10 Years After

It's taken awhile to find some time to make another post. I turned in the second paper for British Literature II today. The paper is on the political statements that Percy B. Shelley made in the few politcal poems of his that we read ("Ozymandias,""England in 1819," and "A Song: 'Men of England' "). It's not quite what I wnated to write. Time was the factor in this. I would have also preferred a larger selection of poetry. Howevr, I felt obliged to stay within the poems that we read ( I thought of using "To Wordsworth" but decided against it).

Also of note, I found this while reading up on Shelley:

"The frame work poem [Revolt of Islam] (Canto I and Canto XII, stanzas xvii-xli), in which the story of Laon and Cythna - "a story of human passion in its most universal charcter" ²⁶ is placed, is a myth. In it the eternal struggle between good and evil is symbolized by the fight between the Serpent and the Eagle, and the Temple of the Spirit of Good is pictured. The youth who tells the story is driven by "visions of despair" (Canto I, stanza i), brought on by contemplation of the failure of the French Revolution, to the place where he sitnesses the defeat of the Serpent (Good) by the Eagle (Evil). He is told that the battle will be renewed, that the victor has most to fear at the moment when his victory is complete because this moment generates the forces which will inevitably bring about his downfall. In the Temple of the Spirit of Good, where the symbol of Good changes from Serpent to radiant male form, the youth is instructed to listen to a "A tale of human power" (Canto I, stanza lviii) and to learn. The tale he hears is that of Laon and Cythna, whose forms become visible. It is an account of how their lives were spent in promoting the ideal revolution and how the revolution was crushed. The last tenty-five stanzas of the poem (Canto XII, stanzas xvii-xli), in which Laon and Cythna are brought after the death to the Temple where we find them in Canto I, complete the framework."

The framework poem, which provides a cosmic setting for the telling of the human story, reflects Shelley's belief in the inevitability of political progress. The war between the Snake and the Eagle, which shakes the worl's foundations, occurs whenever "mankind doth strive / With it opressors in a strife of blood", or whenever "free thoughts / like lightenings, are alive, / And in each bosom of the multitude / Justice and Truth with custom's hydra brood / Wage a silent war", or whenever "priest and kings dissemble / In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude" or whenever "round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble" (Canto I, stanze xxxiii). The undying impulse for reform is the spirit of the individual, which is awlays beyond being completely controlled by oppressors."

"Shelley's Politcal Thought", John Pollard Guinn. pgs 81- 82

I found this interesting in light of the question of why Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" uses a bird (an albatross), which is usually a Christ symbol, as a symbol of a man's damnation and a a snake as a symbol of man's (partial) redemption.