England in 1819
it was published anonymously
Percy did not publish it on its own because he knew he would be punished for that
-> so he gave it to his friend, he was an editor
It’s a harsh critism of George the third, he was mentally ill and lied in bed
George turned crazy, he was not longer able to rule the country
People are frustrated, the ruling class owns the land and the lower / working class does not have anything at all
Structure of this poem
this is a sonnet -> 14 lines
Rhyme scheme: opposite of the Italian sonnet
(Italian sonnet: ABBA, ABBA, CDE, CDE) -> iambic parameter
We have a sestet and then we have an octave
It’s an inversion of an Italian sonnet
The meter is quite irregular, if you read that out you can hear that
How does Shelley criticise the state of the nation?
in line 7 is a reference to a massaker
“A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field”
“But leechlike to their fainting country cling”
“Blutegel” -> the ruling class sucks the blood of the society until there is no blood anymore -> until they are dead
If they haven’t died from hunger or poverty, now they have died because of the massaker
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