Queen Mab E-Book

Percy Bysshe Shelley

• Herausgeber: Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

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.[2] After substantial reworking, a revised edition of a portion of the text was published in 1816 under the title The Daemon of the World. This poem was written early in Shelley's career and serves as a foundation to his theory of revolution. It was his first major poem. 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.He set the press and ran 250 copies of this radical and revolutionary tract. Queen Mab was infused with scientific language and naturalising moral prescriptions for an oppressed humanity in an industrialising world. He intended the poem to be private and distributed it among his close friends and acquaintances. About 70 sets of the signatures were bound and distributed personally by Shelley, and the rest were stored at William Clark's bookshop in London. A year before his death, in 1821, one of the shopkeepers caught sight of the remaining signatures. The shopkeeper bound the remaining signatures, printed an expurgated edition, and distributed the pirated editions through the black market. The copies were–in the words of Richard Carlisle– "pounced upon," by the Society for the Prevention of Vice. Shelley was dismayed upon discovering the piracy of what he considered to be not just a juvenile production but a work that could potentially "injure rather than serve the cause of freedom." He sought an injunction against the shopkeeper, but since the poem was considered illegal, he was not entitled to the copyright. William Clark was imprisoned for 4 months for publishing and distributing Queen Mab.

Leseprobe

Queen Mab

by

Percy Bysshe Shelley

To the best of our knowledge, the text of this

work is in the “Public Domain”.

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Queen Mab.

To Harriet

Queen Mab.

Shelley’s Notes.

Note on Queen Mab, by Mrs. Shelley.

Queen Mab.

ECRASEZ L’INFAME!

— Correspondance de Voltaire.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante

Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;

Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.

. . .

Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.

Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis

Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.

— Lucret. lib. 4.

Äïóðïíóôï, êáéêïóìïíêéíåóï

— Archimedes.

To Harriet.

Whose is the love that gleaming through the world,

Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?

Whose is the warm and partial praise,

Virtue’s most sweet reward?

5

Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul

Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?

Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,

And loved mankind the more?

HARRIET! on thine:— thou wert my purer mind;

10

Thou wert the inspiration of my song;

Thine are these early wilding flowers,

Though garlanded by me.

Then press into thy breast this pledge of love;

And know, though time may change and years may roll,

15

Each floweret gathered in my heart

It consecrates to thine.

3. Queen Mab.

1.

How wonderful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!

One, pale as yonder waning moon

With lips of lurid blue;

5

The other, rosy as the morn

When throned on ocean’s wave

It blushes o’er the world:

Yet both so passing wonderful!

Hath then the gloomy Power

10

Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres

Seized on her sinless soul?

Must then that peerless form

Which love and admiration cannot view

Without a beating heart, those azure veins

15

Which steal like streams along a field of snow,

That lovely outline, which is fair

As breathing marble, perish?

Must putrefaction’s breath

Leave nothing of this heavenly sight

20

But loathsomeness and ruin?

Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,

On which the lightest heart might moralize?

Or is it only a sweet slumber

Stealing o’er sensation,

25

Which the breath of roseate morning

Chaseth into darkness?

Will Ianthe wake again,

And give that faithful bosom joy

Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch

30

Light, life and rapture from her smile?

Yes! she will wake again,

Although her glowing limbs are motionless,

And silent those sweet lips,

Once breathing eloquence,

35

That might have soothed a tiger’s rage,

Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.

Her dewy eyes are closed,

And on their lids, whose texture fine

Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,

40

The baby Sleep is pillowed:

Her golden tresses shade