Key Quote
“"An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king"”
Percy Bysshe Shelley · England in 1819
Focus: “blind”
George III's literal blindness becomes a metaphor for the moral blindness of the entire ruling class — those in power cannot see the suffering they inflict.
Technique 1 — ASYNDETIC LISTING / ACCUMULATION
The opening line uses asyndetic listing — adjectives piled up without conjunctions — to create a relentless, breathless catalogue of the king's failures: 'old, mad, blind, despised, and dying.' The technique generates a sense of inescapable decay; each adjective adds another layer of condemnation. The final conjunction 'and' before 'dying' arrives like a verdict, suggesting death is the only possible conclusion to such comprehensive failure.
This accumulative technique extends throughout the entire octave of the sonnet. Shelley catalogues corruption across every institution: the monarchy ('king'), the aristocracy ('princes'), the government ('rulers'), the military ('an army'), the church ('a Christless God'), and the law ('Golden and sanguine laws'). The effect is totalising — no part of England's power structure escapes indictment. The poem reads as a polemic (a fierce written attack) against the entire state.
Key Words
RAD — PROGRESS
Despite thirteen lines of relentless decay, the final couplet enacts a dramatic volta (turn): 'a glorious Phantom may / Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.' Shelley transforms the poem from a catalogue of corruption into a prophecy of revolutionary progress. The verb 'Burst' suggests sudden, explosive change — revolution is not gradual but eruptive. The 'Phantom' represents the spirit of liberty, suggesting that freedom is already present, waiting to materialise from the very conditions of oppression.
Key Words
Technique 2 — SEMANTIC FIELD OF DEATH & DECAY
Shelley constructs a pervasive semantic field of death and disease: 'dying', 'dregs', 'muddy', 'leech', 'starved', 'stabbed'. This language transforms England from a nation into a diseased body, suggesting that corruption is not merely political but pathological — it infects every organ of the state. The metaphor implies that reform is insufficient; only radical surgery (revolution) can cure the patient.
The image of rulers as 'leeches' is particularly powerful, drawing on the medical practice of bloodletting. The ruling class literally parasitises the population, draining its lifeblood for personal gain. Shelley's use of the word 'sanguine' (meaning both 'optimistic' and 'blood-red') creates a deliberate pun: the laws are simultaneously hopeful for the ruling class and stained with the blood of the people they oppress.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
THE PETERLOO MASSACRE (1819)
In August 1819, cavalry charged a peaceful crowd of 60,000 at St Peter's Field, Manchester, killing 15 and injuring over 600. The crowd had gathered to demand parliamentary reform. Shelley, living in exile in Italy, was so enraged he wrote this poem and 'The Masque of Anarchy'. The poem was too incendiary (likely to cause outrage) to publish during his lifetime and appeared posthumously in 1839.
GEORGE III & POLITICAL CRISIS
George III suffered from porphyria, a disease causing episodes of apparent madness. By 1819, he was permanently incapacitated, blind, and deaf. His son (the future George IV) ruled as Prince Regent and was widely despised for his extravagance. Shelley uses the king's literal condition as a synecdoche for the state of the entire nation — England itself is old, mad, blind, and dying.
Key Words
WOW — GRAMSCIAN HEGEMONY & IDEOLOGICAL CONTROL
Shelley's catalogue of institutional corruption anticipates Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony — the idea that the ruling class maintains power not through force alone but through controlling the institutions of civil society: the church, the law, education. Shelley systematically dismantles each institution ('Christless God', 'Golden and sanguine laws', 'Time's worst statute unrepealed') to reveal the ideological apparatus that sustains inequality. The final image of the 'glorious Phantom' suggests that revolution begins when the people see through this ideological veil — when false consciousness gives way to true understanding of their exploitation.
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