"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
15 July 2006Imagine there's no monarchAnd just when I thought English Lit had gone unlit more or less permanently, here's a blast from the past: a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the centerpiece of an anonymous pamphlet, has been found by a bookseller after having gone unseen, if not entirely unnoted, for 195 years. Shelley, in disguise as "A Gentleman of the University of Oxford," wrote the piece as a gesture of support (and, at two shillings per copy, a fundraiser) for Peter Finnerty, an early example of an "embedded" journalist. Finnerty's story:
In 1809 the controversial naval officer Sir Home Popham invited Peter Finnerty, a radical Irish journalist and supporter of the United Irishmen, to join him on the British expedition to the Scheldt: its object was to attack Antwerp, then held by the French. Although Flushing fell, a large number of troops succumbed to a form of malaria on the island of Walcheren and the expedition ended in disaster with the deaths of around 4,000 men. Finnerty’s reports on these events in the Morning Chronicle led to his arrest and transportation back to England. In January 1810 he accused his "ancient enemy" Lord Castlereagh of trying to silence him and compounded the offence by repeating accusations against the politician about the abuse of United Irish prisoners in 1798. Finnerty was tried for libel in February 1811 and sentenced to eighteen months in Lincoln Gaol.
The poem itself is dedicated to "HARRIET W-B-K", undoubtedly Harriet Westbrook, Shelley's fiancée. (They eloped in August 1811.) While Finnerty's plight is mentioned early on, the poem has larger ambitions: to expose the evils of war in general. Two couplets:
Millions to fight compell’d, to fight or die
In mangled heaps on War’s red altar lie ... When legal murders swell the lists of pride; When glory’s views the titled idiot guide. Shelley concluded that ridding the world of monarchy, of these "titled idiots," is the way to "peace, love and concord." I have my doubts. We definitely have fewer monarchs these days; King Farouk of Egypt famously quipped in 1948 that eventually there would be only five kings left — of Hearts, of Diamonds, of Spades, of Clubs, and of England. On the other hand, there is no shortage of idiots with titles. Posted at 10:45 AM to Almost YogurtThere's no shortage of idiots without titles as well. Posted by: Andrea Harris at 11:30 AM on 15 July 2006 |