The Full Text of “England in 1819”
1An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
2Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
3Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—
4Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
5But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
6Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—
7A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
8An army, which liberticide and prey
9Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,
10Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
11Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
12A Senate,—Time's worst statute unrepealed,—
13Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
14Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.
The Full Text of “England in 1819”
1An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
2Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
3Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—
4Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
5But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
6Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—
7A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
8An army, which liberticide and prey
9Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,
10Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
11Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
12A Senate,—Time's worst statute unrepealed,—
13Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
14Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.
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“England in 1819” Introduction
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Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley's "England in 1819" is an expression of political anger and hope. First sent as an untitled addition to a private letter, the sonnet vents Shelley's outrage at the crises plaguing his home country during one of the most chaotic years of its history. The poem begins by attacking England's leaders and institutions, deeming the monarchy a disgraceful leech draining the country of its life force. The aristocracy is totally out of touch, the speaker continues, while starving citizens remain violently oppressed by a greedy government that crushes the freedom of those it's meant to defend. Religion, meanwhile, offers no comfort, the Church itself having become corrupt and "Christless." In its final couplet, the poem then shifts to a vision of national redemption: all of these institutions are dead, the speaker says, but England will one day rise like a mythical bird from their ashes.
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“England in 1819” Summary
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The speaker lists a series of crises England faces in 1819: a king who is old, insane, unable to see the world around him, hated by his country, and about to die. Princes, who are the worst of their mediocre family line, flowing like dirty water from a dirty well through the public's contempt. Rulers who don't understand or care about England's problems, but instead help themselves at the country's expense, like leeches feeding off a fainting body until they die of overindulgence. Ordinary people who are starving and violently repressed on land that's not being farmed. An army that kills freedom and attacks its own people. Greed-driven, violent laws that corrupt and kill. A version of Christian religion that offers no meaning, like a holy book sealed shut. A parliament that's like the worst law ever passed but still remains in force. The speaker compares all these problems to graves from which a glorious, redeeming spirit might arise, turning a turbulent time into a calm and enlightened one.
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“England in 1819” Themes
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National Destruction and Rebirth
Shelley’s “England in 1819” is a furious indictment of a nation in turmoil. Written during a year of upheaval in England—including the decline of the mentally ill King George III and an infamous massacre of political protesters—it voices Shelley’s outrage at his country’s corruption, but also insists that this decay could offer hope for a phoenix-like rebirth. England might be in terrible disorder, the poem argues, but the collapse of the old system of monarchical rule is also the chance for a visionary new beginning.
The poem’s vision of chaos and corruption in English politics at first seems almost apocalyptic: it depicts the country as broken from top to bottom. The speaker views England’s leaders as decrepit, out-of-touch parasites—rulers unqualified to rule.
The opening specifically attacks King George III, who at the time was mentally ill, blind, and on the verge of death. In the speaker’s view, his blindness is metaphorical as well as literal: he can’t understand or guide his country. The speaker also denounces lesser “princes” and “rulers”—George III's descendants and the rest of the aristocracy—as corrupt products of a corrupt source (“mud from a muddy spring”), suggesting that England’s entire leadership is illegitimate and worthy of “scorn.”
Moreover, the speaker accuses these leaders of being indifferent to the suffering around them, comparing them to leeches who feed off their deteriorating country. Instead of healing the country (as leeches were once thought to help heal patients), they’re just making it sicker as they indulge themselves.
Regular “people,” meanwhile, are wounded victims in an “untilled field,” unable to cultivate themselves or their land. The speaker accuses the army of ruthlessly subjugating these people, and similarly portrays England’s “laws,” “religion,” and “senate” (parliament) as utterly corrupt and unable to help anyone.
The poem shows an unstable society reaching a breaking point, where either violent revolution or some other form of drastic change is inevitable. Yet rather than spelling doom, this total brokenness creates the potential for redemption to arise. England’s crises have destroyed it so thoroughly, the poem suggests, that they may actually cause a “glorious” national rejuvenation.
In its final moments, the poem states that all the disasters it’s listed so far “are graves.” In other words, they’re markers of the country’s death—but as in religious and mythical stories of souls rising from the grave, they’re also potential sites of cultural rebirth. The speaker doesn’t describe what this rebirth might look like, but mystically envisions a “glorious Phantom” emerging from the crisis to redeem England’s suffering. Imagining that this spirit will “illumine our tempestuous day,” the speaker expresses hope that the end of this stormy period could mark the beginning of a brighter one.
In its nightmare portrait of English society, “England in 1819” expresses Shelley’s radical rage against his country’s political machine. It’s an outpouring of frustration, but it refuses to settle for despair. Instead it turns, at the last minute, to a vision of cautious hope—one that has outlived the specific crises that inspired the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “England in 1819”
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Line 1
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
The poem begins abruptly, launching without preface into a list of England's problems. The list is so long and breathless with outrage that the sentence's main verb ("Are") doesn't arrive until line 13! Shelley didn't even title the poem; it acquired the title "England in 1819" when it was posthumously published in 1839 (in a volume edited by the poet's wife, Mary Shelley).
The list starts with an attack on King George III, sometimes remembered as "Mad King George." At the time, George was 81 years old, clinically insane after years of deteriorating mental health, completely blind after years of deteriorating eyesight, and on the verge of death. (Shelley wrote the poem in December 1819; the King died the following month.) Due to his worsening mental illness, the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) had effectively replaced him as England's leader in 1811; George III retained his power in title only.
These conditions explain Shelley's description of the king as "old," "mad," "blind," and "dying." As for "despised," that's Shelley's opinion, but while George's popularity had fluctuated over the course of his lifetime, there's no doubt that his reign had been controversial. For example, he had presided over the loss of the American colonies during the American Revolution decades earlier. More immediately, the political conflicts of 1819, especially the Peterloo Massacre referenced in lines 7-9, had left much of England outraged at the monarchy and aristocracy (more on that massacre later on in this guide).
Also note that the word "blind" here has a metaphorical as well as literal meaning. Shelley suggests that the King (as one of the "Rulers" in line 4 who don't "see," "feel," or "know") can't perceive or understand his country well enough to lead it properly.
The alliteration and consonance of heavy /d/ sounds, plus the appearance of hard /b/, /p/, and/k/ sounds, underscore the poet's anger:
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
The assonance of long /i/ sounds in "blind," "despised," and "dying" adds to the line's rhythmic intensity.
Finally, this poem is a sonnet, and follows the standard sonnet meter of iambic pentameter (meaning there are five iambs, poetic feet with a da-DUM rhythm) per line. But from the start, the speaker plays with that expected meter, slotting a spondee (DUM-DUM) into the second foot:
An old, | mad, blind, | despised, | and dy- | ing king,—
These extra stressed beats and sonic devices all combine to create an explosive start to a politically explosive poem.
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Lines 2-3
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,— -
Lines 4-6
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,— -
Lines 7-9
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Lines 10-12
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A Senate,—Time's worst statute unrepealed,— -
Lines 13-14
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.
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“England in 1819” Symbols
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Muddy Water
In lines 2-3, the speaker imagines the "Princes" as "mud" from a "muddy spring" (a well, brook, stream, etc.). The muddy water here symbolizes the harmful nature of the monarchy.
First, the speaker is suggesting that these Princes are as disgusting to their country as putrid water. Thus he describes them as "dregs" (impurities in liquid, or, figuratively, the worst elements of something) "flow[ing] through public scorn." The Princes—whom the speaker clearly considers unqualified to lead—are sickening and harming their country, rather than nourishing it as pure water or good leaders would.
In calling them "mud from a muddy spring," the speaker further implies that these unimpressive Princes have an equally unimpressive source. That source may be the "king" that the speaker has already insulted in the first line of the poem, or it may be their whole family lineage: "their dull race." In other words, the "muddy" water here may be meant to evoke another flowing liquid: the royal bloodline.
Royal families like England's have historically claimed that their bloodline is "pure" or even divine in origin—that the nobility of their family history makes them suited to lead. By contrast, the speaker is suggesting that this royal family is a worthless bunch whose ancestors were worthless, too.
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Leeches
The leeches in line 4 symbolize the unrestrained, self-defeating greed of England's rulers.
Leeches are parasites, sucking creatures' blood and potentially weakening or harming them. In comparing England's "Rulers" to leeches, then, the speaker is saying that these rulers greedily indulge themselves at the country's expense. Like parasitic worms, they lack complex perceptions, emotions, and thoughts: they "neither see, nor feel, nor know." They "cling" to "their fainting country"—gorging themselves off its resources, draining it of vitality—until they can't gorge anymore, and "drop [...] without a blow." This wording suggests that they die of their own overindulgence because their country is too weak to fight them off in any other way. Basically, these rulers are pests.
At the same time, many cultures historically used leeches for medicinal purposes, as "bloodletting" was once thought to treat a wide range of ailments. (Leeches are occasionally still used for certain therapeutic procedures, but not as widely and crudely as they once were.) Thus, leeches are associated with parasitic greed in some contexts and with healing in others.
Shelley may also be invoking the supposed medical benefits of leeches, albeit in an ironic way. Just as the "flow[ing]" water in the previous metaphor should nourish the country but instead pollutes it, these rulers should be helping to cure their ailing country. By helping themselves instead, they're making its ailments worse.
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The Double-Edged Sword
Describing England's army in lines 8-9, the speaker uses the ancient image of the two-edged or double-edged sword. This image carries a number of symbolic and literary associations. It's used several times in the Bible, for example, where it tends to mean simply a powerful weapon or force:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. [Hebrews 4:12, King James Version]
The speaker may be drawing on some of these biblical associations, casting the English army as something powerful, dangerous, or even apocalyptic (the "two-edged sword" also appears in the Book of Revelation, a.k.a. the Apocalypse of John).
But in later proverbial use, the double-edged sword developed a more specific meaning: it indicates something that can have both positive and negative consequences, a weapon or tool that can hurt the user while serving its purpose. This is the main meaning the speaker has in mind here. The poem is suggesting that the army the rulers "wield" against the people—"prey[ing]"on them and committing "liberticide" (the murder of liberty)—is very dangerous to the rulers themselves. The people might violently revolt or even turn the army against their rulers.
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“England in 1819” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Metaphor
Metaphor features prominently throughout the poem. For example, "blind" in line 1, though referring to the king's literal blindness, is probably also a metaphor suggesting that he can't understand his country. (Compare the "Rulers" who, in line 4, "neither see, nor feel, nor know" England's suffering.) Lines 2-3 then metaphorically compare the princes to "dregs" and "mud" in a flowing body of water, and add that this water has a tainted source ("muddy spring"): in other words, the royal family has been badly flawed from the start.
After the similes in lines 5-6 and 8-9, the poem returns to direct metaphorical comparisons:
- The speaker compares the "Religion" of England to "a book sealed"—an inaccessible text that can't offer wisdom or guidance. (This is probably an allusion to the sealed prophetic book or scroll in Revelation.)
- The speaker then compares "Senate" or Parliament, which makes laws, to a terrible law in its own right, and suggests it should be scrapped. (Some critics read "Time's worst statute" as criticizing a specific law, but it's more likely aimed at Parliament in general.)
Finally, lines 13-14 reveal that the whole poem has been building toward an overarching metaphor. All the problems of lines 1-12, the speaker says, "Are graves" from which a "glorious Phantom" might arise. Whatever this Phantom is would "illumine our tempestuous day": improve our troubled time the way light breaks through a storm. This metaphor hints at a revolutionary spirit that's waiting to burst forth. The speaker implies that the country's crises represent the end of an era, and maybe even England as people have known it, but the speaker hopes that the "death" of one system will lead to a "rebirth" of freedom and enlightenment.
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Simile
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Cacophony
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Personification
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Repetition
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Enjambment
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Allusion
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"England in 1819" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Dregs
- Leech-like
- Untilled
- Liberticide
- Prey
- Sanguine
- Statute
- Unrepealed
- Illumine
- Tempestuous
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"Dregs" are impurities that collect in liquid, such as the residue at the bottom of a cup of coffee or glass of wine. Metaphorically, it can mean "the worst part of something," or "the final remaining part of something."
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “England in 1819”
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Form
"England in 1819" is a sonnet that combines several conventions of the English and Italian sonnets. Traditionally, both kinds of sonnet are 14 lines long and, when written in English, use iambic pentameter (more on that in the Meter section of this guide).
Italian sonnets consist of an eight-line stanza called an octave followed by a six-line stanza called a sestet. Based on its rhyme scheme, "England in 1819" looks like a flipped Italian sonnet, with a sestet followed by an octave; lines 1-6 feature one pair of rhyme sounds, while lines 7-14 feature a different pair of rhyme sounds.
A couple of features of the English sonnet are also mixed in. For example, the poem opens with four lines in an ABAB rhyme pattern, as is typical of an English sonnet. The poem also features a turn, or volta, in its closing couplet, where the poem's argument shifts; here, the speaker moves from talking about England's destruction to its potential rebirth.
Shelley's decision to blend the English and Italian forms may relate to the fact that he was writing about England while in Italy. His decision to flip the octave and the sestet mirrors the chaos he's writing about. The world of England in 1819 seems to have turned upside down, so why shouldn't the poem reflect that?
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Meter
The poem is written in iambic pentameter, the conventional meter of the English-language sonnet. This means that each line has five iambs, poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern.
That said, the poem's its handling of that meter is dramatic and distinctive, reflecting the turbulent events it describes. Notice the number of variations in the first four lines alone:
An old, | mad, blind, | despised, | and dy- | ing king,—
Princes, | the dregs | of their | dull race, | who flow
Through pub- | lic scorn, | —mud from | a mud- | dy spring,—
Rulers | who nei- | ther see, | nor feel, | nor know,The clusters of stressed syllables in lines 1-2 establish a bold, percussive sound, appropriate for a poem that's both a portrait of violent chaos and a rapid-fire attack on injustice. Specifically, there's a spondee (stressed-stressed, "mad, blind") in line 1, and a trochee (stressed-unstressed, "Princes") in line 2 (plus another spondee, "dull race").
More trochees pop up at the start of line 4 and in the third foot of line 3, helping to keep the reader a bit off balance while describing a country that's completely out of whack.
Throughout the poem, Shelley uses metrical effects to reinforce the tone and meaning of his lines. For example, all 14 lines end on a stressed syllable (a word like "flow" as opposed to "flowing"). This effect enhances the crisp, percussive sound of the verse; each line ends with a bang. Line 11 ends with two stressed syllables (another spondee), as if mimicking the finality of a book slamming shut:
Reli- | gion Christ- | less, God- | less—a | book sealed;
In many lines, the metrical flow is broken by a caesura—often an emphatic one, as in lines 3, 11, 12, 13, and 14. These caesuras add drama and spontaneity (as if a thought were suddenly occurring to the poet), conveying Shelley's passionate, almost sputtering indignation.
The poem's pentameter never breaks down completely, but the controlled roughness of its surface helps capture a year that's going anything but smoothly, and a nation that's on the verge of falling apart.
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Rhyme Scheme
Shelley's choice of rhyme scheme in this sonnet is highly unusual, a kind of inverted mishmash of the schemes associated with the Italian (or Petrarchan) and English (or Shakespearean) sonnets. The Italian sonnet typically rhymes according to the pattern:
ABBAABBA CDCDCD
Or:
ABBAABBA CDECDE
Note how the rhyme sounds here mark an eight-line octave followed by a six-line sestet. The English sonnet typically rhymes according to the pattern:
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
By contrast, "England in 1819" rhymes as follows:
ABABAB CDCDCCDD
The rhymes mark a sestet followed by an octave—and at the end of this octave is a couplet. The poem thus combines and plays with both the Italian and English sonnet schemes. This inverted, unexpected structure seems to fit Shelley's depiction of a world gone topsy-turvy. The mashup of rhyme schemes may also be a sly joke, reflecting his status as an Englishman writing about England from Italy.
At the same time, there's a thread of order and consistency running under the upheaval. All the rhymes in the poem are exact (none are slant or imperfect), and all are "masculine" (that is, the lines rhyme on a final stressed syllable; "field" and "yield," rather than "yellow" and "mellow"). Shelley is describing chaos, but he, the poet, remains in control of his technique. He's portraying the madness of a society but not giving in to it himself.
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“England in 1819” Speaker
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Readers can take the speaker of the poem as the poet, Percy Shelley, himself.
Shelley first sent "England in 1819" as the postscript of a letter to his fellow poet Leigh Hunt. It closely reflects his own opinions as a writer who was considered a political radical during his lifetime. Neither he nor Hunt published the poem, whose attacks on King George III and others could have landed both of them in serious legal trouble. It didn't appear in print until many years after Shelley's death (and the King's).
Shelley composed the poem while living abroad in Italy. As it turned out, he had left England for good, as he died (in 1822) before returning. The poem thus represents an overview of England's crises by a man who was no longer in the midst of them. Though he speaks on behalf of the English people ("our," line 14), he also brings the perspective of an expatriate speaking his mind about the place he's left.
Nothing in the poem suggests the use of a persona, or any ironic gap between the poet's perspective and the speaker's. The tone and sentiments here are consistent with those Shelley expressed in his other private and public writings (including the long poem The Masque of Anarchy, another response to the political events of 1819). The speaker's voice is scathing, vitriolic, and righteously indignant until the note of cautious optimism enters the closing couplet.
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“England in 1819” Setting
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The poem's setting is named in its title, though Shelley did not choose this title himself: it was assigned by his wife, Mary, after his death. However, the poem's context leaves no doubt that it describes the condition of England in 1819.
Shelley sent the sonnet to his friend, Leigh Hunt, in December of 1819, in a letter that also encouraged Hunt to speak out about England's troubles: "I wish, then," Shelley wrote, "that you would write a paper in the Examiner, on the actual state of the country, and what, under all the circumstances of the conflicting passions and interests of men, we are to expect." The poem's reference to the "old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king," as well as the implied criticism of the Peterloo Massacre in lines 7-9, map onto the actual events of English history during that year.
In Shelley's view, the England of 1819 is borderline apocalyptic. Its leaders are illegitimate, its people oppressed, its institutions broken. The country has reached the end of an era, not only because its King is dying but also because its overall power structure has comprehensively failed the population. The poet can only hope that the disastrous close of one era will bring the dawn of a better one, as the country rebuilds from the ground up (or, metaphorically speaking, rises from its "graves").
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Literary and Historical Context of “England in 1819”
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Literary Context
On November 23, 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley enclosed an untitled sonnet as a postscript in a letter to his friend Leigh Hunt. Earlier in the letter, he'd urged Hunt, a fellow poet who shared his political views, to speak out honestly about the problems facing England. Implicitly, the new poem was an example of the kind of honesty he meant. He invited Hunt, who edited a radical magazine called The Examiner, to decide whether to publish it.
Hunt chose not to, either in 1819 or at any time during Shelley's life. Both men knew the poem could land them in serious legal and political trouble, though Shelley was living in Italy at the time. It first appeared in print 20 years later, when Shelley's wife, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, published it under the title "England in 1819" in a volume of her late husband's works.
The sonnet responds to several then-recent events in English history, including King George III's decline and the Peterloo Massacre, a militia attack on citizen protesters. Earlier in 1819, Shelley had already written another poetic response to the Massacre: a ballad called "The Masque of Anarchy," which urges mass nonviolent resistance against the English government. Like "England in 1819," the "Masque" begins with apocalyptic imagery before turning to hope. However, it's a much longer poem that includes an extended narrative and triumphant call to rebellion. By contrast, the sonnet offers a brief, devastating portrait of a country in crisis, as well as a more ambiguous vision of redemption.
Historical Context
For England, 1819 was the culmination of a rocky decade. King George III had experienced bouts of mental illness throughout his life, but starting in 1810, his illness became permanently debilitating. (Historians are unsure of the medical cause, but his distress was exacerbated by grief over the death of his youngest child, Amelia, in 1810.) By order of Parliament, his son, the Prince of Wales and future George IV, ruled in his place as "Prince Regent" from 1811-1820.
The Prince Regent was widely viewed as spoiled and self-indulgent. Anti-royalists like Shelley saw him as the unqualified heir to an incompetent ruling family. During the decade of the Regency, the UK fought wars with the U.S. (the War of 1812, a draw) and France (the Napoleonic Wars, a victory for the UK and its allies). It also suppressed a rebellious uprising by anti-industrial textile workers known as Luddites. After defeating Napoleon in 1815, England suffered an economic slump that included a terrible harvest in 1816, food shortages, controversial tariffs known as the Corn Laws, and a new wave of Luddite protest.
In 1819, another year of economic depression, these problems came to a head. That August, saber-wielding militia members attacked a crowd of protesters in St. Peter's Field, Manchester, killing 18 people in an event known as the Peterloo Massacre. The bloodshed caused a mass outcry, which the government tried to contain with laws restricting the press and free assembly.
These events form the backdrop for Shelley's attack on England's "king," "princes," "rulers," "army," "laws," and "Senate" (Parliament), as well as his defense of its "starved and stabbed" people. Shelley was also an outspoken atheist who viewed the church as oppressive; hence his attack on "religion." Both his radical politics and religious skepticism (detailed in his 1811 pamphlet On the Necessity of Atheism) had embroiled him in controversy throughout the decade, contributing to his decision to leave England in 1818.
Shelley wrote these poems while living abroad in Italy. At the time, he and Mary were experiencing marital problems and mourning the recent deaths of their two children. In other words, 1819 was a "tempestuous" year for Shelley as well as England, and his personal life may have informed the stormy emotions of his sonnet. It's a poem that looks back on the poet's homeland from a distance, with fearless candor.
A lifelong critic of authority, Shelley also sympathized with the democratic ideals of the French Revolution (1789-1799), which ended during his childhood and shook up European politics for many years afterward. He hoped to see a similar revolutionary spirit overtake England as the country spiraled. Accordingly, "England in 1819" vents his disgust at a broken system—and imagines a "Phantom" of enlightenment rising from the ruins.
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More “England in 1819” Resources
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External Resources
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A Biography of the Poet — Read an introduction to Shelley's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.
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The Poem's First Printing — Read the poem as printed in "The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley" (1839, edited by Mary Shelley), where it appears for the first time under the title "England in 1819."
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Another Revolutionary Shelley Poem — Read "The Mask of Anarchy" (a.k.a. "The Masque of Anarchy", another famous Shelley poem inspired by the Peterloo Massacre of 1819).
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The Peterloo Massacre — Watch a BBC video about the Peterloo Massacre, one of the events that inspired Shelley's fury in "England in 1819."
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King George III — Watch a Smithsonian Channel video on the mental illness of King George III, one of the issues to which Shelley responded in "England in 1819."
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The Prince Regent (George IV) — Read a Britannica article on King George IV, the Prince Regent and effective ruler of England during the period in which Shelley wrote the poem.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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