Masks of Anarchy, by Paul Foot
Rise like lions after slumber: Revolutionary Shelley
“Poetry is our most fundamental weapon against alienation, isolation, automation, apathy and despair” – Demson, Masks of Anarchy
Richard Holmes rightly describes Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy as “the greatest political poem ever written in English”. The ninety-two verses of The Mask were written in hot indignation in September 1819, immediately after Shelley heard the news of the massacre at Peterloo. It is the most concise, the most popularly written and the most explicit statement of his political ideas in poetry.
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