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HEAR YOU not the rushing sound of the coming
tempest? Do you not behold the clouds open, and destruction lurid and
dire pour down on the blasted earth? See you not the thunderbolt fall,
and are deafened by the shout of heaven that follows its descent? Feel
you not the earth quake and open with agonizing groans, while the air is
pregnant with shrieks and wailings,--all announcing the last days of
man?
No! none of these things accompanied our fall! The balmy air of spring,
breathed from nature's ambrosial home, invested the lovely earth, which
wakened as a young mother about to lead forth in pride her beauteous
offspring to meet their sire who had been long absent. The buds decked
the trees, the flowers adorned the land: the dark branches, swollen with
seasonable juices, expanded into leaves, and the variegated foliage of
spring, bending and singing in the breeze, rejoiced in the genial warmth
of the unclouded empyrean: the brooks flowed murmuring, the sea was
waveless, and the promontories that over-hung it were reflected in the
placid waters; birds awoke in the woods, while abundant food for man and
beast sprung up from the dark ground. Where was pain and evil? Not in
the calm air or weltering ocean; not in the woods or fertile fields, nor
among the birds that made the woods resonant with song, nor the animals
that in the midst of plenty basked in the sunshine. Our enemy,
Elton's translation of Hesiod.
[
What is man, that thou art mindful of
him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou (Psalms
8:4-6)hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him
to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou has put
all things under his feet . . .
Plague "The plague"
refers to an acute virulent disease, usually one reaching or
threatening to reach epidemic proportions, and historically one
caused by a bacterium. The medieval Black Death set much of the
tone and metaphorical conventions still operating in many
modern-era descriptions of plagues.
The history of nineteenth-century epidemics, and
their construction as "the plague," reveals telling narrative
and figurative patterns, all of them relevant to reading this
novel (with its fabric of interwoven political, military,
social, sexual, and medical narratives). As the histories are
explained by Ranger and Slack (pp. 3-4),
Flight from an
infected place was usual, and had to be defended (or attacked)
since it took people away from charitable, neighbourly or
political duties. Carriers of disease were identified and
scapegoats stigmatised: foreigners most often, as in Renaissance
Italy and modern Hawaii, since epidemic disease came from
outside, but also inferiors, carriers of pollution of several
kinds, among whom disease had its local roots--untouchables in
India and ex-slaves in Africa, for example, or Jews at the time
of the Black Death (though less commonly in Europe in later
outbreaks of plague). For their part, the inferiors themselves
thought epidemics the consequence of plots by external enemies,
or governors and elites, to 'poison' the poor. (p. 4)
In our own moment at the end of
the twentieth century, as Susan Sontag has suggested, the very
idea of "virus" itself (rather than any actual bacterial
infection) has become the metaphorical equivalent of "plague."
Today a "virus" can infect computers and cultures (where it
takes the form of a "meme") as well as individuals (p. 157). The
very real plague of our time is AIDS, a syndrome that has most
often been figured (at least until very recently) as a potential
pandemic threatening a mass population.
The comparison of Mary Shelley's fictional depiction of a world-wide apocalyptic plague to the actual plague of AIDS has been the subject of works by critics such as Audrey Fisch, Mary Jacobus, Anne K. Mellor, and Barbara Johnson.
is the companion of spring, of sunshine, and plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have forgotten what we did when she was not. Of old navies used to stem the giant ocean-waves betwixt Indus and the Pole for slight articles of luxury. Men made perilous journies to possess themselves of earth's splendid trifles, gems and gold. Human labour was wasted--human life set at nought. Now life is all that we covet; that this automaton of fleshAt first the increase of sickness in spring brought increase of toil to
such of us, who, as yet spared to life, bestowed our time and thoughts
on our fellow creatures. We nerved (Unidentified
quotation.) Send your identifications to the Editor
Have any of you, my readers, observed the ruins of an anthill immediately after its destruction? At first it appears entirely deserted of its former inhabitants; in a little time you see an ant struggling through the upturned mould; they reappear by twos and threes, running hither and thither in search of their lost companions. Such were we upon earth, wondering aghast at the effects of pestilence. Our empty habitations remained, but the dwellers were gathered to the shades of the tomb.
As the rules of order and pressure of laws were lost, some began with
hesitation and
Still the bloom did not fade on the cheeks of my babes; and Clara sprung
up in years and growth, unsullied by disease. We had no reason to think
the site of Windsor Castle peculiarly healthy, for many other families
had expired beneath its roof; we lived therefore without any particular
precaution; but we lived, it seemed, in safety. If Idris became thin and
pale, it was anxiety that occasioned the change; an anxiety I could in
no way alleviate. She never complained, but sleep and appetite fled from
her, a slow fever preyed on her veins, her colour was hectic, and she
often wept in secret; gloomy prognostications, care, and agonizing
dread, ate up the principle of life within her. I could not fail to
perceive this change. I often
Where could we turn, and not find a desolation pregnant with the dire
lesson of example? The fields had been left uncultivated, weeds and
gaudy flowers sprung up,--or where a few wheat-fields shewed signs of
the living hopes of the husbandman, the work had been left halfway, Most
critics have agreed that the character of Ryland is based at
least in part on William Cobbett (1763?-1835), the journalist
and popular political reformer. His
A model close at hand (and in the press) for Shelley's fictional demagogue, he conducted failed political campaigns in both 1820 and 1826, and was elected to parliament only after the Reform Bill of 1832. During the time
London The action of
the early portion of the novel is divided between Cumberland,
Windsor, and London, following to some extent the traditional
rhythm of town and country existence in the nineteenth century,
the sporting, social, and artistic "season," which was tied to
the political calendar. The aristocracy and gentry usually came
into London from country estates in the winter, in anticipation
of the opening of Parliament. This orderly structure of
existence, reflecting relatively stable relations among the
social classes, is eventually disrupted in the novel, the
seasonal migration back and forth giving way to more extreme
wanderings.
The hunger of Death was now stung more sharply by the diminution of his food: or was it that before, the survivors being many, the dead were less eagerly counted? Now each life was a gem, each human breathing form of far, O! far more worth than subtlest imagery of sculptured stone; and the daily, nay, hourly decrease visible in our numbers, visited the heart with sickening misery. This summer extinguished our hopes, the vessel of society was wrecked, and the shattered raft, which carried the few survivors over the sea of misery, was riven and tempest tost. Man existed by twos and threes; man, the individual who might sleep, and wake, and perform the animal functions; but man, in himself weak, yet more powerful in congregated numbers than wind or ocean; man, the queller of the elements, the lord of created nature, the peer of demi-gods, existed no longer.
Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty and well earned
meed of virtuous aspira-
Farewell to the giant powers of man,--to If
Balloons in the early nineteenth century were
still strongly associated with the Enlightenment goals of the
The eleven-year-old Mary Godwin produced a prose sketch (now lost) of a popular comic song, "Mounseer Nongtongpaw"; an imitation of Dibdin perhaps based on this sketch tells of an English tourist impressed with a "vast balloon" in Paris. The young Percy Bysshe Shelley was no doubt responding to these same associations of balloons with revolutionary (and French) ideas when he sent up incendiary political poems attached to balloons, as commemorated in his sonnet, "To A Balloon, Laden With Knowledge."
through the pathless air,--to the power that could put a barrier to mighty waters, and set in motion wheels, and beams, and vast machinery, that could divide rocks of granite or marble, and make the mountains plain!Farewell to the arts,--to eloquence, which is to the human mind as the
winds to the sea, stirring, and then allaying it;--farewell to poetry
and deep philosophy, for man's imagination is cold, and his enquiring
mind can no longer expatiate on the wonders of life, for "there is no
work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou
goest!"-- Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for I
returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to
men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them
all. (Ecclesiastes 9:10-11) Music in
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor
wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
Among critics of Mary Shelley, Jean de Palacio has most thoroughly examined the importance of music in the novel, beginning with the role of Vincent Novello's music organ music in inspiring its composition.
Within the narrative, Lionel Verney claims musical inspiration for his own writing (I.10), and implicitly, therefore, for the narrative we are reading. In addition, allusions to composers and works form a kind of imaginary score for the action. As Palacio charts it (p. 329), we move from simple melodies and songs at Windsor (I.6), to the more sophisticated operas of Mozart--
Alas! to enumerate the adornments of humanity, shews, by what we have lost, how supremely great man was. It is all over now. He is solitary; like our first parents expelled from Paradise, he looks back towards the scene he has quitted. The high walls of the tomb, and the flaming sword of plague, lie between it and him. Like to our first parents, the whole earth is before him, a wide desart. Unsupported and weak, let him wander through fields where the unreaped corn stands in barren plenty, through copses planted by his fathers, through towns built for his use. Posterity is no more; fame, and ambition, and love, are words void of meaning; even as the cattle that grazes in the field, do thou, O deserted one, lie down at evening-tide, unknowing of the past, careless of the future, for from such fond ignorance alone canst thou hope for ease!
Joy paints with its own colours every act and thought. The happy do not
feel poverty--for delight is as a gold-tissued robe, and crowns them
Sorrow doubles the burthen to the bent-down back; plants thorns in the
unyielding pillow; mingles gall with water; adds saltness to their
bitter bread; cloathing them in rags, and strewing ashes on their bare
heads. To our irremediable distress every small and pelting
inconvenience came with added force; we had strung our frames to endure
the Atlean weight thrown on us; we sank beneath the added feather chance
threw on us, "the grasshopper was a burthen." Remember now thy Creator in the days of
thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the
sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened,
nor the clouds return after the rain . . . . when they shall be
afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and
the almond tree shall flourish, (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8)and the
grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail;
because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about
the streets: Or ever the silver cord be
loosed, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or
the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to
the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who
gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is
vanity.
Not so! We are presently to die, let us then enjoy to its full relish the remnant of our lives. Sordid care, avaunt! menial labours, and pains, slight in themselves, but too gigantic for our exhausted strength, shall make no part of our ephemeral existences. In the beginning of time, when, as now, man lived by families, and not by tribes or nations, they were placed in a genial clime, where earth fed them untilled, and the balmy air enwrapt their reposing limbs with warmth more pleasant than beds of down. The south is the native place of the human race; the land of fruits, more grateful to man than the hard-earned Ceres of the north,--of trees, whose boughs are as a palace-roof, of couches of roses, and of the thirst-appeasing grape. We need not there fear cold and hunger.
Look at England! the grass shoots up high in the meadows; but they are
dank and cold,
England, late birth-place of excellence and school of the wise, thy
children are gone, thy glory faded! Thou, England, wert the triumph of
man! Small favour was shewn thee by thy Creator, thou Isle of the North;
a ragged canvas naturally, painted by man with alien colours; but the
hues he gave are faded, never more to be renewed. So we must leave thee,
thou marvel of the world; we must bid farewell to thy clouds, and cold,
and scarcity for ever! Thy manly hearts are still; thy tale of power and
liberty at its close! Bereft of man, O little isle! England The opening paragraph of
the novel establishes a central theme: the relationship of
England to the rest of the world. Its status as a powerful
island empire and ancient seat of learning, a "rock" amid the
sea of time and change, is immediately set against the less
stable image of England as a "ship"--one which can just as
easily be wrecked on the "rocks" of time, change, chance and
fate. As the novel progresses, the metaphors of island and
ship are reconfigured, again and again, in relation to shifting
contexts. See passages in II.5 and III.4, among other examples.
Related keywords for fruitful searching include "wrecked" and
"shipwrecked," as well as "bark" and "vessel."
Cleveland's Poems.
[From a poem on the execution of Charles I now attributed to Payne Fisher, as noted by Blumberg and Crook, p. 254n.]