Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem; With Notes, published in 1813 in nine cantos with seventeen notes, was the first large poetic work written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), the English Romantic poet.[1]
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History
This poem was written early in Shelley's career and serves as a foundation to his theory of revolution. In this work, he depicts a two-pronged revolt involving necessary changes, brought on by both nature and the virtuousness of humans.
Shelley took William Godwin's idea of "necessity" and combined it with his own idea of ever-changing nature, to establish the theory that contemporary societal evils would dissolve naturally in time. This was to be coupled with the creation of a virtuous mentality in people who could envision the ideal goal of a perfect society. The ideal was to be reached incrementally, because Shelley (as a result of Napoleon's actions in the French Revolution), believed that the perfect society could not be obtained immediately through violent revolution. Instead it was to be achieved through nature's evolution and ever-greater numbers of people becoming virtuous and imagining a better society.
Several atheistic passages of the poem were removed from the first edition. After they were restored in the second edition, the poem's publisher, Edward Moxon, was prosecuted and convicted of blasphemous libel.[2]
The British bookseller Richard Carlile issued a new edition of the poem in the 1820s. In spite of prosecution from the Vice Society, Carlile was encouraged by the popularity Shelley's poem enjoyed with the working classes, progressives, and reformers into producing four separate editions of Queen Mab during the 1820s.
Plot
The poem is written in the form of a fairy tale that presents a future vision of a utopia on earth, consisting of nine cantos and seventeen notes. Queen Mab, a fairy, descends in a chariot to a dwelling where Ianthe is sleeping on a couch. Queen Mab detaches Ianthe's spirit or soul from her sleeping body and transports it on a celestial tour to Queen Mab's palace at the edge of the universe.
Queen Mab interprets, analyzes, and explains Ianthe's dreams. She shows her visions of the past, present, and the future. The past and present are characterized by oppression, injustice, misery, and suffering caused by monarchies, commerce, and religion. In the future, however, the condition of man will be improved and a utopia will emerge. Two key points are emphasized: 1) death is not to be feared; and, 2) the future offers the possibility of perfectibility. Humanity and nature can be reconciled and work in unison and harmony, not against each other.
While Ianthe is asleep on the couch, Henry waits to kiss her. He never does.
Queen Mab returns Ianthe's spirit or soul to her body. Ianthe then awakens with a "gentle start".
Of the seventeen notes, six deal with the issues of atheism, vegetarianism, free love, the role of necessity in the physical and spiritual realm, and the relationship of Christ and the precepts of Christianity.
References
- ^ Mark Sandy, University of Durham. "Queen Mab." The Literary Encyclopedia. 20 Sep. 2002. The Literary Dictionary Company. Accessed 30 November 2007.
- ^ Seymour, Miranda. Mary . London: John Murray, 2000. 467–468.
- Morton, Timothy. “Queen Mab as Topological Repertoire,” in Neil Fraistat, ed., Early Shelley: Vulgarisms, Politics and Fractals. Romantic Praxis, 1997.
- Forman, H. Buxton. The Vicissitudes of Shelley's Queen Mab; A Chapter in the History of Reform. London: Clay and Sons, 1887.
- Grimes, Kelly. (1995). 'Queen Mab', the Law of Libel and the Forms of Shelley's Politics." The Journal of English and Germanic Philology.
- Duffy, Cian. Shelley and the Revolutionary Sublime. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
- Fraistat, Neil. (2002). "The Material Shelley: Who Gets the Finger in Queen Mab?" Wordsworth Circle, Vol. 33.
- Burling, W. J. (1984). "Virginia Woolf's 'Lighthouse': An Allusion to Shelley's Queen Mab?" English Language Notes, 22, 2, pp. 62-65.
- Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. NY: HarperCollins, 2004.
- Morton, Timothy. (2006). "Joseph Ritson, Percy Shelley and the Making of Romantic Vegetarianism." Romanticism, 12.1, pp. 52-61.
- Morton, Timothy, Marilyn Butler, and James Chandler. Shelley and the Revolution in Taste: The Body and the Natural World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- Curtin, John. (1918). "Shelley, the Revolutionist." Westralian Worker.
- Sloan, Gary. (July/August, 2003). "Shelley: Angelic Atheist." Eclectica Magazine, 7, 3.
See also
External links
- Queen Mab at Archive.org
- Complete text of the poem
- "Poet of Revolution," Time Magazine, December 16, 1940: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884277-1,00.html
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