Comparing Shelly And Blake's Satirical Rule
Ozy’s Holy Thursday:
Shelly and Blake’s Satirical View of Monarchy and Empirical Rule
P.B Shelly, once penned, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” (“A Defence of Poetry”). Certainly, Shelley is not shy to admit the political power of the Romantic period poets and how they can shape ideologies through their narration at a time of immense instability and discord. However, how one can interpret the multiple works of Blake, Wordsworth, and Shelley amongst others can be significantly altered dependant on perspective. Ideals of liberty, freedom, imprisonment, and enslavement were all prevalent topics of choice. Dependent on a person’s class, religion, or even attitude would find which them was favored. For example, William …show more content…
Children are “lambs” and their voices in song raise to heaven “like a mighty wind” while the “wise guardians of the poor” sit beneath them (Blake, “Holy Thursday: …Innocence”). The speaker again instills the idea of the children spiritually rising above and therefore are prioritized by society as well as the church officers who are considered favored protectors. However, this mocking perspective changes five years later with the release of Songs of Experience.
Where Holy Thursday in Songs of Innocence could be considered satirical propaganda for the monarchy and church, the version in Songs of Experience may be viewed as unveiling the ugly truths of London’s society. Blake ultimately reverses the prior perspective of orphaned children singing on Holy Thursday being the sight and sounds of liberty and spiritual …show more content…
The irony of a traveler coming upon a distressed and decapitated statue devoted to a fallen king amongst a barren land would seem to be enough. However, it is the hubris inscription on the pedestal, “My name is Ozymandias … Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair,” that one could view as almost a comedic rebuke by Shelley to monarchy or empirical rule (“Ozymandias”). On the contrary, when the traveler references the land as being “boundless and bare,” it is not difficult to sense the shared disparity between Ozymandias’ people and those of children in Holy Thursday (Shelley, “Ozymandias”). Surely, once Ozymandias’ kingdom was plentiful in resources to build such a monument to himself, but to see its decay through the passage of time, while knowing the Kings’ conceit in character; it becomes easy to be sensitive to the hopelessness of the working people such as the sculptor underneath his
Shelly and Blake’s Satirical View of Monarchy and Empirical Rule
P.B Shelly, once penned, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” (“A Defence of Poetry”). Certainly, Shelley is not shy to admit the political power of the Romantic period poets and how they can shape ideologies through their narration at a time of immense instability and discord. However, how one can interpret the multiple works of Blake, Wordsworth, and Shelley amongst others can be significantly altered dependant on perspective. Ideals of liberty, freedom, imprisonment, and enslavement were all prevalent topics of choice. Dependent on a person’s class, religion, or even attitude would find which them was favored. For example, William …show more content…
Children are “lambs” and their voices in song raise to heaven “like a mighty wind” while the “wise guardians of the poor” sit beneath them (Blake, “Holy Thursday: …Innocence”). The speaker again instills the idea of the children spiritually rising above and therefore are prioritized by society as well as the church officers who are considered favored protectors. However, this mocking perspective changes five years later with the release of Songs of Experience.
Where Holy Thursday in Songs of Innocence could be considered satirical propaganda for the monarchy and church, the version in Songs of Experience may be viewed as unveiling the ugly truths of London’s society. Blake ultimately reverses the prior perspective of orphaned children singing on Holy Thursday being the sight and sounds of liberty and spiritual …show more content…
The irony of a traveler coming upon a distressed and decapitated statue devoted to a fallen king amongst a barren land would seem to be enough. However, it is the hubris inscription on the pedestal, “My name is Ozymandias … Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair,” that one could view as almost a comedic rebuke by Shelley to monarchy or empirical rule (“Ozymandias”). On the contrary, when the traveler references the land as being “boundless and bare,” it is not difficult to sense the shared disparity between Ozymandias’ people and those of children in Holy Thursday (Shelley, “Ozymandias”). Surely, once Ozymandias’ kingdom was plentiful in resources to build such a monument to himself, but to see its decay through the passage of time, while knowing the Kings’ conceit in character; it becomes easy to be sensitive to the hopelessness of the working people such as the sculptor underneath his