general sense but necessity in the special, semi-scientific sense given to the concept by Godvdn and Hime", 17' It is notDemogorgon but Prometheus ;p±io can rightly be called the unflinching law of necessity through whom the potentialities become functional in the area of actuality. However, he may be justified in pointing out about Jupiter that "In terms of political allegory ... as distinguished from the gneral social allegory, he represents not just tyranny but the tyrannical rule of Netternich, Castlereagh, and their satellites, and tyranny of the Holy Alliance, to the overthrow of 18 which Shelley looked forward". The awareness of Demogorgon, even though a non-experiential reality because it lacks any resemblance, can be activated and achieved only through love. Asia, tiie symbol of generative love, and Panthea's descending to the depths of abyss is suggestive of the mystical experience of deepest concentration and meditation for knowing the reality of the self and external objects. It also suggests that in Shelley, Reality lies 'within' and is not superimposed from without. It is not external to the nature of man but emerges from within the core of his Self, the location of divinity. It is in other words 273

the essence of the existence. Asia approaches the cave of Demogorgon following the echoes not radiating from it but withdrawing into it, Demogorgon, the ultimate reality, has no resemblance vdiatever with tiie time, space or fate-bound existence, and so cannot be described in words or grasped by sensory experience. It is only an intuitive realisation. Panthea could speak only thus about this reality :

I see a mighty darkness Filling ttie seat of power, and rays on gloom Dart round, as light from the meridian sun. Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is A living spirit. ( II.iv.2-7)

To the questions of ultimate value, put forth by Asia, like 'Who made the living world?* and 'Who made all/ That it contains ? Thought, passion, reason, will,/ Imagination ?' (II. iv. 8 S: 10-11), and the emotion of love, Deirogorgon responds by repeating the same answer 'God' and 'God: Almighty God* and 17 'Merciful God'. ' As to the question vAio created evils like terror, madness, dcrlme, remorse, abandoned hope, love turned to hate, self-contempt, pain. Hell, and sharp fear of Hell, Demogorgon vaguely says 'He reigns'. The answer may appear to be evasive on the surface viiich it is far from being. In peculiar Shelleyan style, Demogorgon makes it clear that all good rests in God, a non-being, and evil is generated by the shadow of the Being cast upon itself which can be cast aside only by the exercise of free 274

will along the principle of love and forgiveness. The atJBarent vagueness of his answer owes to the fact that "the Primal Ftower of ttie world"^° cannot be imagined, no name or shaDe could be ascribed to it. This willless, thoughtless, passionless "mighty darkness" of the "living Spirit" ^ appears to have no resemblance with the mind of an anthropomorphic god because in Shelley's view "the basis of all things cannot be, as the popular philosophy alleges, mind, is sufficiently evident. Mind ,,., cannot create, it can only perceive. It is said also to be the cause. But cause is only a word expressing a certain state of human mind with regard to the manner in which two thoughts are apprehended to be related to each other ..,, It is infinitely improbable that the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar 20 to mindl' All things could be explained but 'the deep truth is imageless' (II, iv, 116), -i^he 'eternal love'is the only absolute truth. Even if 'Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change' (II, iv, 119) were to speak up, they would not be able to define truth because to them 'All things are subject but eternal love'. This is why, Denogorgon has not been able to name The Master of Jove, That it is a sort of mystical experience becomes quite obvious from Asia's reaction to the voice of Demogorgon which she felt to be 'the voice of her own heart, an echo within,^^ and so his answer seems to him not an alien or far-fetched idea.

That the fall of Jupiter com^s without any rx)tewrthy resistance should not make the passage look nore ^.^rtiiy. Since 275

the origin of all being is reactivated through love it vrauld withdraw the shadow of being (Jupiter) from the realm of actuality owing to which all forms of tyranny would vanish from the face of the earth. But, as hinted at earlier, such a doom to Jupiter ^•)Ould not be occasioned unless the principle of love SLipplants, in all its strength, the princiDle of hate; since, according to Shelley, free will is shown in right action arrl which acting evilly it is not free, an idea resembling that of Plotinus who holds : "Only \ihen our soul acts by its native pure and independent Reason - Principle can the act be described as ours and an exercise of Free-V/ill."22 xn accomplishment of evil there is the negation of freedom; it is an idea which Demogorgon also voices *• "All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil",(II. iv. 110-11) Jupiter flourished under the curse battered upon by the Titan until it is withdrawn by him, as is clear from the following lines :

The wringless, crawling hours, one among -vdiom — As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim Shall drag thee, cruel king, to kiss the blood From these Dale feet, which then might trample thee If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. Disdain I Ah no 1 I pity thee. 'vVhat ruin Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven ! How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror. Gape like a hell within 1 I speak in grief, Ifot exultation, for I hate no more, As then ere misery made me wise. The curse Once breathed on thee I would recall.

(I. ^-59) 276

The withdravjal of the curse activates the origin of things, :.'hoGe Demo go rgon,/.action immediately follows to dethrone Jupiter and wills (>pjhich amounts to be the mightiest command) him to relinquish thedomain: 'Descend, and follow me down the abyss", (III, i, 53-56) and "we must dwell together/ Henceforth in Darkness",^3 in this way, Demogorgon absorbs the evil incarnate, Jupiter, from the realm of actuality into the realm of poten tiality, that is his own self. It is beyond Jupiter's choice to disobey the commandment of Demogorgon, as none may exist indepen dently of his Grand will. Neither can any of its own potentia lities released into actuality may acquire so great power as to disregard or trample its own origin to the extent of disabling it to reassert itself. The same astonishes Jupiter : "Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prison/ I trample thee 1 thou lingerest ?" (in. ii. 62-63) It is ironic that the Tyrant who knew no mercy pleads for the same for the continuance of its own evil existence. Quite reluctantly, he agrees to sink (which he is bo\ind to) along with Demogorgon "on the wide waves of ruin" "Into a shoreless sea",^ with the lament s

Ai 1 Ai I The elements obey me not. I sink Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down. And, like a cloud, mine enemy above Darkens my fall with victory I Ai, Ai l (Act 111.1.^^0-81+) In the social and political context, the fall of Jupiter suggests the end of all tyranny based on the false notion of God, 277

the fountainiiead of all superstition, hate, envy, pride and fear. As mankind awakens to the universal principle of love and reason, the shadows of tyranny have to withdraw fast, as vAien the sun of knowledge shines, the shadows of superstition flee. It is not a superimposed reform but the change within man, symolised by the withdrawal of curse by Prometheus. It is the evolved form of the same philosophical basis vAiich finds only a/expression in Queen Mab, in which the emphasis is on social and political reform rather than on man's nature. Shelley has suggested that according to Demogorgon's mighty law of necessity, evil has to withdraw, while love prevails, to the realm of infinite potentialities to remain there in the form of an unannihilated potentiality. Demogorgon does not annihilate Jupiter but takes him away, which implies that evil always remains there in the form of potentiality wherefrom it for ever threatens to erupt again. But it may become functional only vrfien the intensity of love weakens. In the vrords of king-Hele "Jupiter's fall means reform's triumph. Prometheus represents the enligh tened thinkers of Shelley's day. Mercury the supine drudges in the pay of the governing class (Jupiter), and the Furies the sycophants who grow fat on the spoils of their master and lit off steam by persecuting reformers".

Be it in philosonhical or social and TX>litical context, the fall of JuT)iter, for Shelley, is not onlv an end of tyranny, but 278

also marks tlie beginning of the era of the attainment of the millenium. The chief characteristic of this era is its freedom from the concept of false God and the train of slavish and negative ideas flo'^ng from it. Shelley envisages a total withering of religion in the society of new man, \7hich was a faith 'dark yet mighty' and 'a power as wide/ As is the world it wasted'. (Ill, iv. 17^-75) In the post-Jovian era this concept would grow completely out of the hearts and minds of men, not overthrown 'but unregarded now*. (III. iv, 179) Its withering away would assure tiie deliverance of mankind from all social and political evils. The millenium will see a progressive and prosperous world free from God and his paraphernalia.

Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free, With tiie spirits ^^ich build a new earth and sea, And a heaven vdiere yet heaven could never be. (IV. 163-65)

Thus, Shelley casts aside the concept of the new era being externally imposed on man, it would emerge froir. inside his o\m mind and good sense. The night of godhead will be outspeeded by the spreading perfect, shadowless light of wisdom; a day :,rlthout night :

Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright, Leading the day and outspreading the Night, With the T)Owers of a world of perfect light. (IV. 166-6R) 279

Sich is the prevailing concept of God to which Shelley traces all the social and political ills and every form of tyranny and oppression. The sole aim of such a God is to deprive man of his 'will' , the only thing that he can't subdue, as it is most essential for the continuance of his tyrannical power. Men, even though they mip,ht have given in physically, have always ^'/^rn rebellious gesture against such a so-called divine demand and consequently have been put to severest tortures and miseries by the representative agencies of the false God. Prometheus, representing not only humans but the entire being, is enduring the wrath of Jove for the same. His wrath, along side inflicting heavy wounds on man, also upsets the natural harmony of the entire universe and makes it suffer on that account. But evil prevails only as long as man does not wish otherwise, as says prometheus;

Whilst me, vAio am thy foe, eyeless in hate. Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. (I. 9-11)

In his mad revenge, God, in v*iose name every wrone is justified on earth, has thrown upon mankind the heaps of social ills :

Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise. And toil, and hecatomb of broken hearts. With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. (I. 6-10) o 80

For the crime of refusing to share the ill-tyranny and relinquish his 'vrill' Prometheus, whose modified partial manifestation are the humans, hangs

Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, Insecr, or beast, or shape or sound of life. Ah me I alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! I. 20-2^)

Shelley implies that good shrinks away from tyrannical society, for even if it retains itself it is changed to evil because •Evil minds/ Change good to their own nature'. Every good for tyrannical Jove turns bad, vdio rewards Prometheus for all the powers he gave him by chaining him : 'I gave all/ He has; and in return he chains me here'. (I. 38I-82) In other words, good, unguarded by love, siiDt)orts tyranny and becomes its food. Un;5ust and tyrannical social and political system checks all progress and retains the society in deep stagnation. Only stagnation, monotony and persistent miseries have marked Prometheus' life. The disturbed and dlharmonized universe also observes and feels his agony, Koimtains, Earth, heaven and sea etc, share his t)ain, but being bound by the law of necessity further add to his miseries, Despite this, he has not given up hope in future when Spring will return to the world to stay permanently and he will no more be in pain.26

And yet to me welcome is day and night, Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn. 2B1

Or starry, dim and slow, the other climbs The leaden-coloured east; ... (r. 1+I4-I+7)

Tyranny instills fear in the minds of masses and terrorises those vjho are already 'convulsed -with fears', "^he air is 27 heavily laden with sighs, groans and sounds of pain. ' Proraetiieus' groan projects the greatest woe, for, according to the Second Voice

Never such a sound before To the Indian waves we bore because of which A pilot asleep on the hovrling sea Leaped up from the deck in agony, And heard, and cried, 'Ah, woe is me 1' Ajnd died as mad as the wild waves be.

(I. 93-98)

Tyrants are not content with vAiatever miseries they rain upon mankind assisted by their sycophants and naid agents and priests etc., unless man suttnits his will, the real human self. Tyrants do this in their following the model of God, the Jupiter. The 'all-miscreatlve brain of Jove' (I. M+8) has filled the 'monster teeming Hell' (I. M+7) with horrible forms for the sair.e purpose; furies are some of them, •^^e makes a similar point in "A Philoso phical View of Reform : "From the dissolution of the Roman Empire, that vast and successful scheme for the enslavinp of the most civilized portion of mankind, to the epoch of the present year 282

âve succeded a series oT schemes on a snâller scale, operating to the sanie effect. Names borrowed from the life and opinions of Jesus Christ were eir.ployed as symbols o'' domingtion and imposture, and a system of liberty and equality (for such v/as the syster. preached by that great Reformer) v.'as perverted to supTX)rt oppression —not his doctrines, for thev arr- too simple and direct to be susceptible of such perversion, but the mere names. 3uch was the origin of the Catholic Church, which, together with the several dynasties then beginning to consolidate themselves in Europe, means, being interpreted, a plan according to \îch the cunning and selfish few have employed the fears and hopes of the ignorant many to the establishment of their own power and titie destruction of the real interest of all". By making the human beings experience pain, fear, disappointment, mistrust, hate and (rime through his agents, he seeks their humble submission to his tyrannical power and their eternal subservience. On the strength of such excuses only the concept of God thrives, as hinted by the First Fury :

We are the ministers of pain, and fear, And disappointment, and mistrust and hate. And clinging crime; and lean dogs pursue Through vrood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn. We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live, When the great king betrays them to our will.

I. ^52-^7) 283

This Is \-hy Shelley abhorrs the name of God which appears to him to be a combination of various evils : ' Oh I many fearful natures in one name'. (I. h'^P) The 'Chorus of Furies' brin^is forth all the social evils which are ordered to be showered on earth by Jove, whose rule depends on the spread of such rr.iseries. At the bid of Jove, Furies summon up those spirits which would fill the earth with horrors :

Come, come come ! Oh, ye Â?ho shake hills with the scream of your mirth, 'iên cities howling in ruin; and ye Who with wingles footsteps trample the sea. And close upon shipwreck and Famine's track, ît chattering with joy on the foodless wreck p" I. ^97-502)

The Furies also announce to implant hatred, self-contempt and misery in the hearts in such a way that they must forever reiriain there, (I, 506-16) Furies' performance would remain unaccomplished unless these social evils should also accompany them vAiich flourish only when hatred, self-contempt and misery are widespread. If fury also is added to them, their effect mutltiplies enormously which, in the matter of consequence, destroys the entire society and compells the entire mankind to the supremacy of Jupiter,^

In thoughtlessness and lack of knwoledge and wisdom lies mankind's eternal doom, which prepares man's mind to humble submission. Shelley finds the solution to the problem in not 284

bowing to the blind force of faith but to keep oneself awake. The day the mankind lets the spark within man extinguish by divorcing thinking and wisdom, it will put an end to the freedom of man's spirit.

Submission, Thou dosfiio.-; I cannot try: For vrtiat submission but that fatal word, The death-seal of mankind's captivity.

It is through ever-growing wisdom acquired during protracted patient suffering that Prometheus does not disdain his adversary any more but pities him, as the realisation comes to him that Jupiter's actions are indirectly directed against his own self, "Disdain I Ah no 1 I pity thee", (I. 53) and "The curse/ Once breathed on thee I would recall", (I. 58-9) It is owing to his wisdom that he withdraws the 'curse' so as to activate Demogorgon to put and end to Jupiter's rule. In this way, Shelley conceives philosophically that the millenium could be reached only through wisdom and not through ignorance as it had been in the earliest times.

Than the external factors like 'blood', 'fire', and 'groans', more dangerous Shelley considers the internal evilg of man which deprive him of the ability to think in terms of overthrowing the reign of terror and oppression. 'In each human heart terror survives' and also 'the loftiest fear' (I. 618-19), along with which Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. (I. 621-22) 285

Different forms of worship strengthen the effect of custom and hypocrisy of further damaging man's will, as they are based on tiie practices of bowing the head and lying supine with folded hands like slaves. All such factors combiningly weaken the 'will' to an extent where they tend to lose all courage not only to do anything good for man, but also lack the knowledge of their miserable state s

They dare not devise good for man's estate And yet they know not that they do not dare. (I. 623-2lf)

A state of confusion blocks their sense of discrimination between good and bad which further deteriorates the situation. The good persons run after power 'but to run barren tears'. The powerful persons want goodness which is 'worse need for them'. The wise persons long for love and 'those who love want wisdom', and 'All best things are thus confused to ill'.^'' As the only unfortunate consequence, many persons who have nower and wealth and 'would be just' have worn utter non-chalance and demonstrate devil-may-care attitude, and

.... live among their suffering fellow men As if wne felt: they know not v*iat they do (I. 630-31) Confusion is also exploited as a vea.pon by Jupiter, represen tative of earthly tyrants, to counter the human virtues of seeing 286

and beholding guided by v^ich down-trodden nations raise their mighty and confid<=^nt voice for the achievement of 'Truth, liberty, and love', but Jove could not tolerate this and Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear: (I. 652-53)

These three negative factors tore ut) the entire human society and shattered all their dreams

Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil This was the shadow of the truth I saw. (I.65V-55)

Along with laving the basis of the social and ijolitical themes like tyranny, fraud, deceit, cruelty, injustice etc. on the philosophical concept of God, Shelley considers the problem of universal harmony and love in the philosophical perspective of time. Donogorgon makes it clear, though indirectly, that the world of 'Light and Love' was originally shaped by God Prometheus, the One Mind, and the Purest Good.^^ Philosophically, Shelley makes an allusion to the earliest state of innocerce when the world, or the entire existence, rested in the form of potentiality in its Originator, all love and light. But, Saturn's action caused the release of this potentiality into actuality viiere the sequential succession of event and their inter-relationships are named time. 287

which made everything subject to its deadening and decaying effect.

.... Then Saturn, from A^ose throne Time fell, an envious shadow t (II.iv. 33-3^)

Time is the most envious of all beauty and love, the latter though he cannot subdue, I'he world was withered by Time just as flowers are withered by Sun or wind or 'semivital worms'. Time usurped the individuality of man whence flows his knov/ledge ana power and denied the very existence of being and the power that pervades through it.

... he refused The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, The skill which wields the elements, the thought 'lAnilch piercer the dim universe like light, Self-empire, and the majesty of love; For thirst of which they fainted. (II. iv. 38-^3)

Nothing could hold the reign of time but wisdom, 'which is strength' guided by Love. So, man's wisdom, \

sUTDTDOsed to be based on love, proved the greatest misery of all the time for the mankind. Prometheus armed Jupiter, its ovm shadow, with the strength of wisdom, and 'Clothed him with t-he dominion of. wide Heaven' (II. iv. 96), to implement only one law 'Let man be free'. Since unguided by the principle of love, he unleashed a reign of terror upon maricind by showering all possible rr.iseries and nains to pray ijpon them, Jupiter knew 'nor faith, r»r love, nor law', as for him 'to be omnipotent but fViendless is to feign'. (II.iv. h7-hS) Philosophically, Shelley infers thus that wisdom or strength or mere good are exploited by tyranny to its own mean end, unless protected and guided by love. Love and wisdoc both are essential pre-requisites to overthrow tyranny, v^ich cannot be dispensed with at any stage. The absence of one nullifies the other. Sometimes, it may happen that the ignorant human-slaves of Jove start discarding wisdom, mildness, loftiness and justice, They are 'hunted by foul lies from their heart's home,/ An early chosen, late-lamented home' (I. 607-03) Such unfortunate poor simpletons do not know that the fire they are buildinp will burn down their own homes with themselves in.

I'/hose sons are kneaded down in common blood By tile red light of their own burning homes. (I. 6^k-^5)

Under the compulsions from tyrannical onslaughts, men usually react by withdrawing within the shells of inactivity, suhnission, 289

indifference and inertness. As soon as the unfriendly, faithless and loveless Jupiter took over, the human race started experiencing 'famine', 'toil', 'disease', 'strife', 'wound', and 'ghastly death unseen before' fell on them. Frost and fire coming; do\-m. unseasonably drove the Dale mankind to take shelter in caves.-^-^ Hie opposite syn:bols of 'frost' and 'fire' siiggest both an utter loss of equilibrium in the natural harmony and, at the same time, social hardships and political upheavals vjhich compelled large sections to escape to survive and detach themselves from the happenings around. Here Shelley regards tlie human existence as the nr)st ma^or comr)onent of the universal whole, vnose mental attitudes v.'ield their influence not only on tiie social and political organisation but the entire universe receives and reacts under its impact. Ilis 'will' has a great role to nlav in maintaining the balance of the natural harmony. Religion puts in the hearts of the human-slaves strange and unreal desires to further torture and tease them. It also gives then 'mad disquietudes, and shadov/s idle/ Of unreal good, \diich levied mutual war' (II.iv. 56-7) In this way, Juniter succeeds in 'ruininjr the lair wherein they raged'. (II.iv,58). But, according to the law of necessity, by v/hich One Mind functions, one state of affairs follows the other and thesis produces from within itself its anti-thesis. Through sufferings and tortures man learns wisdom, a light to discover the principle of love. so

Growing viser under the volley of torments, Prometheus irouses in man tiie sensibilities and capabilities to counter the tyrannical actions of Jove. Therefore, he 'walced the le.c;ioned hopes' (II. iv. 59) whidi shelter themselves under the petals of the beautiful flowers (or wishful notions) so as to avoid the 'shape of Death'. He also sent Love "to bind/ The diunlted terrlrils of that vine/Which bears the wine of life, the human heart'. (II. iv. 65) He also gave man reason and wisdom to exploit all the objects of nature to the benefit of the entire manklirL. -^'he enlightened man harnessed fire and 'tortured to his will/ Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power'. He explored 'all subtlest forms/ Hidden beneath the moimtalns and the waves'. He gave him speech and thought, 'the measure of the universe', and 'Science struck the thrones of earth and Heaven'. rule All such powers enabled man to behave like God and/over the universe.-^ (II. iv, 80-100) Since Prometheus wished, through reason and wisdom, to reinstate man to his original status of a free being, the tyranny felt threatened and reacting hastily punished Prometheus, the source of wisdom and love.

Such, the alleviations of his state, Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs Withering in destined pain. (II. iv. 98-100) In the very midst of man's glorious vision of himself, bestoi^ed upon by Prometheus, Jupiter seeks to drive man onto 'The wreck 291

of his own will' so that he becomes 'the scorn of earth,/ The outcast, the abandoned, the alone'. (II. iv. 10^-05) From among the masses of the same type, shrewd tyrants spot some such slaves as are mean enough to carry out their orders of slaying their own brethren, particularly those who are striving and sacrificing to restore the freedom and manhood of the humanity. Itot only this, but they vie with each other in order to demonstrate greater efficiency in this gruesome task, and establish their shameful loyalty to the tyrants. Owing to this the shapes of death and many other ghastly sights commonly wander in the human society vdiich is 'too foul to speak and live'. And groans of hxoman grief have laden the atmosphere. The presence of treachery in society has reduced the slaughtering of human beings to a trivial matter as they "were slowly killed by frowns and smile",-^ or in other words, a change of facial expressions or drawing the eyebrows or smacking of lips by the tyrant was a sufficient sign to start a massacre.

Along with tyrants the religious authorities also react sharply to the spread of knowledge, awakening, hope, love, doubt and desire, only because they see in it an end to their faith. These factors heighten and ennoble the good sense of man which makes him relinquish his blind faith, thus, turning the wheel of history to non-belief in God. This is also one of the crimes for which Prometheus is being punished : 292

Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou vraken'dst for man ? Then v/as kindled within him a thirst which outran Those perishing wasters; a thirst of fierce fever, Hope, love, doubt, desire, which cons^jme him for ever. (I. 5^2-^5)

Prometheus is also advised to learn a lesson from the fact that all earlier efforts made towards the achievement; of the goal he proposes miserably failed. It is the pre-destined doom which his effort can also not escape, and so he must give up his useless invincibility :

Past ages crowd on tiiee, but each one remembers. And the future is dark, and the present is spread like a Dillow of thorns for thy slumber less head (I. 561-63)

In this way, Shelley bases his idea of social and political change on the philosophical concept of knov/ledge and wisdom.

The social scene in the poem dramatically and radically changes from viiat it had been after tiie fall of the Tyrant Jupiter through activating the principle of love by Prometheus' withdrawal of the curse under which Jupiter evilly flourished. According to the law of necessity, Jupiter had to recede inevitably to the background after love was released into actuality by Demogorgon because one compells the other out. Such an overthrow of tyranny 293

cannot meet the type of failure as did the French Revolution, because Love comes to the full swinj^ immediately after Jupiter's fall (which was not the case about the former) , marked symboli cally by Promietheus' reunion with Asia, the generative love, who proceed to dwell for ever together. And thus well aunurs the new post-Jovian era of prosperity and happiness, -ot only human beings have a reason to rejoice, but the entire universe celebra tes the occasion as Its long-disturbed harmony is restored to it once again, never to be upset in future. Ocean expresses its happiness by declaring that no social and TDolitical evils now would cause bloody upheavals in the world. No innocent human would be slughtered now, and Spring \-JOuld never leave the earth :

... my streams will flow Hound many peopled continents, and round •"^ortunate isles; (III. ii. 21-23)

Kisery, cries, tjain, desolation, and tortiores will vanish. Shelley v.'ill also wither up as its source religion would vanish, and all human beings would be equal and only ecstatic joy would prevail:-^

,., but by the light Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours, And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices. And sweetest music, such as spirits love (III. il. V-3^) 294

Appolo also rejoices that now his mind would be free from sorrow 'as eclipse darkens the sphere I guide'. (III. ii. 35-^) According to Shelley's philosophical view, the earlier efforts to reform had failed because they were motivated by hatred or revenge. Evil begets evil, and no good. In the poem, the revengeful youth >dio bore the torch of hope, the emblem of Prometheus, generally failed to bear this lami) across the grave, but Prometheus, through love, has been able to bear it aloft 'nost triumphantly/ To this far goal of time'.^'^ClII.iii. 17lf) This love gets expression through the image of generative love, Asia, at vrtiose sweetest, long, loud sound, v*iich shook the entire town, the breathing earth felt its bosom cleared of all poison, envy, hate, and antagonism. Under the effect of that sound of love, saw the mother eartii, all social ugliness started Vanishing; all the agencies generating pain disappeared into the air ... and soon Those ugly htnnan shapes and visages Of ^^ich I spoke as having wrought me Dain, Passed floating through the air, and fading still Into the winds that scattered them; III. iv. 6^68)

AS the harmony of the universe was restored, the other living beings also underwent a massive transformations. All poisonous and harmful creatures lost their poison and harm with some little change of shape or hue. 'All things had put thler evil nature off, 2B5

at vAiich the Spirit's joy knew no bounds. Responding to the 'happiest change of all' ,^^ the Spirit of the Earth emerges from its hiding where it had been for long in self-exile because its surface was thronged by all sorts of evil-producing beings :

Thous knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathy ^^rorms, And venomous and malicious beasts, and

In such a background of rejoicing, the horrible sight of enslaved human beings is no less abominable who had hard stony looks ard spread hatred and struck fear into the hearts of common folk. They filled the social scene with cruelty, indifference, false and hollow smiles, dull-headed ness, ignorance generated by self-love, hypocrisy, ill thoughts etc. All these social evils hid the real spirit of man (the original human consciousness) under many heavy masks and never let it emerge and be operative. Women also shared these evils with men, v*io are fair and can be best in sincerity and conduct if they are good and kind. But, without these qualities, they turn 'ugliest of all things evil'. The Spirit of the Earth detests to pass by such women vAio are false or angry in mood, even if they are asleep.-^^ But all these are passing through a metamoi^tiosis in the new era. The change is so great and extensive that it makes even the most 296

common social evils, like lies and sneers, extinct in the new era of freedorc and wisdom.

None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines •;/hich smiled the lie his tonpue disdained to spea'<;; Ifene, with firm sneer, taxf'd oiit in his'o'.-m heart The sparks of love and hot)e ... (III. iv. 1^2-^5';

The 'common, false, cold, hollow talk' also stopped as none liked to behave hypocrite. As a result of all this, Shelley shows, an unmatched ecstasy prevailing over the universe v^ich sways ti-ie entire 'being' or existense with the waves of its radiation. The 'Voice of unseen Spirits' reflects the same.^ The hours recall in their Semichorous^^ that during their sleep, that is separation from eternity and journey through actuality, they heard the lute of Hope in sleep and knew the voice of love in dreams and also felt the wand of DOwer. By this Shelley philosophically suggests that the constituents of human nature like hone and love never extinguish but recede from actioality to potentiality in which form tiiey retain their existence during the journey of time. They lie hidden like sparks and embers in ashes from which tiiey iiine sporadically. Shelley believes in complete harmony between the human mind and the externally scattered objects of nature, as both of them exist in One Being, Prometheus, and are infused with the same Intelligence, both of 297

\vhlch originate in the sair.e Demogorgon. The perfect .ioy and Deace, even on the social and political plane, will be a consequence of the achievement of the same hamiony on the level of actuality. The same has been hinted at by the Spirit of the Human Mind in the poem :

We join tiie throng Of the dance and the song, By the vdiirlwind of gladness borne along;. As the flying-fish leap, From the Indian deep, And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep. (IV. 83-88)

It has been noted earlier that Shelley has discarded the ver^' concept of superimposed 'heaven', 'atmosphere' , or even happiness. He locates the origin of all things in the centre of the earth, v;h ere from everything emerges to form the atmosphere around earth. The 'above' he associates with tyranny, that is v^y he cherishes a heavenless heaven, 'a heaven where yet heaven could never be', (IV, 165) Therefore, the cavernous depths of human mind is the place >4ierefrom emerges an atmosphere in accordance with his will, just as the 'clouds' (a recurrent symbol of the poem) envelop the earth from vjhich they rise, Shelley visualises the loniversal human mind in two parts; ideal and actual. It is now 'an ocean/ Of clear emotion,/ A heaven of serene and mighty motion', (IV, 96-98) The latter is an ideal vision of mind 298

vhlch is reflected and paralleled by the ocean of clear emotion in space ani time. The ocean cannot produce the mirror image of the heavenly ideal because of its waVy surface :^ich distorts the image. Similarly, the mind bound by Time, fate, occasion, chance and change cannot be as serene, calrc and perfect as the mind free from these. But the effort continues to reflect ideal in actuality as much as possible. So, for Shelley, the ideal and the actual both exist within the human mind, and nothing is external to it, which envoys enormously after attaining harmony with nature, 'Sweet wisdom' also Mi. smiles on it, as now it is not hindered by dogma. Aesthetic sensibility also grows and 'Sculpture', 'Poesy', and 'Science', suggestive of man's sx:Q5er wisdom, also cone to the full swing.^^ The human eye has turned away from hatred and permanently focussed on 'love', the eternal bliss, 'which makes all its gazes on Paradise'. (IV, 128) The Spiriteof the Human Mind rejoice that the hardships they had undergone did not go waste. Ultimately, they did win the fight and their task was done. (IV. 135-36) They gained complete freedom to move in vAiatever direction they chose, as there are no hurdles and impediments in their path. The ever- cherished dream of human spirits has come true. Now they are

... free to dive, or soar, or run; Beyond or around. Or within the bound Vhich eclipse the world with darkness around (IV. l37-'+0) 299

All forms of adversity would flee from them

Death. Chaos, and Night, From the sound of our flight, Shall flee, like mist from a tempest s night, (IV. iifi+-U6)

The only powers accompanying the human spirits now are 'love, Thoi:jght, and Breath', the powers which 'quell Death'. The new world of man will be 'A world for the Spirits of Wisdom to wield', the task of building vAiich will be called 'Promethean '. U6

Since Shelley considers the entire universe as an existential entity, he cannot imagine peace within Chaos or Chaos within peace. These two things are not co-existent, rather they exist in opposing each other. Shelley conceives either complete peace or complete chaos. That is viiy, peace originating from the human mind affects the entire universe and leaves rothing in chaos. The social and political harmony is only an asr>ect of the imiversal harmony. The overflowing rapture that has wraniDed the entire f^lobe within itself does not escape the sense of Moon, the earth's satellite, which is equally sharing the Earth's experience. The moon appears as a symbol of unity, harmony, fellov7-feeling and transcendental love. The moon wonders as to why ... passeth v/ith the warmth of flame, With love, and odour, and deer melody Through me, through me. (IV. 329-31) 300

In the midst of the mutual rejoicing of the Earth, the Koon, :ione ard Panthea etc. and their exchanging love-notes air.ong themselves, Demogorgon emerges out of the abysmal det^ths of the Earth to confirm all their achievements. He announces that this is the day for the destruction of Heaven's desiDotism; Love has powerfully sprung up from its throne of patient power to fold over the world its healing wings; gentleness, virtue, wisdom and endurance have also joined hands to deal firmly with destruction; and knowledge and wisdom are going to be freed in eternity. And that to suffer, to strive, to hope, to love, to defy tyranny, and not to change, falter or repent, are in fact the qualities of Titan, who is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; , This is alone life, Joy, Empire and Victory.^-^ (IV. 577-78)

The theme of Love has already figured in the course of the above discussion, yet a few more specific references from the poem may add to the effect of the argument. Through wisdom, learned during the heights of suffering and pain, Prometheus realises the greatest significance of love as the only principle of universal harmony in the universe without v*iich everything is vain and useless. But, at the same time, he also realises that the achievement of it requires an equally great effort as Love 301

remains a far goal of Time :

.... and yet I feel Kost vain all hope but love; and thou art far, Asia ! ... (I. 8OI+-O5)

Even after having been released, the transformed Prometheus thinks only in terms of love, not hate or revenge, through vhich he v/ants to explore hidden thoughts, vAiich are lovely in all respects.

And we will search, with looks and words of love, ^or hidden thou^ts, each lovelier than the last, Our unexhausted spirits, ... (III. iii. 3^36)

In the second Act, the dreamy scene of the break of morning, suggesting symbolically the passing off of the era of misery and the beginning of the new era, takes place at the note of love. Panthea's mingling with Titan on the emotional level in the second dream is also a deep experience of love. Panthea, 'vjhose footsteps pave the \«>rld/With loveliness', (II.i.68-69) lifts eyes on request by Titan :

... the overpowering light Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er By love; \Aiich from his soft and flowing limbs. And passion-Darted lips, and keen, faint eyes. Steamed fortti like vaporous fire; ... (II. i. 71-75) 302

Thus, the first and basic principle of harmony, love, becomes functional :

His presence flow and mingle through my blood Till it became his life, and his grew mine, And I was thus absorbed. I. i, 80-82)

In Shelley's opinion, beyond the mundane or erperiential level of life v*iich is surrounded by birth and death, there is a realm of pure ecstasy, devoid of time and space, to v^ich only one name can be given i.e. 'Love*. Asia feels that after a long journey in time and space she has left behind the physical erperiences of life and ascended onto the Realm where the air we breathe is love. Which in the wind and on the waves doth move. Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above, (II. V. 95-97)

The perfect calm and peace prevailing in the Promethean era will not be a consequence of fear and threats, but a by product of all-prevailir^ love and harmony :

We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere, Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds a r. Dear From its chaos made by love, not fear.

(IV. 169-71) 303

Here we are reminded of the remark of Grabo about the same aspect, vAio says : •'Freedom for Prometheus and, symbolically for man lies only in the dominance of love over hate. ^Jhen love has relinquished revenge, vriien good has cast out evil, then the moral will is free. In love lies freedom; in hate, slavery. Therefore, Shelley seems to say, it is impossible to free ourselves from the slavery of institutions, traditions, creeds, and superstitions by hating them. They live in our hatred of them. V/hen we cease to hate them we can forget, and in our fogetftilness they die".

These beams of pure and utter delight bring about a great radical change in the atmos-nhere of the moon, ^he moon feels gratified that its long frozen snow melts into fountains, solid oceans also flow and sing and shine. At the same time, green 'stalks burst forth, and bri^t flowers grov:'. (IV, 6^-) It feels music resounding in its air and sea. The Moon realises that

'Tis love, all love I

Shelley does not approve of the attitude of pitying those who undergo pain to safeguard self-respect. To him those really deserve pity \iho give nv hope and fall s\:5)ine to the tyrants, because in so doing they debase themselves and fall to 304

the eternal shame and dishonour. Prometheus tells the same to Mercury v;ho pitied him :

Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, Ifot me, vdthin whose mind sits peace serene, As light in the sun, throned .... (I. 1+29-32)

Shelley prefers 'justice with pity' to 'punishment with vengeance'. Prometheus would not support crime by y/ielding to Jupiter. He would suffer until the hour of Justice approaches, It means vengeance with hatred is a crime ^•ihloh Shelley abhorrs. He prefers setting things right with a spirit of pity.

Or could I yield ? which yet I will not yield. Let others flatter crime, where it sits throned In brief Omnipotence : secure are they : (I. 14-00-02) and For justice, -viiea triumphant, will weep down Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs, Too much avenged by those ^»^o err. (I. 1+03-05)

'^he overall change after the release of Prometheus had an equal effect on woman also, •'•'he ugliness of their conduct and behaviour disappeared and they became as beautiful, kind and nice as they should be :

And women, too, frank, beautiful and kind As the free heaven v±iich rains fresh light and dew 305

On the wide earth. Dast; gentle radiant froms, From custom's evil taint exempt and t)ure; Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, (III. iv. 153-57)

Women also started harbouring the emotions which once they feared to feel. A radical change came about their mental personalities, "^ey became vAiat once they could not even isiagine to be. T.Vidergoing a complete transformation, they purified themselves from all pride, j'ealousy, envy and shame. Thereafter, love regained its lost purity, because these were the factors vriich made love bitter.

Through Prometheus, Shelley has projected highly moralistic and idealistic values. The protracted patient suffering of Prometheus sets the example of unmatchable high courage, without viiich patience cannot be. Prometheus, immortal as he is, cannot enjoy the peace of grave either during his suffering, even though 'grave hides all thirds beautiful and good'. (I, 639) In keeping with his own idealistic uriorities, he does not want to seek the refuge of grave, since this would amount to an escape and pronounce his defeat. He vjould endure all this till the time vdien Jupiter would have been defeated by Prometlieus' invincible will power and 'till the hour arrives/ 'vTaen they shall be no types of things which are'. (I. 6Uh-h5) Pursuing the receding sounds of spirits, Pathea and Asia reach 306

the pinnacle of a mo\mtain v*iere they find the fountainhead of all the high moralistic virttes. •It is the realir- of Demogorgon. This is tiie place which upthrows oracular vapour constituents of which are called truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy. The zealous youth during the prime of their life imbibe all these ideas and follow the thorny path of their achievement. The sole target of all their endeavo\ar is to uplift the downtrodden. These constituents make

Tha" maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain To deep intoxication; and uplift. Like Maenads who cry loud. Evoe ! Evoe I The voice which is contagion to the v;orld. (II. iii. 7-10)

In addition to the philosophical political thanes already discussed above, tiie subject of tyranny also figures at several places in the poem. With the strongest condemnation of tyranny, Shelley envisages it supplanted by universal love. Panthea looks on the ruins of the destroyed world and ponders over the great miseries inflicted upon humanity by tyrannical systems of governments. The beams of her memory flash on the melancholy ruins of all the agencies of destruction of tyranny :

Of cancelled cycles; anchors, lealis of ships; Plants turned to marble; quivers, helms ani spears, And gorgon-headed targes, and the ^eels Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry 307

Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, Round which deati"! la-oghed, sepulchred emblems Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin 1 (IV. 289-95)

Shelley considers war to be an inevitable product of tyranny. The first Spirit speaks about the tussle between Prometheus and his shadow Jupiter. The spirit fled fast on hearing a 'battle- trumpet's blast'. She sees the bahner of the Tyrant torn. She also hears the rising cries 'Freedom I Hope I Death ! Victory,' It suggests that the sacrifices of Prometheus v;ere not going in vain. The second spirit depicts how the battle is going on and how the crowds are striving hard against tvranny, ^

I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh : Kighty fleets were strewn like chaff And spread beneath a hell of death (I. 715-17)

The fifth Spirit also refers to spreading Ruin which had faded the illumination of hope and nroTjhecy. Great sages, zealous patriots and Dale youth perished :

And hollow Ruin yavmed behind : great sages bound in madness, And headless patriots, and pale youth who perished, unupbraiding, Gleamed in the night. ( I. 769-71)

Since tyranny flourishes on wars, Shelley recommends a total eradication of the same. In A Philosophical View of Reform he 308

writes : "If there had never been war, there could never have been tyranny in the world; tyrants take advantage of the mecha nical organization of armies to establish and defend their encroachments ... A sentiment of confidence in brute force and in a contempt of death and danger is considered as the highest virtue, whei in truth and however indispensable they are merely the means and the instruments, highly capable of being perverted to destroy the cause they were assumed to promote."''^ In the fourth act Shelley shows tyranny and war also withering away just like other social and political evils after the release of Prometheus and during the reign of Love. The thrones will become kingless. Neither any master will exist nor his subjects. The tyrant \f±ll become a victim of his own tyranny \^ich will push him to death.

Until the subject of a tyrant's will Became, worse fate, the abject of his own, ^//hich spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.

Under tiie changed political conditions all the sources of torture and tyranny are sealed, and as a result, tyranny stopped flowing down to humanity. The thrones, altars, judgement seats and prison houses which were meant to oppress humanity, stopped playing their ugly historical role. These agencies, which thrived on the human ignorance, anpear during the Promethean era like 'monstrous and barbaric shapes,/ The ghosts of a no-more 309

remembered fame'. (III. iv. I69) These very factors contributed to ths uprise of a faith which was as mighty as the wide world it wasted. NDW, they have been ^reserved in the T)ast history and no more threaten man. (III. iv. 17^)

rhe optimistic futvire thought constitutes the comr)le- mentary portion of Shelleyan vision. It has been a recurrent theme in tliis poetic drama also. As discussed above at length, Shelley envisages a perfect society in future based on the universal princiole of Love. To the same society we come across certain specific references in the poem, which serve to complete his vision here also. First, in the Chorus of Spirits we hear a prophecy about the glorious future. The Spirits are the guardians of 'heaven-oppressed' mortality. They keep a vigil on the human mind and tiiought in \-*iatever condition it may be. (hdng to their close acquaintance with the style of functioning of the human mind, the Spirits are going to make a prophecy about the future tiirn of events, with a reference to Prometheus;

Thence we hear the t)rophecy Which begins and ends in thee 1

(I. 690-91)

On the demand of Prometheus, the Chorus finally prophecies that the day is not far off v-tien the gloom and darkness of social 310

and political evils vail be over and a new era of love and peace will descend upon mankind. The imagery ised here beautifully depicts the scenes of spring and beauty. Buds will crow red ani the srow storm will flee, -^^he sprinf will gather up and the Spirit will come to know that soon the era of •Wisdom, Love and Peace' will start and all the shado\-Ty gloom and sorrow will disappear. These things are to the Spirit

as soft wind be To shepherd boys, the prophecy 'v/liich begins and ends in Thee. (I. 788-POO)

Reacting to the chorus of Spirits, the Fauns express vronder at the beauty of their song and its sublimity. They, too, wanted to listen to the most beautiful song about the glorious future of mankind, but for the fear of noontide hsve to drop the idea. Those 'wise and lovely* songs are about 'Fate, and chance, and Good, and chaos old,/ And Love'. (II, ii, 9?-3) ''ith a reference to the sufferings of the enslaved and oppressed mankind, tiie song celebrates their ultimate victory, the accom plishment of the dream of the unity of mankind : '... the chained Titan's vroeful doom,/ And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth/ One brotherhood'. (II. ii, 91-95) Reaching the realm of Demogorgon, ttie source of all virtues, Asia reacts emotionally and positively. Looking around, she realises that the avalanches 311

of thouf^hts have Diled up in minds and some r^re.-^t ch^are in the hurnnn society is about to occur.

As tho^jght by thought is niled, Till some great truth Is loosened, and the nations echo round, Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains nov;. (II. iii.39-'+2)

A great social and political change is assured as the idea of love and brotherhood cuts across the nations and they wake up with a renewed sense of liberty. Prometheus, after he is unbound, vrould never part witli Asia becaiase of 'love and care', (II, iii. 10) He describes the beautiful cave where he intends to dwell nermanently v/ith Asia in all peace and joy. It symbo lically hints at the approaching great change v/hen the change of seasons will not take place and only spring will stay eternally. He also makes a reference at the changeability of man and his ov/n unchangeabllity.

^//here we will sit and talk of time and change, As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged. V/hat can hide man from mutability ? (III.iii.23-25)

In the new era of happiness, everything will be free and cooperative t

.... and all That tem.t)ers or imnroves man's life, now free; (III. iii.U7-°.) 312

The life will be wracned by pure beauty. (1. "^1 ) It will be - era of the uprise of all arts manifesting beauty in all various forms.

the progeny immortal Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, A.nd arts, though unimagined, yet to be. (111.111.53-^)

The hour tliis change will take rilace is regarded by 3helley as the most beautiful, the most coveted and the most desired and lovely.^1 After the unbinding of Prometheus, the living beings will not draw from the earth's bosom The 'poison of despair'. They now 'shall take/ And interchange sweet meriments'. In an atmosphere of complete love and affection, 'all enmity will be over'. Nothing in nature will have adverse effect of qualities, and everything will be full of soothing and balmy effect.

All man and beasts in happy dreams shall gather Strength for the coming day, and all its joy. (III. III. 103-'+)

Death will refrain from playing its dirty role, and the pain of parting will also be over. In the glorious future all will be carefree and fearless. The long sustaining fear would vanish from their brow; no anxiety or worry could be seen writ large 313

on their face as earlier.

... On human brows No more inscribed, as o'er tlie gate oT hell, 'All hope abandbn ye who enter here' ; (III. iv. 135-36)

There would be none to exploit or to be exploited. bne would tremble with fear in front of his stern master.

None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear Gazed on another's eye of cold command, (III. iv. 137-38)

According to Shelley's vision about the glorious future, religion's loathsome mask will fall down to lead to the result that man would become Just and non-tyrannical :

Sceptreless, free, uncireunscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribe less, and motionless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; ;just, gentle, wise s ... (III. IV. 19^97)

It never means he would become passionless but ' ... free from guilt or pain*. (III. iv. 198)

It appears as if Shelley envisaged the occurence of the glorious era not within time and space, but beyond them. At the occurance of this era, Tlie Time's role will not be needed, 314

so it will take recourse to eternity to abide there in the form of potentiality. Hence it would not subject any object to decay and destruction. Time will die and lie hurried in eternity where it would not change.

Sceptre we Of the dead hours be, V/e bear time to his tomb in eternity, (IV. 12-1U)

Shelley also develops in the tjoerc his concept of life and death which finds expression in Tennyson as well as some metaphysical poetsalso The 'existence' is understood on two levels by Shelley. One is the material and earthly which is experienced by senses; the other is the real metaphysical existence \^ich can be understood by mystical intuitive percep tion. The latter remains hidden from view during the sleep of life. All that exists has a pre-existence in One Hind in the form of Thought. ^^

For know there are two worlds of life and Death; One that which thou beholdest; but the other Is underneath the grave, vAiere do inhabit The shadows of all forms that think and live Till death unite them and they part r» more; (I. 195-99) The UK) levels of existence are fused into one by ^-jhat is called death. In other words, life for Shelley is a nrocess of death, 315

on the com-nletion of v;^-iich the apparent \inreal dichotomy disappears. The Earth also explains that death actually is only the duration of that phase which is called life. The human beings sleet) during this period cut off fron the realities surro'onding them. The moment this duration is over is generally but wrongly named as death :

Death is the veil which those who live call life: They sleep, and it is lifted ; (III. iii. 113-1^)

Shelley's firm belief in the perfectibility of man and his being the supermost among the created things gets voiced expression in the sneech of the Earth in the fourth Act. Man has been portrayed as a wonderful 'many sided mirror' by Shelley. Kan, a 'sea reflecting love', is prone to make mistakes in the hours of oblivion and, at the same time, has got the power to redress. He possesses capability of exDloring things and bringing the true shape of things to light. Man is a 'chain of linked thought' If deprived of the element of thought, nothing remains in him but a living being or animal. This thought is a mixture of 'love and might to be divided not' . His might or v;ill has the TX)wer to exploit things and mould them in a way he likes. He is 'one harmonious soul of many a soul,/ VJhose nature is its own divine control'. (IV. lfOO-l+01) Man's will is his most wonderful power, v/hich is irresistible, irreDressible and uncontrollable but only 316

by love. Man is the sxiprenie beinp, of all creatures. 'All things confess his strength'. His unique talent, that is •••:-occ:-;^ language, is such a creative ^v^hich gives shapes to senseless and shapeless things. liis speech is the measure of the universe. 'The lighteniry; is his slave' and 'The tempest is his steed'. Kan's curiosity does not leave anything unexplored; "... the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,/ Heaven, hast thou secrets ? l-'an unveils me; I have none'.''? (I^'. ^-+22-23)

V/e have observed, therefore, that the social and political thought in 'Prometheus Unbound has undergone an intensive philosophizing effect. All the social and political themes incorporated herein their meaningfulness and relevance from the deep philosophical inferences on which they rest. For all forms of tyranny and social and political evils, Shelley holds responsible the false concept of God and religion, personified in Jupiter. Evil is not an independent agency in his opinion, but only a miscalculation by and distorted projection of the purest Intelligence, pervading the entire universe, and embodied in Prometheus. He also holds that all being exists in one meta physical reality in the form of potentialities v^ence they are released or to which withdrawn in keeping with the proportion of the conflicting forces of love and hate as they may be in actuality. This power, Denogorgon, canr»t be experienced through sensual or mental power, but only through intuitive perception. 317

It can be activated only through the invocation of the princiDle of love. The shadow or distortion of pure Intelligence can go to any extreme to assert itself tyrannically. But, tyranny cannot be curbed or undone by any other form of tyrannv. Evil, hate ard revenge cannot undo themselves for tiaey further reinforce viiat they were meant to uproot. Tyranny or evil as a v/hole can be uprooted only through love. Evil begets evil. Every revolution is bound to deteriorate in another form of tyranny unless guided and guarded by love. Love forms the basic music -and harmony of the universe, the revocation of which alone can assure the retrieval of the last prosperity and happiness of mankind. Every created object is subservient to man, but himself man is subservient to love. Will is the secret v^ich empoA^rs man to subdue all things. In case of weal^ening and submission of his will, he humbles and debases himself and assures his permanent slavery, the storehouse of all other social and political evils. If not weakened or surrendered, his will could reinstate him to the supermost position, the only place that is beccming of him. i'he social and political evils are only an apparent manifestation of the basic disorder, caused to be natural equilibrium of the universal value-system, origina ting in the miscalculations of human mind. To divorce the concept of a supervisory anthropomorphic 3od is necessary to remove from the vrorld all evil and slavery and only this may ensure the return of the happiest time of the most enjoyable social and poli'-ical conditions on earth. 318

The Mask of Anarchy

Thoiagh not apparently as deeply philosophical as Prometheus Unbound, the poem The 1-^f^k of Anarchy rests on almost the same philosophical themes and inferences as the other poem. In strongest terms the poem condemns every forn of tyranny, deswatism, massacres, wretchedness of the masses and their exploitation in the name of dogma or religion, and high lights the sublime ideals of liberty, equality, and perfect social justice acquired through wisdom, love and knov.'ledge. The poer:, composed in 1S19) was inspirerl by "The terrible and important news of I'anchester"^^ massacre of August 16, I819, ^îch "roused in him violent emotions of indignation and compassion".^- The tragedy was so horribly gruesome for Shelley that it revived, to quote his wife, "eager desire to excite his countrymen to resist openly the oppression" that "had faded v;ith early youth". ^^ Reacting sharply at the tragedy and at the successive despotic actions of the governments vîch had gener-^ted tlie c^'âstly occurance, he anticipated "the terrible storm \îch is approaching, The Tyrants here as in the French Revolution, have first shed blood". 57 The solution, therefore, he wanted to communicate to the peonle of England was that "there will be no coming to close quarters until financial affairs decidedly bring the oppressor erg and. the o^nressed together".-^ Popular tone has been adopted in 319

the noem as a concession to the common people for whom It \ms written, as contrary to the Prometheus Jnbound stiich vras meant for only five or six persons.

The Doet's 'vision of Poesy' bring forth an spectacle of horrible images of Murder, Fraud, Hypocrisy, many more f^hastly Destructions and Anarchy \^ich are passing one after aJiother trampling upon the people. Through these images Shelley has foGUssed attention upon a number of social and political evils eating into the vitals of society and leading it to utter destruction. Shelley's abhorrence of despotic rulers like Castlereagh, Eldon, Sidmouth etc is quite evident in the very opening stanzas, ttie basis of vhose power is terrorising and slaughtering rteople and shedding their blood as if it is not more significant than water. Not only they; massacre innocent people for their mean ends, but also employ deceitful excuses to justify their ugliest actions. Masked like Castlereagh, Murder looks smooth but grim. (1. 7) The horror radiates from his personality as seven bloodhounds follow hlm.-'^ That the massacre is widespread and has preyed upon many is obvious from the fact that Murder is continuously throwing the human hearts to these dogs drawing from his vrlde cloak. The fatness of hounds shows that they are well-fed, wide cloak suggests the presence of a large number of human hearts in it and continuous tlirowing 320

indicates the unceasing destruction of human life by despotic rulers.

For Shelley, the I'ianchester killinrs had further clinched the idea that anarchy had become the order of the day. By making an allusion to 'kingly crown' and shining 'scepter', in the context of Anarchy, Shelley suggests the same idea. The different agencies, supposed generally to establish law and order, -were also busy providing all assistance to Anarchy, as if it was 'God^ Ard king, And Law'. (1. 3?) Instead of making efforts to curb its excesses, all submitted to it as they sutinit to God. The emergence of the dreadful image of Anarchy persecutes the most ghastly s-nectacle, as he rode 'On a v;hite horse, splashed with blood'. (1. 31) ^e is as pale as 'Death in the Apocalypse'. Shelley holds this pervasive anarchy throughout the length and breadth of the land to be the root cause of various other social and political ills like tyranny, chaos, disorders etc. Anarchy, once spread, permeates through the entire society and affects the very CJre of it. Planting itself well on the foundation of the corpses of millions of humans, it behaves as if it was the supreme lav;. It seizes all the social and political institutions as if everything belongs to it by virtue of its birthright. The palace of king, the 'sceptre', 'the crown, and globe', and the 'gold inwoven robe' were all claimed by suiarchy. It clearly 321

suggests that anarchy flowed from everywhere to everyi..jhere. The slaves, persons without will power and prone to temptations, rush at the command of Anarchy to capture each and every nlace for it and spare neither 'Bank' nor 'Tower*. The mission of Anarchy is not complete unless it seizes the source of resent ment or its own opposition, the human mind. Therefore, after seizing upon all the external objects, it proceeds towards tlie Parliament, the symbol of the collective wisdom and will. Instead of approaching it directly, it has already bribed it, so that not much resistance is posed by a 'pensioned Parliament'. (1. 85) Thus, not only the minds of social, political and religious authorities go anarchist, but the minds of the common people are nlso so agitated and upset that the entire nation reaches the verge of falling into the pit of natioral anarchy. V.'hat is the most disturbing is that everyone joins the same masquerade, v/earlng a mask of justification and concession. Bisho-os, lawyers, peers and spies, all of them start representing destruction in disguise. Under the anarchic conditions, evil apnears tobe good and vice versa. It becomes a common belief as if the destruction lies in not massacring people, and rkot otherwise. In the poem also. Anarchy intoxicates the destroyers and hired soldiers with the idea of massacring people. So, they spread from corner to corner of the land to rip up the entire nation, 322

till they reach London to mark the final victory. ^-

And each dweller, panic stricken, Felt his heart with terror sicken Hearing the tempestuous cry Of the triumph of Anarchy.' (XI7)

One of the reactions of the spread of anarchy is the generation of the attitudes of slavery. Slavery, according to Shelley, means lacking free will and self-control, being abject and contented with misery, nourishing the feelings of revenge, incapable of taking initiatives, deprived of the necessarie? of life etc. VJild beasts and savages who live in dens do not undergo such hardships as slaves, still they remain non-responsive to and ignorant of the evils and ills comraon in the human v/orld. - Slavery also lies in evil action because, for Shelley, as soon as a person ceases to be good he ceases to be a freeman, since he disrupts the natural harmony by his evil deeds. Shelley thinks that those who are born in slo.very, live and die in slavery, grov; totally unaware of v/hat freedom is, although the word slavery is very familiar to them as it 'has grown/ To an echo of your name', (11. 158-59) In his peculiar way Shelley describes that slavery is to work of someone for a meagre amount of salary ^/;hich may be insufficient only to keep one's soul attached to one's skeleton, so that one m.ay still be exploited by the tyrant to his own evil ends. The status of slaves is not more than that of tools 323

and lifeless devices in the hands of an artisan. For tyrants, they are a 'loorr,, and plough, and sword, and spade' rather than human beinf;s, to be yoked for 'their defence and nourishment'. (1. 167) Slaves are the persons •V'Aiose toil and hardv/ork produces that wealth and prosperity v;hlch is only me-^nt to be enjoyed by others at a time vAien their own children and spouses 'pine and penk' in bleak \«rinter winds and die hungry and 65 uncovered, even unnoticed. They do not have any share in the sumptuous diets r^roduced by their own hands and has to be devoured by the fat dogs of the rich.

'Tis to hunger for such diet As the rich man in his riot Casts to the fat dogs that lie Surfeiting beneath his eye; (XLII)

It is the hardest irony of fate that food-producer starves and his ODDressor' s dog is fed upon the product of his labour. Shelley traces this to the rampant economic exploitation, a form of economic anarchy, which deprives the producer of his own produce and continues with the only aim to 'let the Ghost of Gold/ Take from toil a thousandfold'. (U. 176-77) Slaves are hardly more than paper coins which do not carry any value in themselves and the rise and fall in their value is a consequence of some external factors. Similarly, the slaves also do not 324

have any control over their wills, 'but be/ All that others make of ye'.^^ (11. 185-86)

'Tis to be a slave in soul Aai to have no strong control Over your ovm wills (11. 1 ?.!+-%)

Just like the Jupiter of pjometheus Unbound,, the tyrants in this Doem demand of slaves to sutmit their wills to them, to be overly humble and obedient and uncomplaining, failing viiich their blood is certain to flow like water. If any of their, ever dare to express resentment in weak murmurs, the wrath of the tyrant's stooges and hirelings explodes unon therr thunderously to shower misery and destruction upon their kith and kin. And, consequently, the blood of the innocent miserable covers the earth like dew.

'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew Ride over your wives and you — Blood is on the grass like dew. (11. 190-92)

rburishing the feeling of revenge is also reflective of a slavish mentality, because revenge adds to the evil of tyranny instead of curbing it. In Prometheus Unbound^ Shelley has employed the themes against revenge, hate, and revolution for its own sake. On account of the wisdom learned through suffering, Prometheus could secure freedom only after giving up 325

hate and recalls tlie c\irse against Jupiter. So, revolutionary act could ensure liberty only ^/iien f^arded by love, otherwise it will only renew and strengthen the tyranny it aimed at over throwing. So, the desire of shedding the blood of those who shed their blood is indicative of their self-aggrandisement and vindictiveness and, therefore, of their slavish attitude. It Is so because vdsdom and enlighteniaent and love of liberty demand a burning of soiil with the desire of changing and reforming the systems vtiich engender forms of tyranny, and not only replacing one tyranny v/ith the other, ' The vindictive actions result only in further deterioration of the wretched state of the slaves and they are compelled to live a life worse than that of animals. In a very piteous manner, Shelley depicts how a poor person is forced to a condition worse than that of animals like dogs, birds, beasts, assess and swines. "3irds rest in their narrow nest \-ihen weary of flight. Beasts find protection in woody lair during storm and snow. Asses and swines also feel free to spread litter wherever they like and get sufficient food. But, the human 'oeings are denied these things as they remain enslaved by their o^-m fellow-beings.

All things have a home but one — Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none I (11. 203-V)

The society such slaves constitute is sure to be strongly marVced by various and numerous social evils like hate, hypocrisy, cov;ardice, pride, deceit and fraud etc. It is the sijifficient 326

reason why in the masquerade Fraud follows I'urder. Shelley personifies Fraud in one of the political authorities, of his day, Eldon, who appeared to be gentle and sympathetic, but was actually a hell within. Like Eldon, Fraud v/ranned himself in an 'ermined gown' just to hide his real self. In the society of slaves, hiding one's reality, giving false impressions, tellinp lies, deceiving, playing hypocrite are commonly observed ills. Fraud \^eps big tears but they, ironically enough, turn into mill-stores as they fall. 3o, instead of arousing sympathy, they reveal the hidden immense cruelty. The innocent children think those tears to be gems but as they touch them they explode 1 R like bombs and knock their brains out.

Shelley personifies the hypocrisy in anotlier authority, Sid»JOuth, who never meant what he did and never did what he said. Hypocrisy also floxirishes in the name of religion and pragmatism. Hypocrisy, in the masquerade, passes riding crocodile, an animal suggesting his r^l self.

The negative tendencies like fraud, deceitfulness, malice and hypocrisy v/eaken the public morality to a dangerous extent. Even tiiose persons, agencies and authorities start sympathising with anarchy and chaos, v*io are supposed to maintain law and order, establish peace and .-justice and disseminate faith and love. Not only this, they start vying with each other, as we 327

have seen in Proinetheus Unbound, in establishing their loyalty ani faithfulness to Anarchy and drav as much benefit out of it as possible. Thus, they expect Anarchy to reward them vdth glory and blood and gold. Just in pursuance of some petty temptations, they decline to resist anarchy and claim instead that they had been waiting for it for long.

'We have waited, weak and lone For thy coming, Mighty One I Our purses are empty, our swords are cold Give us glory, and blood, and gold'.

Among those who supported Anarchy and expected gifts from it were so-called respectable sections of society like lawyers, priests etc. A motley crowd of such hypocrites bowed their heads to Anarchy chanting 'Thou art Law and God' .

Then all cried with one accord, 'Thou art king, and God, and Lord; Anarchy to thee we bow. Be thy name made holy now 1 (XVIII)

How ironical it sounds that lawlessness is regarded law and blasphemy as 'holiness'.

We come across therefore the recurrence of the philoso phical inference of the Prometheus Unbound that the real slavery lies in the submission of the human will. This is the fountain- 328

head vdience flov; all other social and political evils. And the submission of will lies in the loss of hope. Anarchy vrould claim everything but hope. The only way, in Shelley's opinion, to resist and overcome anarchy is to strengthen hope in future and not to give up immense dejection and iDessimisra caused by the aggressive advances of anarchy. In the poem, Anarchy was about to achieve its final victory by seizing upon the r.inds of people after which it would have proclaimed itr,unchallengeable sr^reraacy. But, at the last moment, Hope rushes forth like a 'maniac maid'"^ and tries to reawaken in the hearts of people a Dassion for liberty, peace and justice. The point draws our attention to the fact that vdiereas Shelley idealises anarchy on the social and political plane by favouring the withering away of institutionalisation, he rejects the idea of intellectual anarchy or waywardness. And he sees in it a v;ay to strengthening of the autocratic hold of institutions and unjust authorities. The rising of hope reminded the people of the long-awaited concreti2ation of their dream of enjoying peace, prosperity and happiness. None of these children of old Time, the dreams, survived feeble hope. But this 'hope' has also suffered so many setbacks repeatedly that it looks more like despair and misery in complexion. On various occasions, The time was disillusioned by adverse circumstances. It is the same that the Hope laments :

My father Time is weak and gray With waiting for a better day, 329

See how idiot-like he stands, FimblinE vrith his nalsied hands I (XXIII)

Here we notice that Shelley subjects a change in Time to a change in human will and not otherwize as is commonly held. Disappointed to a great extent the Hope

... lay dox'rti in the street, Hight before the horses' feet. Expecting vdth a patient eye, Miirder, Fraui, and Anarchy. (XT/)

Fear, sometimes, may cause an irreparable damage to hope and be overcome only through an intensification of the desire for freedom. The dejection of Hope, in the poem, owes to its fear that in face of such an irresistible tide of anarchy it m.ay also not survive as other 'children' of Time haven't survived. But, Shelley believes that even the extremes of dejection can be overcom.e and lost hope revived by the reawakening of the desire of freedom. Or, in other v.'orQs,hope can never be lost if the desire of freedom remains. Therefore, v.-hile Hope gives up every expectation of recovery and is lain at the feet of horses to be trampled upon, the desire for liberty rises. Beautifully describing the rise of the spirit of liberty, Shelley locates it somewhere between anarchy and dejection.'^' In the earlier stages 'mist, light, and image' remains weak and frail 330

but gradually gathers strength. Very speedily, this desire spread like the layers of cloud over the heads of rieorile, under the effect of v^ich thoughts spring up in the minds of people, vhich had been long suppressed by Anarchy,'^

And the prostrate multitude Looked •— and ankle-deep in blood, Hope, that maiden most serene, V/as walking vdth a quiet mien : (XXXII)

Shelley also believes that anarchic chaos has to flee the rise of hope as dust flees the tempestuous v;inds. The rejuvenation of the desire for freedom reinstates hope because of vdiose resistance the grip of Anarchy starts loosening. So happens in the poem, -when we observe the 'Horses of Death' flee which used to be so tamêless and -did. V.Tiile fleeing, they trampled upon the murderers thronged behind. Therefore, if the people rise up enthused to bring about a change, no objective, •whatever high, remains far from their access, ê same feeling occurs to the multitude of the oppressed people. It appears vîle looking at their faces as if it is not they but the mother Earth herself vdio has become indignant because of the blood of her own sons falling on her brow, and shuddering she challenged the men of England to resist vdth all might the tyranny and spread of anarchy : Had turned every drop of blood By which her face had been bedewed 331

To an accent unwithered, — As if her heart had cried cloud (XXXVI)

'Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number. Shake your chains to earth like dew Vihich in sleep had fallen on you — Ye are many — they are few. (XXX-vTIl)

This stanza is reflective, to quote >-rs. Shelle-y, of 3nelley's belief in "The great truth that the r.-my if accordant and resolute, could control the few, as was shown some years after, made him long to teach his injured countrymen how to resist".73

Shelley finds no other way to the total eradication of anarchic attitude then proposing that the vrorld should be controlled and governed by free men along the onlv principle of fearlessness. He envisages a great Assembly of fearless and free people so that they decide positively about the future of English land

•Let a great Assembly be Of the fearless and the free On some spot of English ground V/here the plains stretch wide around. (LXV)

Such an assembly should be represented by people from all v;alks of life; from the 'corners uttermost/ Of the bounds of English coast", from 'every hut, village, and town' where people 332

live in misery and siiffer for the sake of others or for themselves. It should also be joined by those who are in vrarkhouses or prisons, and by those pale and weak women, children, young and old, who 'Groan for pain, and weep for cold', (1, 276)'^ Tlie common people, workers, labourers and daily workers should also gather confidence, shake off their fears and doubts and fearlessly join the Assembly of freemen. The idea reminds us of Tagore's celebrated poen in which he dreams for a v/orld free of misery, struggle and strife. Since, Shelley makes no distinction among people on any ground, parti cularly on the basis of financial statxjs, he cannot exempt the rich frcTO .joinin?' such a rally. Those should also join the vast assembly going to be held 'with great solemnity' , who have imprisoned themselves within high, fashionable and decorated walls of palaces

Where the murmur of distress Echoes, like the distant wound Of a wind alive around (11. 28^^-:''•6)

Even the political authorities, the persons -v^o have caused misery to those 'v^o groan, and toil, and wail', (1. 289) should also have to condescend to the level of a common man and join the assembly for the sake of their ovm good. The helpless poor persons 'v;ho suffer woes untold' (1. 291) and are 333

pained at the sirht of their country bought and sold 'with a price of blood and gold', should also not be neclected. This vast assembly of free men should do away witli all false discriminations and distinctions once and for all. In -unequi vocal terms it should declare to the vorld vit!^ 'gre-it sole-.nitv' and very categorically that human beings are as f^ce as jod has made ther..'^?

According to the social and nolitical philosophy of Shelley, the desire for freedom is the mightiest povrer ^nd most capable of shaking down the entire universe. Tyranny './ould vanish from the face of the earth only if slaves could be brouf'^ht to know the worth of freedom and tlieir desire to achieve it should be aroused to the full. If the slaves, v/ho are no better tlian grave-dwellers, could understand the meaning of freedom 'tyrants would flee/ Like a dream's imagery'. (1. 212)^^ Freedom for Shelley is not an unreal thing \«riiich may pass av/ay soon like a shadow. It is also not a superstition or a mere name which echoes 'from the cave of Fame'. It is only impostors v;ho say so,'^^ Defining and explaining the real freedom, in a very touching v/ay, Shelley points out that for a laborer it means bread or livlihood and a happy home to v*iich he may return after a hard day's labour. For the trampled multitiide of

deprived peonle it is freedom from starvation, shelterlessness and clothelx2Ssness. If the most horrible starvation of all times 334

goes awav it v/ill be as good as freedom for the common peonle. Shelley traces the unparalleled starvation in England to the s-pread of anarchy and lack of freedom.

... in countries that are free Such starvation cannot oe As in England now we see. (11. 223-?5)

For the rich, freedom means a check to his tendency of exploiting the poor. A freerran vrould not allow that someone should lay his foot on his neck, for he would be free to react in the same ^'ay as a snake reacts to a trampling foot. This realisation v;ould keep the rich away from exploiting. Freedom also promises justice \.'hich \^roîLd not be brought and sold for gold as it was common in the England of Shelley's day. It will rather protect the rights of everyone, Irrespective of one's social or economic status. Freedom also implies wisdom as it has nothing to with ignorance. A free person cannot imagine to harbour tlie notion that all those persons v/ould be thrown into hell, who do not listen to vât priests say. For, such a belief negates wisdom and leads to bigotry. Freedom also ensures peace and avoidance of the wastage of blood and money. Tyrant would not be permitted anymore to waste them as they had been used to. The flame of liberty cannot be put out by tyrants, no matter vîatever huge amo-unts they insert for this puTTXSse. The pouring forth of 335

English blood am toil could only dim liberty for the time being but not extinguish it.78

The universal principle of love, constituting recurrent tliemes in Shelley, does also figure in the description of liberty. Here, Shelley treats love as a synonym of freedom, Shelley prays to Love to spread itself throughout tlie vrorld and give away its substance to the free as generously as Christ aid. He invokes it also to transform the wealth of the rich into 'arms' so that they can be used against the hoarders of wealth, instigators of T^a^ and promulgators of fraud, in order that the source could be sealed \-rfierefrom pride, oppression and tyranny f lovj,

'Or turn their wealth to arras, and makes War for thy beloved Sake On wealth, and war, and fraud — \N^ence they Drew the power which is their prey. (LXII)

The precedixnc idea rests on the same philosophical basis as we have come across in Prometheus Unbo^rici,^ that only good is of ro value if it is not guided and guarded by love. It is only love v^ich could see to it that good was not exploited by tyranny to its end and that it generated only good.'^^ A.iong with the factor of love, the advancement and progress of Science, Poetry and Thought also help sustain and safeguard liberty to a marvellous 336

extent. These factors are like the 'lamp' of liberty (1. 25"^) which lead it on along the T)ath of equality, enlightenment and justice. Freedom flourishes ^^en these flourish and \^en these go Tinregarded, freedom also undergoes setbacks. 'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness' do also constitute the infrastructure of liberty, because Shelley says addressing liberty that 'All that adorn and bless/ Art Thou'. (1. 259-60) Shelley concludes by saying that freedom is in a nutshell ' Tlie exceeding loveliness' wiiich should better be translated into deeds and not remain confined to vrords. Unfortunately, Shelley had no chance to survive to see the concretisation of his dreams in the form of the "harter of Human Pdglits.

Thus, describing in a touching manner the blissful effects of liberty, Shelley proposes that at tlie great Assembly for freedom, the message of liberty should be as vociferously declared and its range should be as wide as possible. The v'ords constituting the declaration at the Assembly should be as 'keen to 'ATOund as sharpened sT^rd' so as to pierce deep and to affect and influence the entire world. It is freedom, therefore, in which Shelley realises an eternal deliverance of the mankind from the time old miseries like inequality, starvation, slavery, poverty, abjection and tyranny etc.°^

Just as on the assertion of 'will' Jupiter reacted most tyrannically to Prometheus in Prometheus Unbound^ the tyrants in 337

this poem also are most likely to react the s?jne vav. But, the onlv weaDon recom-.mded hy Shelley to undo their efforts are steadfastness, perseverence ind patience, the Titanian qualities, that is suffering for a just cause and not giving in until the ob.iective is achieved. The tyrants may send mighty troops to stifle the call of freedom raised bv the Assembly of freedom, lovers. But, Shelley asks them rot to be scared, since such a clash vould awaken even the dead persons to the idea of freedom and, as a result, contribute to their strength.^''

'Let the charged artillery drive Till the dead air seems alive With the clash of clinging vAieels, And the tramp of horses' heels. (LXXVI)

Scared bv tiie spears and svrords leaping towards them, they should not flee and turn to their former state of rdnd, Op but face and resist it bravely.

For m.ass resistance Shelley has prescribed in this Doem the totally non-violent and passive means, rather than violent and bloody ones. The multitude of freedom lovers must not grow vindictive or take to arms against the troops of tyrants. They should rather stand

... calm and resolute. Like a forest close and mute, V/ith folded arms and looks v/hich are Weapons of unvanquished war (Lrax) 338

They should also disregard panic through their 'Dhalajix undismayed'. ( 1. 326) First they should make every effort to settle the dispute between them and the tyrants under the traditional English lav/, v^atever it is, so that its violators should suffer from the consequences and not those freedom lovers who haven't violated it.°3 Thus, strongly advocating for non violence and passive resistance, Shelley also suggests if, even after the passivity and rxsn-violence of the freedon-loving multitude, the tyrants wish to slash, stab, maim and hew the people, they should be let to do it until their rage subsides. The multitude during this time, should only stand

With folded arms and steady eyes. And little fear, and less surprise. Look upon there as they slay Till their rage has died away. (LXXXV)

The consequence of slaying innocent and non-violent people v/ill only be that the tyrants, after some time, will return in utter shanie to their places and the prick of conscience will torture them for ever as the blood shed unnecessarily will demand of their suppressed moral sense the ;justif ication of its having been shed; And the blood thus shed will speak In hot bludies on their cheek. (11. 350-51 339

They would be desroised by the entire nation. Even vromen would look down \ixx>n and disregard then. They would not be able to show their faces in public or to their acquaintances. Life would become hell for them and they would die a slow death of agony and igix>miny. It is, undoutedly, in line with Shellev's firm faith in the moral perfectibility of man. Every human soul has got the spark of unextinguished morality, however dim it be for the time being. Even tyrants ^^all repent once their moral sense is stirred accidentally or otherwize. The warriors employed by those tyrants would also be ashamed of their shameful acts, and freeing themselves from the base company of those who made them slay the innocent, would also join the ranks of the Assembly of freedom, seekers. -"^ In this regard, the last stanza should cause no confusion, as it passionately arouses the freedom- seekers to strengthen and exercise their free will in order to achieve their objective rather than instigating them to indulge in violence.

If events unfold in accordance with the scheme r)roiDOsed by Shelley, tyranny would wither away never to come back to life. Such a ruthless slaughter as depicted in the poem would inspire and stir up the entire nation and demand justice for itself. And this realisation would emerge from within man's mind, instead of beia^^ superimposed in any sense. This is also in keeping with 340

Shellej-'s chllosophlcal Inference he incorporated in Prometheiy^ Unbound that the atmosphere around man is tiie oxter- nalisation of his own mental attitudes and not a superimposed alien atmosphere. In this poem also, as in Prometheus 'Jnbound, Shelley emoloys the imase of volcano \jhich thro^'-s out material from vdthin. A'ld that daughter to the Ilation Snail stearr. up like inspiration, Eloquent, oracular; A volcano heard afar. (Lxx:a::)

Nothinr, could follo" such a massive national incident but a nation-wide revolution patterned along the principle c" love, and the voice of liberty, then, '-.'ould echo all arcjnd more distinctly and loudly.

And those v;ords shall then become Lil-ce Oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again —-again — again —

(XC)

The poem The Kaslc of Anarchy^ therefore, is based on almost Gie same philosophic inferences as characterise 3hellev's prose and some poetic compositions of the maturest period. He traces all the social -nd political evils like tyranny, despoti sir., exploitation, hypocrisy, fraud, murder, abjectness and starvation 341

etc. to the riase belief in a supervisory God ana utter ignorr^ce of the vorth of freedom. The sense of freedor; strentliens hope in man and gives him courage enouch to resist the onsLiuclits of tyranny and not to humble himself oy suhnitting the free will. In liberty lie all the lon^-avaited ble^sin^s of mankind including love. All such blessings could be achieved only through love and by totally non-violent means; hatred begets hatred and vindietiveness reflects the slavish mentalit-'. Love has the power to sustain and protect a revolution, whereas hate develops it into a greater tyranny. Tvie toem is also indicative of Shelley's firm belief in the human capability of moral perfec tibility. He looks forward as ever to complete moral equality, justice, peace and prosperity swaying fror. end to end the human world. 342

III

The same philosophical themes get voiced in some other nlays also. Shelley's drama 'The Cenci', composed in U'1 9, carries his peculiar social and political Dhilosophy :;iainly focussing on the evils like parental tyranny, relijuous hypocrisy, incestuous passion and evils associated with wealtii and t)0wer. The poem also depicts the tyr-^nnical trends in one-to-one rela tionship. It disproves to a certain extent Shelley's assertion that he had written this poem "without any of peculiar feelings and opinions ^Aich characterise my other compositions". " Inspite of trying to lay aside "the presumptuous attitude of an instructor"', he has not been fully able to avoid the moral element altogether v/hich is in his opinion "teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself; in proposi tion to the possession of which knowledge, every human being is oo wise, just, sincere, tolerant and kind". He also feels that "Revenge, retaliation, atonement, are pernicious mistakes".^ And, so the moral instruction appears in the very preface : "The fit return to make the most enormous injuries is kindness and forbearance, and a resolution to convert the injurer from his dark passions by peace and love".^

Through the historical characters of Beatrice, Lucretia and Cenci, Shelley has given vent to his philosophical understanding 343

of the problem of good and evil, ever operative in this universe. "Cenci is all evil, and Beatrice and Lucretia represent the good."'^'' Cenci's 'desperate and remorseless manhood' and 'dishonoured age/ Charged \d.th a thousand unrepen- ted crimes' have been given up to 'lust', 'pleasure' and •honey sweets'. V/ith his immense wealth, he has brought 'perilous impunity'. Conceiving an implacable hatred towards his children, he gets his two sons murdered in utter disregard to the secular or religious law, and sexually exploits his daughter Beatrice. V/ith a view to sharing the miseries of her step-mother Lucretia and brother Bernardo, she declines the offer of her lover Orsino of procuring 'dispensation of the Pope to marry'. Unlike in Prometheus Unbound the sufferers in this poem do not succeed in disuading Cenci from his tyranny and wickedness through the exercise of love and peace. Any such effort not only fails to keep him away from his 'dark and bloody designs', but also aggravates his stubbornness, and further activateshis 'firm, cold subtle villainy'.

In 'Tlie great war between the old and young' (II.il. 38), Invincible and incorrigible tyrant is killed. But, this revenge ful action does not put off the evil, rather it causes the genera tion of further evil. Disentangled from one tyranny the s\ifferers get entanf^led into another; the chiirch and law prosecute them on 344

ch-iPges of ir.urder. The church and tiie lav being the agencies of tyrannical powers, pile injustices on the weak and the youn", but thrives on the bribe of the rich who are held above the process or lavr on the strength of their gold :

That palace walking devil Gold Has whispered silence to his Holiness (II. ii. 68-0)

In utter disregard to the unbearable s^offerings of Beatrice inflicted by her father, the Pope, who was in control of both the law and the Church, passes the death sentence on her, but on the charge of patricide.

Patricide grows so rife That soon, for some just cause no doubt, the jroung V/ill strangle us all, dozing in our chains. Authority, and power, and hoary hair \re grown crimes caDital. (V. iv. 20-^)

In Shelley's ^^!Drds, "The Pope, among other motives for severity, probably felt that whoever killed the Count Genci deprived his treas'ory of a certain and copious source of revenue",^^ The poem obviously reflects Shelley's anti-establishment apr)roach that all the social and political institutions are usually meant to assure the tyrannical supremacy of the usurper, the resourceful and the oppressor over the depressed and deprived. 345

Ofidlnns Tyrannus or Swellfoot the Tyr-int. a drnira corrposed in l820, also "breathes that d^ep s^tnDathv for the sorrows of humanity and idignntion against its oppressors" as do his other noems. The Kinp, George IV, has been shovm leadinr a life of debauchery and voluptuousness in utter disregard of the pitiable pli'^ht of the suffering comon people. As the problems increase and force their manifestation, the king ponders over certain measures to reduce population instead of divising means to overcome the problems and provide relief to masses. Ruthlessly, Shelley condemns such callous approaches in the poem J

Kx)ral restraint I see has no effect, 'br prostitution, nor our own example. Starvation, typhus-fever, v/ar, nor prison — This was the art ^;jhich the arch-priest of Famine Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy — Cut close and deep, good l-'oses. (I. i. 7^-79)

The trial of -iueen Caroline on the charges of infidelitv makes the background of the poem, which am-ounted for Shelley, to deprive woman of her freedom. He holds her enemies worse than her as they opposed freedom. The trial brought to light the dirty royal linen, however in the poem a "serious sense of impending revolu tion underlies the entire action and hints that the author's jesting is almost consciously against the grain".^^ The poem 34B

therefore reveals Shelley's "indestructlhle resolution to strike hack at authority".9;!

In another drama, Hellas, composed in 1821, Shelley reflects over the tyrannical and domineering attitude of evils and the strife of the suppressed and threatened good for its dlsentanglanent from evil, with allusions to the tussle between Turks ard Greeks. The former is identified with evil and the latter with good. The drama concerned v;ith political tyranny is suggestive of "the final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of civilisation and social improvement".96 Shelley holds ttiat no nation can parallel Greeks in "their sensibility, -their rapidity of conception, their enthusiasm, and their courage,"^"^ It is slightly disturbing that a man of such a great universal outlook also could not have freed himself fully from tlie common v/estern prejudices. One wonders how it can be justified to identify only the east and not also the v/est with barbarism, but so he does in depicting the "conflict that it represents —a conflict between East and West, barbarism and civilisation —all that was symbolised in darkness and light."9° The clash between the oppressor and the oppressed enjoys a maturer representation in this poem than in Queen Mab or The Revolt of isJLaa* ^he Turks are playing the role of tyrants against the freedom-loving Greeks, whom they intend to destroy as they 347

rejected 'the foreigners' supremacy :

Go ! bid therr. Tsay themselves V/ith Christian blood I Are there no Grecian Virp.ins '.^Hiose shrieks and soasrcs and tear they may en'oy ? rb infidel children to impale on sp ars ? lb hoary priests aftea' that Patriarch ".j'ho bent the curse against his country's heart, .v'hich clove his own at last ? r,o ! "^id ther, kill. Blood is the seed of gold" (11. 2^2-'-f9)

Greeks alone are resisting the onslaughts of the oppressors. ibne comes fon-^ard to support their, as they happen to be one of the weak and oripressed people, just as in the Genci, the v/eak is further cruslied, or in Prometheus TJnbound^ where all tke elenents are bent upon tormenting the Titan

,.. The Greek s Are as a brood of lions in the net Round \^.iich the kingly hunters of the earth Stani shilling. Auanchs, ye v;hose daily food Are curses, groans, and --old, the fr-ut of death, From Thule to the girdle of the •..•orld, Goire, feast ! the board groans witii the flesh of n-.en; The cup is foarrdng with a nation's blood. Famine and Thirst av/ait 1 eat, drih!:, ana die 1 (11. 931-3"0

In t':iis vioer., too, Shelley holds slavery OP'^ C'? the nrijor factors to brin- r.isery upon the -..'orld. 348

0 Slnvery I thou frost o'' wo^li''^- i^'^i'. e, Killing-, it-, flower- ind. leavinr its thorns baT'^ ! Thy touch has staniDed these liinbs v;ith crime, Ttiese brows thy branding garlanl ::>ear, •^'Ut the free heart, the iriT^assive so"';! 3corn thy control ! (11. •-•/''-rM :

Along \.ath conderrininr slavery he arouses hope in freodon vhich alone ir^ay put to rest the various social and r'olitical evils :

Let there be light ! 3aii Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose 1 — Around her born, Shone like mountains in the 'norn Glorious states; — and are they no\,' Ashes, vrecks, oblivion o (11. G^'2-rr-7)

Like in P roK et he us "Jn,bound, here too 3helley believes that the suff<^rers and oppressors, however protracted their n-.lserv, do ultimately achieve success, as through sufferings they learn wisdom and acquire an invincible will. The sufferings of the Greeks ^/ill also not last for ever, and their freedom will mark the davm of a new era of freedom.

The world's great age begins anew. The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her vdnter weeds outv/orn: Heaven amiles, and faiths and empires gleam. Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. (11. 1060-65) n4<^

In the vjords of Baker, Helens is "the end-result of Slielley's career as a r^olltical voeV\ Tlils he seems to have inferred probably from Shelley's argument that clvllizational nropress of a mtion depenis on the extent of liberty it enjoys. The society is bound to undergo social and political set-bacl: if freedom is stifled and slavery prevalent.

Thus ve observe a philosophic strain that links these dramas and makes them look identical in one way or other v.'ith the highly philosophical composition, Prometheus Unbound. It is that all 'being', inclusive of humans, is based on natural harmony. If it is let to go its way, the music of the universe produces melody, vihich is the point of the enterance of evil to manifest itself in a number of social and political evils, and Shelley names it slavery. The very act vrhich causes disturbance is tyranny or desrtotisn, v;hich may be done away with by love alone. As love intensifies, tyranny shrinks and sinks in it, and as love shrinks, tyranny grows more and more domineering. That is why, Shelley holds that slavery is goierative evil, v^ich begets evil, Shelley also holds inevitable a clash between the forces of evil and good. Though the imprisonment of good may be protracted beyond Imagining, the final victory rests with the onpressed and tyrannised. This victory may be protected from degenerating into a greater tyranny only by Love. Prometheus, 350

Beatrice and JUicretia, and Greece represent good, v^hereas Jupiter, Cenci, Elcbn, Castlereap.h and Turks represent the principle of evil in peculiar conformity v;ith the 3;ielleyan social and political philosophy. 351

2. Marford, C.H, : 'Shelley' in the •G.gmbrldpe ^'istorv of English Literature' ^ Vol. 12, D. o^T~ 3. Preface to Prometheus Unbound^ p. ?05 (All references to the poen from The Complete Poetical v/orks of Percy I:vsshe Shell^v J ed. Thomas lutchinson, ^xford Unive-sit:- Press, London, 1965. h, Ihid. 5<» I'^id. 6. Tfote on Ppometheus Unbound by I'rs. Shelley, p. 270. 7. Preface, p. 207. 8. Shelley to Thomas Loi/e Peacock, January 2H, I0I9, Vol. II, p. 71 (References to letters from The Letters of Percy Bysshe ohelley, ed. Frederick L. Jones, Vol. 2, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 196^+.) 9. For detail Act I. 160-70. 10. Ibid. 170-1 So. 11. I. 262-90. It. I. 115-17. 13. I. iM-if5. 11+. I. 3^!4-i^5. 15. Cameron. H.II. : 'The Political Symbolism of Pro Wiethe us "riboujid' in 'Shelley — Modern o-ijidgement', ed. P ."^.''00ding, Kacnillan, 1965, p. 105. 16. I. )+92. 17. Cameron, K.''. "The Political Synibolisr 01 Proii-. e the us "Jnbo una. PI'XA, Vol. L 'Till (September 19^3), pp. 720^531 18. Ibid., p. 78A. 13 b. II. IV. 3-18. I9c. hary Shelley in Ifotes to Prometlieus Unbound 19. II. iv. 7, 2; IV. 510. 20. On Life. 21. II. iv. 116-23. 352

2?. Graho. Carl : Pronetheu? Unbound. InterT^retntlon, Tlie TJnivorsit- of Tbrth Carolina Press, 193^, r.. 9?. 23. Ill.i. 53-56. 2if. III. i. 70-7V. 25. i:in--:iele, Desmond : 3hellov — His Thought anu .Jorl:. :'-c;r.illan, 196^, TI. 19^1 26. I. 2^5^60. 27. I. 32-5. 28. A FnilosoT)hic-il Viev of Reforrr. p. 1 5. 29. for detail I. ^95-520. 3O. I. 519-20. 31. I. 625-632 32. II. iv. 5-20. 33. II. iv. 50-55. 3h, Ail these lines occur in^II. iv. 69,70-71, 73, 7'i-, bO-iOC. 35. I. 537-93. 36. for detail HI. ii. 20-3I4-. 37. III. iii. 160-70. 38. fiiese lines qiooted fror III. iv. 77, 30-85 (5l-^5). 39. III. iv. 'rl-50. kO, See for detail the lone sDoech of the Spirit of t^ie "our, pp. 251-53, 11. 100-205. M. IV. \+0-h5, h-2. IV. 65-67. '+3. IV. 103. Mf. Ibid., 109. h5. Ibid., 93-115. ^6. Hefereixe of the qr-otod lines : IV, 150, 151, 1 55, 15^. ^7. IV. 55V-78. ^S.Gralx). Carl : The I'kgic Plant. The University of ::orth Carolina Press, 1936, pp. M-3H-35. i+9. I. 703-21. 50. p. 17. 51. reference 6f this and the subsequent lines : III. iii. 69-70, 90-95, 97-98. 353

52, a detailed speech by the Earth on the sane aGr)Oct, I.1"'1-215, 53. for detail IV. 3S2-'t23. 5h. Shelley to Peacock, Septenber 9, iSl'^, Vol. II, v.. 119. 55» ^fcte on The I!ask of Anarchy by Krs. Shelley, n. 3^f5. 56. Ibid. 57. Shelley to Peacock, Sep. 9, I0I9, Vol. II, p. 1i:^. 58. Ibid. 59. Stanz.9 II, The sever, bloodliouiids r;.ay be Britain's seven allies whom Castlereagh appeased at the Congress of Vienna after Vfeterloo by agreeing not to press for tlie abolition of slavery. 60. St. XIX-XXI. 61. St. VII. 62. XI-XIII. 63. LI. 61f. XXXIX. 65. XLII

66. XLIII-]CLVI. 67. St. XL;T:II. 63. 17, V. 69. XXII-XXV. 70. XXVI. 71. Ibid. 72. laVlI-XXXI. 73. Note by Krs. Shelley,p. 3^^5.

7^. LXVII-LXVIII 75, LXIX - L:«III 76. LII. 77, LIII. 78. This therae continues from stanza LIV to LX. 79. LXI-LXII 80. LXV & LXXIII. 81. LXXV. 82. LXXVII - LXXVIII. 83. Lxxxi - Lxxxiii. 8^. Lxxxiv - LX:QC\T:I. 85. LXXX^/III 86. Shelley to Love Peacock, July 20, I0I9, Vol. II, p. 102. 354

87. The Genci — Dedication to Leigh Hunt, p. 275. 88. Preface to The CencJT p. 276. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. Solve, K.T. : Shellev — His Theory of Poetry. I^'ev York, 196^, p. 30. 92. Preface to The Cenci. p. 27?. 93. These Graceful limbs are Slothed in proud array Of Gold and purple, and This kingly paunch - Swells like sail before a favouring breeze, l. 2-M-. 9^. '^fliite, n.I. : Shellev. New York, 19^-0, Vol, II, p. 226. 95. Blunden, E. : Shellev^ New York, 19HO, Vol. II, p. 226. 96. Preface to HellasT P» ^6« 97. Ibid., p. W. 98. Rogers, 'i<, : Shellev at Work. Oxford, 1961, p. 291. C. 0 H C L TJ S I 0 i; V/hile discussing the social and political background of Shelley's poetry, we have noticed that the eiglitecnth century English and French societies v;ere plagued by a number of ills like social and political oppression, religious bigotry, economic exploitation, intoleration, social disparity and hjrpocrisy etc. In particular, bigotry and economic disparity v/ere two main sources of generating the above mentioned as well as many other evils. The rich and powerful indulged in all v.'rongful means to exploit the poor masses labour and squeeze out of their/as many luxuries for their enjoyment as possible. They humiliated the deprived vrorking class to the unthinkable extent just in order to please their egoes and maintain a life of profligacy and flippancy. The masses were deprived of every social, political or economic right. They had to work hardest in all fields of production or service in order to earn just the daily bread. Their life was marked by abject poverty, humiliation, misery, disease, death, physical as well as psychological torture and slavery. An atmosphere of hatred, jealousy, rivalry and antagrcsim prevailed all around. In their Inferiority complex the middle- class indulged in imitating the corrupt and proud manners and 356

style of the despotic arlrtocratic class. Tlie deprived masses nursed hatred for botli the iipper classes. Dissent vjas not tolerated either in religious or political circles. Corruption vras rampant in lav; n.akinc or enforcin; af:encies and also in administrative heirarchy. Kin,"; and clcrcy riaed supreme, and tlie statement of a monarch v/as not considered less sicnifleant than the divine cor^randnent. lot the .hi;- and Tory parties v.'ere almost uninimous, -dth little strate gical differences, in si'^portin-^ the monarchical -nd aristo cratic set up.

Thouf.h, both in Encl-^nd and France, many sensitive minds felt deeply concerned about the existing totally dis satisfactory social and political state of affairs, the anti- establishnent thought ^'as v/ell intensified radicalised and cannalised to result into a gr'^at social and political change, the French Hevolution, Durinr the decades closely preceding the Revolution, a number of philosophers generated nev; avrareness that \.'as ultimately to lead to the abolition o? monarchy and its associated institutions in order to build a new happier society. Voltaire and Rousseau advanced the idea of restoring the human dignity by v;ay of total liberty, equality and fraternity. Tom Paine T3roposed the annihilation of feudalism and its replacement by a plan of social sec-iTity. 357

Gouuii. considered government an evil and liid stress on the eq-oal distribution of wealth. 3aint 3i:;ion joined hi:r: in conden;ninG the private property as the root-cause of abiectness. Shelley was not only a\:are of the thoucht of the builders of the French Hevolution but also of the resr^onses of the English thinkers and poets to their iaeas and the significance of the Hevolution. '-hereas, in Enrland, the event of the Hevolution aroused the expectations of a number of social and political thinkers, it also aroused fear in some r.-.inds. V/ordsworth and Coleridge pinned ligh ho-nes on the event and visualised it as the commencement of a new era of liberty, equality and fraternity, but in the event of its failure they suffered disillusionment and becarp.e pessimis tic. rliclTard Price's Sermon on the Hevolution marks the English vrelcone for it. Godwin saw in it the econoiaic justice of his dreams, and for I'ary Wo lis to nee raft it symbolised the liberation and emancipation of vromen. If Burke denounced the event, Josenh Priestly defended it v.'ith equal force. For Byron also it was as much a source of inspiration as for Shelley. Even Keats could not escape its influence and betrayed some social and political overtones as we have seen.

Being a voracious reader, Shelley digested the most of the social and r)Olitical thought available to him. He betrays influence of many -thinkers including Plato, Kore, 358

Rousseau, Voltaire, Ilolbach, Oodv.dn, Paine, iielvetius, Kary V/ollstonecraft etc. Die social and t>olitical change, annihilation of monarchy, slavery and religion, enancipation of vjomen and do\'«itroden, removal of poverty, starvation, disease, vrar, tyranny and desT?otirns, inequality and social distinctions constitute the rr.ajor themes of his poetry. The themes of prosperity, universal love and Catholicism also engage his attention. In his prose and noetic compositions he, sometimes, echoes other philosophers and thinkers but not v.'ithout a touch of originality, '^'he txjlitical tracts preceding his major jDoetry clearly reflect the way his mind vrorked. Three such pamphlets addressed to the Irish people contain his early social and political responses, of which the latter tracts are modified extensions. In them,he pleads for Irish people for the eradication of the evil of existing government and its replacement by the common representation. The sole aim of government should be the pursuit of happiness and prosperity by means of liberty and security of life. :ie disapproves violence as a means of doing a^-.'ay vdth momrchy and suggests that change xould emanate fror enlightenment. He allows violence only in the moments of extremje indispen- sabllity. v/ithout the equal distribution of wealth, he thinks there is no possibility of peace or progress. He also suggests that all reform should be based on the basic human virtues. 359

In pamphlets like Necessity of Athelsn etc. he refutes the existence of any Deity ard exploits it for the purpose of denolishinc the basis on v;hich rests the entire structure of the ^jnjust social and political practices. Being a non conformist, he regards Christianity a so^orce of exploitation, selfishness and superstition. Love v.dthout marriage for him was better than marriage vjithout love, the mother of prostitu tion. He was not in favour of capital punishment.

Shelley regarded poetry one of the m.ost efficacious means of disseminating the radical social and political ideas. His earliest poetry reflects his zeal for reforin, republican sympatliy, Catholicism and egalitarlanism. -^'he poetry of the follovang periods is pregnant v.dth the fast mat^^irating social and -DolitiGal thought. Tlie condemnation of religious and political tyranny, in;justice and exploitation, and "'>ia

He is preoccupied v/ith the problem of the unity of existence, the r.reatest pover of the hunan will, the problei?. of evil, and the sisnificance of love as the only effective rereuial power. But, duxing this period, too, the philosophicnl over tones did not jarr: his social and political concerns, --father, it seerr;s as if development into a philosopher v.'as deter:;ined by his unceasing quest for the core of tiie probler.; Iiis moveinent from substance to essence. One evidence of it is that many of his principal characters represent the ideals of the builders of the French Revolution, like Laon, Cythna, 3inotti, Lionel, Prometlieus and others. Some of his major Doer.s like Queen llpibj The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Lbbound and Hellng^ etc. echo various dimensions of the French Revolution.

-;meen Kab is a major poem of vast social and political dimensions. The main targets of Shelley's attack in this early poem are the prevalent concept of God, religion, clergy, aristocracy, tyranny, monarchy, sl-^very, economic exToloitation, social miseries and evils, v/retched condition of children and women, and war etc, Shelley refutes in it tiie existence of the type of God as was commonly believed by people. He failed to understand how God, if any, could share the human emotions and feelings 1 In his opinion, the concept of God was coined by tlie wicked clergy and politicians in order to ensure their supremacy as God's vicegerents on earth. On the other hand, 361

they also seek the pemianent enslavement of tlie masses on the basis of this concept. Koreover, God has been conceived by man in his own inage. He ascribes all his negative quali ties to the false concept of God and in turn seeks the sancti- fication of all the evil qualities like tyranny arjitrariness etc. in him. In the name of the same God he slieds blood, fights \7ar, exploits and enslaves others and indulges ixi everyC thing iinvranted. Religion and tyranny often cooperate ^-ith each other in throwing the r.ahkind in utter humiliation. The falsity of the basis of the social and political structure generates corruption on every level of society. 0\^ing to the corruption of government, clergy and administration, unequal distribution of wealth takes place, w ich bring into existence a minority of exploiters and a majority of the exploited. Tne exploiters, in order to ensure their privileges, deprive tiie rest from all their rights. Deprivation coupled with the imperatives of social and economic needs t)erverts their nature. Consequently, the entire society is engulfed by corruption, lies, h^/pocrisy, jealousy, hatred, anger, slavery, meanness and lack of all noble virtues. The so-called higher classes debase themselves by their over-indulgence in debaixhery, voluptuousness, and pursuit of physical pleasure. And, lower classes debase themselves by idealising their exploiters and cherishing the desire to overthrow ther. not in order to establisli justice but 362

only to snatch tlieir privileges for themselves. In "DOth the cases, man loses his pristine virtues; he lives either as a slave or as a master. Shelley has also criticise'^i Christ in bitterest terms in this rhetorical ix>eir.. In order to put trie society on road to progress and prosperity, Shelley begins \'ath exposing the falseness of t-ie concept of God and replacing it \j±th the doctrine of necessity, tae povjer that moves and controls the phenomena. In this basic nove he visualises the collapse of monarchy and church, the t^-'o r.ain sources of generating social and political evils. It is so because these two draw their legitirr.acy froi. the concept of God, And, as necessity supplants God, they auto matically forfeit their legitimacy. Vfitli their collapse, a nev7, organisation of society may emerge based on the principle of equality, liberty and fraternity and controlled by basic human virtues like honesty, justice, courage, enlightenment, sympathy and fellow feeling, A considerable portion of the poem voices the typical Shelleyan optimism. !!e is extremely hopeful of the arrival of a new era of peace, prosperity, happiness, justice and kindness, which will benefit not only the human world but the entire living beings equally. The thrust of the argument in tlie poem remains mainly on the institutional reform and not on individual reforn. 363

Shelley proceeds to consider almost the sanie prorlorns in i sorr.ev.'hat modified r;ers^e'^tive in his next Major viork The Revolt of Islam. This peer; is li'.:e a bridge between the utterly radical ^-orld of ')ueen r.ab and highly ideal -•'orld of Prome the us 'Jnb OMnd. The -'OBm sho-/s a Krirhed advance in Shelley as a social and political thinker. In it the abstractness of .Queen Mab starts assuning the concreteness of the concepts of good and evil. The Eagle and the Serpent are the key sjinbols of the poem representing the forces of good and evil locked in eternal conflict. The san:e forces are at v.ork upon the lives of the chief characters of the peer., v.jho represent the conflict of these forces on the social and poli tical levels. Shelley associates ignor-^nce -;ith tyranny and v.'isdo.M and enlightenment ''71 th freedom and progress. The Serpent symbolises self-knowledge -nd the Eagle stands for arbitrariness -.vhich thrives on ignDrnnce. Laon and '^ythna represent a\-/arness, knowledge and self-consciousness, the oriposite of which is re-nresented by the tyrant Othman. There is a symbolic parallelisr. betv/een the conflict of the Eagle and the Serpent and the str^aggle of the followers of Laon and the slaves of Othman. Though ultimately defeated, the Sernent does inflict a deep •'.-round on the Eagle. Similarly, Laon's men are also defeated in their struggle against Othman on account of the counter-revolution, but not v/ithout shaking the monarchial system on its basis. Even through the failure of the revolutiDn 364

Shelley hints at a slcnificant id^^a which later in Prometheiis Unbound assuv.ed full philosophical ui!;enslo:is. It is that a revolution is unlikely to succeed unless it is inspired and achieved through the universal princlrle of h'-rmonj' and love. And, such a revolution is still •inlihely to last lonr: without proliferation of enlightenrr.eni:, knov.de- dge, v.dsdor. ^nd consciousness. But mere knovrled^e is also of no avail unless it is enriched by the noble virtues li'ie courage, tolerance, patience, synpathy and honesty etc. The poem also traces all the social and political evils lilie monarchy, slavery, farr.ine, misery, lack of peace and happiness, lust, greed, ambition, hypocrisy, treachery etc, to the same concept of an abribtrary, tyrannical God fror. vrnora all evil seeks justification. There are also the thenes of -,ueen Kab. but in rne Revolt of I slam ^ Shelley explores then in a different perspective of good and evil, i'he characters reflect an ever growing consciousness of good and evil. It brings to light Shelley's advance from general to particular, from allegory to the symbolic expression. However, instead of proposing surface institutional reform, he hints at the motiva tional forces, vrhose interaction sets arid controls the pattern of the individual as well as societal behaviour. He aims to effect a change there, so that the contoiirs of hunan behaviour automatically change. Failure to appreciate this fact may 365

mislead us to judge the poen as 'tedious', 'confused and ©onfusinc'. """he tendency to reach the core r.iade Shelley in >jueen Kiab to assail the concept of God, and in this peer, to delve deeper in the problem of good and evil.

In Fromethe^p Unbound^ the problem of cood and evil is seen in a still maturer philosophical perspective. The targets of his denunciation do remain the same, but idiom and imagery now assume an intensive philosophising colouring and intonation. Shelley has now come to believe in the unity of Bein;^ vniatever be its immediate relevance, good or bad. The Being is pervaded by a grand Intelligence v.^iich he names Prometheus, v^o has its existence v;ithin one metaphysical reality in the form of potentialities. The release of these potentialities into actuality or their idthdrawin^ to the same m.etaphysical reality, Demogorgon, depends on tlie actual will of Prometheus. Their being good or bad also depends on the conflicting forces of love and hate as they may be in n.ct^jality. His deep reflection leads Shelley to infer that evil is not an independent agency, but only a miscalculation by and distorted projection of the purest intelligence. Human beings, the portion of Prometheus, are impressed by the arbitrary and assertive distortion of Prometheus and start calling it God. From this false concept of Godt flow all the social and political 366

evils and ills. 3Iunan bein.ps learn v.dsdon through sufferincG and realise the grand significance oT love. But, love cannot be evoked or exercised ^>dthout exercising the will power. Himan will is the grandest power in this universe. If hunans exercise their vdll to love, it autor-a- tically compels evil or hate to '-.'ithdraw. Pror.'ethe-:s symbo lised love by v/ithdrawing the curse breathed upon .~":^iter and this very action caused tne latter's fall, r-vil, hate and revenge cannot undo themselves as they further reinforce what they were meajit to uproot. Evil begets evil. Tyranny or evil can be iiprooted only through love. Liberty, equality and fraternity can survive only on the strength of love. Kan is supermost in this "oniverse v;ho is able to subdue everything by the pov/er of his will. In the case of weakening and submission of his will, he debases himself and ensures his permanent slavery, the mother of all social evils. In order to get rid of evil and slavery, it is necessary to brush aside the concept of an anthropomorphic si:5)ervisory God. Once, this object is achieved, the world shall see the eternal spring.

The Fiask of Anarchy resounds almost with tlie sane philosophical inferences. In it, too, Shelley traces the evils like murder, despotims, exrloitation, fraud, hypocrisy etc. to the same false belief in a tyrannical and despotic God. The will to be free arouses hope in man and enables hi:: to resist 367

tyranny. 3ub:i:issiori of v;ill dei^raues hlni. On the basis of love and tlirough non-violent nieans, freedoD can be achieved and social and political evils removed, ^le poem reestab- lislies, like the earlier one, 3helley's firm belief in the moral perfectibility of man. The vision of a happier v.'orld also marks the poeTC. ..ihelley denounces one-to-one exiDloita- tion witli as m.uch force as he condemns the political tyranny. In Cenci and Oedipus Tyr^nu?, the target of his criticism is individual exploitation supported by the political and reli gious agencies. And, in Hellas^ Shelley condemns the tyranny that undertakes to crush the freedom lovers. Here, too, he holds slavery one of the major factors to bring misery to the humanlcind. It has also been restated that the oppressed freedom loving Greeks v.dll ultimately be victorious against the Turk oppressors only after they exercise will and love. Prometlieus, Beatrice and Lucretia represent good, \>diereas Jupiter, Cenci, Eldon, Gastlereagh and Turks represent evil.

Therefore, the study of the social and political dimensions in Shelley's poetry establishes his deep rooted concern for the upliftment of mankind and their all-round emancipation. His contemporaries and others may also have undertaken the task of ameliorating the lot of fallen mankind, but Shelley's commitanent to the cause is unqiiestionable. He 368

never '.îthdrev froi; it and the cause rcr.ained '^.'ith hir;, in the form of an intensified er.otion to be exr)re3sed poetically. The fact contributed to lift him to tlie -nrominence of tiie nia^jor revolutionary poets of the vrorld. Incontrovertloiy, Doetry should not be versified statements, but at t;:e sa'ê tine having no bearing on the iniaediate or lastin • h-jrân concerns tends to reduce poetry to a mere echo in void. Poetry cannot possibly last longer if it eschevs v;hat concerns the hur:.an society the nost, Shelley in his poetry, as v.'e have already observed, not only toîches ::rnon the naôr social and -Dolitical human concerns, but devotes his entire artistic capability to the same, and yet his poetry retains fiiLl artistic flavour. The social and political reforrs achieved at various stages follo'-dng Shelley's revolutionary voice establish his relevance to the human world. Freedor. of thought and expression, democratic form of rovernment, economic eq\iality, confinement of religion to the mrivate sphere of man's life and individuality seem to be the Goncretisation of his social and political vision, Tliis sufficiently disproves •'.•^nat Arrold conceived of hir as "ineffectual angel" or vât T.3. Eliot observed aôout his poetry as an "affair of adolescence". 3 I 3 L I 0 G A P II Primary So-grces

1. Byron, i.G. Lord Tae Poetical V/orks 01 Lord Byron. Oxford University Press, London, 19(^6. 2. Coleridge, S.T. 'The Poems of Samuel Coleridge' . ed. E.H, Coleridge, Oxford Universit;y Press, Oxford, 1956.

3. Keats, John Keats: Poetical '.forks., ed. H.'-:. Gerrad, Oxford University Press, London, I966.

Paine, Tlior.as Basic '..Writings of 'Qiomas Paine (Common Sense.. Rights of I-Ian. Ap:e of Keason) Longmans, Greens and Co. %v York, 1903-1912. 5. Plato The Republic ^ trans. H.D.P. Lee, Penguin Books, Ltd., Harraondsv.'orth, Kiddlesex, England, 1966. 6. Shelley, i-^y The Letters of Marv V/ollstonecraft Shelley, ed. Frederich L. .'ones, 'Jniversitv of Qklahama Press, Ibrr.an, 19^7. 7. Shelley, P.B. The Comr)lete Poetical Works of Percv Bvsshe Shelley, ed. Thomns Hi^tnhinqnrij Oxford University Press, London, I965. 8. Shelley, P.B, Shelley's Prose or The Trumpet of a, Prophecy^ ed. David Lee ClaTk, The University of Nev/ Mexico Press, AllJuquerque, 195^^. 9. Shelley, P.B. The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley^ ed. Fredrick L. ITones, vol. 2, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 19©^. 10. Wordsworth, William The Poetical VIorks of 'iords^.jorthj ed. Tliomas Hutchinson, Oxford University Press, London, 1959. //

11. Wordsv-orth, V/illiam The Letters of William 'iordsv/orth. ed. E.De Salinsoiirtj.Vol. 5, Oxford IMiversity Press, London, 1937-39.

Secondary Sources

12. Aveling, E. Shel lev' s Soc ialisni. Preger, Manchester, T§W 13. Baker, Carlos Shelley's Maior Poetry —' The Fabric of a Vision. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 19^-8. ^k. Bald, i:.A. 'Shelley's Mental Progress', Egsavs and Studies. XIII, (1928), 112-37. 15. Bernard, Ellsvrorth Shelley' s Rellgion. Russell and Russell, Ifew York, 19oif. 16, Barrell Joseph Shelley and the Thought of his Time^ Yale University Press, Nev Haven, 1 9J+8. 17. Bates, E.S. A Study of Shelley's Dramas The Cenci^ Ifew York, 19O8. 18. Bates, E.S. Vad Shelley : A Study in the Origin of English Romanticism^ Fred iêvton Scott, Anniversary Papers, Chicago, 1929 19. Bloom, Harold Shelley's Mythmaklne. Cornell University Press, New York, 19^9. 20. Edmund, Blunden Shelley —A Life Story, Oxford University Press, London, 1 963, 21. Brailsford, H. K. Shellev. Godwin and Their Circle. Home University Prfess, Oxford, 19^2. 22. Brov/nlng, Herbert An EssHv on Shelley, ed. L. Winstawly, Bostan, I9II. 23, Bush, Douglas êlley' in Mythology and Romantic Tradition, Harvard Ihivprqif-.y Prôcj London, 1937. iu

2h, Buxton, John Bvron and Shelley. Kacmillan & Go. London, 1968,

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26. Cameron, K. K. 'The Political Symbolism of Prometheus Unbound', PMLA, L VIII (19^3), 728-53. 27. Cameron, K.N. 'Shelley and the Reformers', ELI!, XII, 19^5, 62-86, 28. Cameron, K.N, The Young Shellev. Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1951. 29. Cajneron, K.N. Shelley and His Circle. Vols. 3» Oxford University Press, London, I96I. 30. Clark, David Lee Shelley and Pieces of Irish History^ Fodern Language Notes, LIII (1938) 31. Clu'-.ton Brock, A. Shelley — The Kan and the Poet. Methuen and Co., London, 192M-.

32. Dov/den, Ed\\fard The Life of Percy Bvsshe Shelley^ Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, London, 1966,

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38. Furtado, R.L. Shelley Concert of Nature. Kukhopadhyaya, Calcutta, 195^. 39. Gordon, G. Shelley and the Oppressors of Kanliind^ Oxford University Press, London, 1923. ho, Gra'DO, Carl A Nevton Among Poets. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1930, ^1. Gra&o, Carl The Meaning of the ./itch of AtlLas^ University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1935. V2. Grabo, Carl The Magic Plant : The Growth of Shelley's Thought. University of North Carolina *'ress, 1965. ^3. Grabo, Carl. Shelley's Eccentricities. University of Ifew Mexico Press, Albui5t^®^-i^®5 1950. kk, Grabo, Carl Prometheus Unbound : An Interpretation. University of North Carolina Press, 1935 h5. Havens, R.D. 'Julian and Maddalo', Studies in Philology. XXVII (1930), 6if8-53. ^6^. Havens, R.D. 'Hellas and Charles the First*. Studies in Philology, XLIII C19^), ^^^-^o" h7, Herford, G,H. Shelley in the Cambridge History of English LiteratureT Vol7"Xir h8. Hoffman, H.L. An Odvssey of the Soul : Shelley's Alastor, Columbia University Press, Nevj ;xbrk, 1933. h9, Hughes, A.K.D, •The Witch of Atlas', The Modern Language Review, VII (1912), 50^^^^ 50. Hughes, A.K.D. The Theology of She!lev. Oxford University Press, London, 1938, 51. Hughes, A.K.D. The Nascent Mind of Shelley. The Clarendon Press, London, 19^7. 52. Ingpen, Roger Shelley in England. Keg an Paul, New York, 1917. 53. Jellicoe, Ann Shelley or the Idealif^t, Faber and Faber, London, 191+6. ' 5^. Jones, F.L. •The Vision Theme in Shelley's Alastor and Related Works', Studies in Philology. XLIV, 19^7, 105-26. 55. Jones, F.L. •Shelley's own Life' , PFiLA, LXII, 19^7 56. Kapstein, I.J. "The Symbolism of the v;ind and the Leaves' in Shelley's Ode to the West Wind' , P^^A, LI (1936), 1069-79. 57. King-Hele,Desmond Shelley — His Thought and Work, Macmillan & Co., London, 196^. 58. Lea, F.A. Shelley nnd the Romantic Revolution. Routledge and Sons, London, 19^5. 59. Hac Aleer, E.G. The Sensitive Plant. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel, 11111,1958. 60. Mac Donald, D.J, The Radicalism of Shellev and its sources^ Washington, 1912. 61. Karjarum, F.vi. 'The Symbolism of Shelley's To a Skylark', PMA, LII, (1937), 911-13. 62. Mr^hev/s, G.M. 'A Volcano's Voice in Shelley', ETII, XXIV, 1957, 191-228. 63. Yeats, v;.B. The Philology of Shelley's Poetry in 'Ideas of Good and Bvil' . A.H. Blunden. London, I907. 6k» Ifcrman, S. Flight of the Skylark T Kax Reirihardt, London, 1 95M-.

65. itirraan, S, Tvrentieth Century Theories on Shellev. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, IX (1967), 223-37. 66. rfotopo-.;los, J.A. The Platonism of Shelley — A Study of Platonism and the Poetic Mlnd^ Duke University Press, Durham, 19if9.

67. Peacock, T.L. Memoirs of Shelley^ ed. H.F.B. Bellsnith, Henry Frovrde, London, 1909. 68. Peck, ".:.F. Shellev — His Life and ^rk, Vol. 2, Earnest Benn, New York, 1927. V(

69. Pottle, i'\A. 'Tlie Case of Shelley', PXLA, LX-TII (19P2), 589-608

70. •Shelley and ilalthus', PlXi, L r.ll, 1952, 1l3-2if.

71. Woodlngs, H.B.C'-d.) Shellev —Hodern Jndcements. r.acinillan and Go. Limited, London, 1968. 72, V/oodman, R.G. The Ar|Ocalvptic Vision in the Poetry of ShellevT University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1966. 73. Richard, I.I. 'A note on Source Influences in Shellev's Cloud and Skylark', FWM. L, 1935, 562-67. 7h. Hidenoiir, G.K Shellev (Twentieth Genturv Views), Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1965. 75. Roe, I. Shelle^/^ The Last Phase<> Hutchinson, London, 1953. 76. Rojers, N. Shellev at VJork^ The Clarendon Press, axford, 1967. 77. Salt, II.S. A Shellev Primer. Reeves and Turner, London, 1887. 78. Sen, Aniya Kumar St;;udies in Shellev. liiiversity of Calcutta, 193^:: 79. Shaw, G.B. The Intelligent V/oman's Guide to Socialism. Capitalismy Sovietism and Fascigrij Penguin Books Ltd, Harmonds\Tiorth, Kiddlesex, England, 1965. 80. Shaw, G.B. I Shamin5 g the Devil about Shelley' , The Albemarle. Vol. II, no. 3 (September, i«9e, pp. 91-96. 81. Shavjcross, John (ed) Shellev's Literary and Philosophical Criticism, Oxford University Press, 1932. 82. Solve, K.T. Shellev ~>.His Theory of Poetry^ Russell & Russell, New York, 196I+

83. Spender, S. Shellev (Writers and Their Works>, Longmans Green and Co., London, I96if. v//

81+. Stavell, F.K. 'Shelley's Triumph of Life', Essavs ^nd Studies. V (191^), 105-31. 85. Stokes, E.E. Shelley and Bernard Shav. A Study in Late Nineteenth Century Socialism, Austin, Texas, 19^8. 86. Stoval, Floyd 'Shelley's Doctrine of Love', PI-XA. XLV (1930) , 283-303. 87. Stoval, Floyd Desire and Restraint in Shelley^ Duke University Press, Durham, 1931. 88. Strong, Archibald Three Studies in Shelley. Oxford University Press, Durham, 1931. 89. Symonds, J. A. Shelley (English t'-en of Letters) , Lyall Book Depot., Chandigarh, 1 968. 90. Thomson, Francis Saielley. Burns Dates and VJashbourne Ltd. London, I928. 91. Thomson, James Shelley in Biogranhical and Critical StudiesT iteeves and Turner, London, 1896T 92, Todhunter , John A Study of Shelley. C. Kegan Paul, London, 1880. 93. Trelawny, F.J. Recollection of the Last Davs of Shelley and Byron^ Dent, London, 1933. 9^+. mMan, J.R. Mad ShelleyT The University Press, Princeton, 1930. 95. V/eaver, Bennett Toward the Understanding of Shelley^ The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1932. 96. Weaver, Bennett 'Pre-Promothean Thought in the Prose of Shelley', Philosophical Quarterly. XXVII, 19^, 193-208^^ 97. Weaver, Bennett 'Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound', PMLA, I^V, 19^9, 115-33. 98. v;hite N.I, 'Shelley's 'Swellfoot the Tyrant' in Relaticxi to contemporary Political Satire', PllA, XXXVI, 1921, 332-46. Mill

99. '^ite, N.I. 'Literature and tlie Law of Libel : Shelley and the Radicals' of 18V0-18^2' , Studies in Philology. Vol. -XII, (January, 192^), pp. 3^-^7.

1CX). White, N.I. 'Shelley and the Active Radicals of the early Nineteenth Century'. South Atlantic Quarterly, XXIX, 1930, 2I+8-61.

101. '^ite, iJ.I. The Unextinguished Hearth : Shellev and His Contemporary Critics. Duke University Press, Durham, 193^. 102. '^ite, N.I. Shelley (2 Vols.) Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 19^0, 103. \'Jhite, R.J.Ced.) Political Tracts of Wordsworth^ Coleridge and Shelley. The ISiiversity Press. Cambridge, 1953. 10lf, Wilcox, 3.C. 'Imagery, Ideas, and Design in Shelley's 'Ode to the Vfest Wind', Studies in Philology, XLVII, 1950, 63I+-5O. 105. V/instanley, L, 'Platonism in Shelley', Essays and Studies, IV (1913), 72-100.

III General

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