{"id":1008,"date":"2019-03-10T23:34:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T23:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1008"},"modified":"2019-10-21T16:08:36","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T15:08:36","slug":"shelley-a-socialist-poet","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/shelley-a-socialist-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Shelley: a socialist poet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article is an edited version of one published in the Socialist Standard<\/em>\n(1992), the monthly journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I became acquainted with Shelley in 1944. At the time I was eighteen years of age and a\nRepublican remand prisoner in Belfast jail. I liked poetry and, searching for something\nreadable in the prison library – a cupboard which they opened twice weekly to the\naccompaniment of bawling screws, who could see no justification for delay in lifting one\nof the books – I found a treasure: The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley<\/em>.\nEventually I got my own copy of Shelley and, over many, many years, I have prized it as\nthe first real socialist literature I ever read. It is, I think, fitting that, on the\nbi-centenary of his birth, an appreciation of his life’s work should appear in a socialist\njournal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poets, with their abstract notions of freedom and justice, can momentarily help a\nprisoner transcend the ignominy and degradation that the prison system imposes. But\nShelley’s ideas of freedom and justice were no way abstract; his was no mere solace for\nthe soul. Yes, there were the odes To The West Wind<\/em>, To A Skylark<\/em>, To A\nCloud<\/em>; beautiful word music in the classical tradition of English metrical\ncomposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, more importantly, there was the wisdom that stripped to its essential ugliness a\nsystem of society that dissipates, wastes and destroys wealth in order to make its rich\nricher while mentally and physically impoverishing the producers of that wealth. There was\nthe vision of a new world, a world of dignity and equality where cash would not be the\nmeasure of human need. And there was the indignation, the anguish, even the pain –\nsometimes written in a spontaneity of anger that defied the discipline of well-marshalled\nprosody. Here was a text book of revolutionary thought that showed the futility of the\ncause for which I was imprisoned and extended my vision beyond the empty rhetoric of\nnationalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his lifetime Shelley had come to Ireland to protest at the misery of the\npeasantry. Some Irish nationalists have equated this with sympathy for Irish nationalism\nbut Shelley, whose constituency was the toiling masses everywhere, did not subscribe to\nthe myth that the English working class were the beneficiaries of English imperialism.\nThus, after hearing of the Peterloo Massacre at Manchester in 1819, Shelley wrote the\nMasque of Anarchy in which he describes the contemporary condition of the working class in\nEngland: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asses, swine have litter spread <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And with fitting food are fed; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All things have a home but one – <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Thou, Oh Englishman, hast none! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is Slavery – savage men, Or wild beasts within a den Would endure not as ye do –\n But such ills they never knew. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This poem, consisting of some ninety one short stanzas of varying lengths was written\nat Leghorn in Italy. According to his wife, Mary, when Shelley heard how the military\nmurderers had waded into a peaceful reform protest “it… aroused in him violent\nemotions of indignation and compassion”. According to some purists, that anger\nadversely affected the quality of the poem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever its poetic qualities, Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy must rank, from a working –\nclass standpoint, as the most chdactic of English poetical works. His verse castigates\nevery rotten facet of capitalism: its law, its judiciary, its priests, its parasite class\nand the foulness of its oppression. His words bear the reader along the path of anger and\nfrustration seeking, it would seem, retribution, revenge. But Shelley, in an age when\nviolence was the tool of revolution, was too deeply perceptive of the need for democratic\naction if the revolution which he craved was to realise his vision. True, he makes us\nangry, makes us loathe this evil that murders people for profit but, on the crest of our\nanger, he stops us: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then it is to feel revenge<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Fiercely thirsting to exchange <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Blood for blood – <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

and wrong for wrong – <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Do not thus when ye are strong. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What then? What should we do when “we are strong”? Shelley, the democratic\nsocialist says we should use the unassaila- ble power of our numbers. Poetically, he says\nwe should think… decide: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stand ye calm and resolute, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Like a forest, close and mute, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

With folded arms and looks which are <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Weapons of unvanquished war. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(… ) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rise like Lions after slumber <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In unvanquishable number <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Shake your chains to earth like dew <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Which in sleep had fallen on you <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ye are many – they are few. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In 1888 Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, and her partner, Edward Aveling published an\nappreciation of Shelley under the title Shelley’s Socialisrn. The justification for their\nassumption is abundant throughout Shelley’s poems and prose writings. In one of his notes\nto Queen Mab<\/em>, Shelley quotes Godwin with approval: “there is no real wealth\nbut the labour of man”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prometheus Unbound<\/em>, The Masque of Anarchy<\/em>, Queen Mab<\/em>, The Ode to\nLiberty<\/em>, these, with his prose writings, his prologues, his sonnets and his songs\nchronicle the misery of the peasant and the wage slave but always, there is the optimism\nof the true revolutionary; the clarity of vision, as here in Prometheus Unbound<\/em>, of\na future where: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Loathsome mask has fallen the man remains <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Equal, unclassed, tribless and nationless, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Over himself, just, gentle, wise. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Queen Mab <\/em>is a vision of the past, present and future of mankind. In it Shelley\nattacks kings, war, commerce and, in particular, priests and religion. In fact the\ncriticism of christianity, in the poem as well as in prose notes attached to it was so\nhard-hitting that when it was republished in the 1820s the publisher was sent to prison\nfor blasphemy. Queen Mab <\/em>became the work that publishers used in defiance of the\nrestrictive press laws of the time. Each time they were convicted of blasphemy. But as a\nresult Queen Mab, <\/em>and thus Godwin’s social ideas, came to be widely read in\nChartist and radical circless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this passage from Queen Mab<\/em> he criticises the way money contaminates all\nhuman relationships: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All things are sold: the very light of Heaven Is venal; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Earth’s unsparing gifts of love, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The smallest and most despicable things <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That lurk in the abysses of the deep, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All objects of our life, even life itself, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And the poor pittance which the laws allow <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Of liberty, the fellowship of man, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Those duties which his heart of human love <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Should urge him to perform instinctively, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Are bought and sold as in a public mart <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Of undisguising selfishness, that sets <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He saw money, “paper coin – that forgery of the title deeds”, as capitalism’s\ninstrument of theft; he saw slavery as a natural result of property society; he saw the\npoverty and alienation of the masses and, especially, did he decry the intellectual\npoverty and deception which capitalism inflicted on its wage slaves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In part V of Queen Mab <\/em>Shelley attacks commerce which he sees as a product of\n selfishness in the sense of people wanting to sell their surplus for money rather than\n give it to others to satisfy their needs:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Commerce! Beneath whose poison-breathing shade <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No solitary virtue dares to spring, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But Poverty and Wealth with equal hand <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Scatter their withering curses, and unfold <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The doors of premature and violent death, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To pining famine and full-fed disease, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To all that shares the lot of human life, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Which poisoned, body and soul, scarce drags <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

the chain, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It is quite clear that Shelley was expressing Godwin’s idea that, in a just society,\nproducers would give away their surplus produce free rather than sell it for money. Hence\nhis opening description of commerce as “the venal interchange of all that human art\nor nature yield; which wealth should purchase not, but want demand, and natural kindness\nhasten to supply”. When he later describes what will happen when people are motivated\nby the “consciousness of good” he naturally states that they will have no need\nof “mediative signs of selfishness” – of money – and that “every transfer\nof the earth’s natural gifts shall be a commerce of good words and works”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This commerce of sincerest virtue needs <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No mediative signs of selfishness, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No jealous intercourse of wretched gain, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No balancings of prudence, cold and long; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In just and equal measure all is weighed, One scale contains the sum of human weal, And\n one, the good man’s heart. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Part V of Queen Mab <\/em>ends as follows: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But hoary-headed Selfishness has felt <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Its death-blow, and is tottering to the grave: <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A brighter morn awaits the human day, When every transfer of earth’s natural gifts\n Shall be a commerce of good words and works; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When poverty and wealth, the thirst of fame, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The fear of infamy, disease and woe, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

War with its million horrors, and fierce hell Shall live but in the memory of Time, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start, <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Look back, and shudder at his younger years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In one sense this argument as to whether or not Godwin and Shelley were socialists is\nanachronistic since the modern idea of socialism, as the solution to the problems of a\nmajority wage-working class within a capitalist industrial society, had not yet come into\nbeing. This is partly why in this article we have used the word “communist”\nrather than “socialist” to describe the moneyless equal society advocated by\ncritics of the essentially agrarian class society that existed before industrial\ncapitalism developed. It was of course the low level of development of the means of\nproduction that accounts for the fruga1, even Spartan, character which the pre- industrial\ncommunists were obliged to give to the egalitarian society they advocated, but it still\nremains true that people like (in England) More, Winstanley and Godwin and Shelley and (in\nFrance) Morelly, Babeuf and Buonarotti were forerunners of the socialist industrial\nsociety of abundance that we mod- ern socialists now advocate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Please email your comments about this article to feedback@worldsocialism.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Back to the Socialist Writers Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is an edited version of one published in the Socialist Standard (1992), the monthly journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain I became acquainted with Shelley in 1944. At the time I was eighteen years of age and a Republican remand prisoner in Belfast jail. I liked poetry and, searching for something…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2094,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1008","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2690,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1008\/revisions\/2690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}