W.E.A. LITERATURE CLASS

Evening Star, Issue 19549, 6 May 1927, Page 6

W.E.A. LITERATURE CLASS

Last Tuesday evening the W.E.A. literature class met in the languages room ot the University. Over seventy students and visitors attended to listen to Miss M. H. M King speak on ‘ The Philosophy of Shelley.’ In her opening remarks she said that, on a reading of ‘ Queen Mab.’ the first long poem Shelley composed, everyone must recognise that, although it contained many faults, it remained a very remarkable production for a young man of just twenty-one years of age. It was plain that the French Revolution had considerably influenced his ideas. In order to account for his great hatred of war one must take into account that he had lived through twenty-one year of continuous warfare. It was to be noted that while Byron, who was contemporary with Shelley, delighted in the drama of war, its poinn and circumstance, Shelley saw only the horror and unspeakableness of it. ’ In ‘ Queen blab ’ the character of Tanthe must be_ taken ns that spirit of imagination which calls for the soul or man to view the past, the present, and the future He is first asked to look over the ruins of the empires of the oast; and next to consider monarchy, with its pride, pomp, and power, all resting on the toil and labor of the masses. It seemed strange that an Englishman should write in the strain bo does, but not surprising when one reads what Thackeray and others havo to say of the Prince Regent, afterwards George the Fourth. Kings, politicians, and priests are all marked down for fshelle,y’s special detestation. The noem traces all the evils to selfishness. There is an analogy between some of the lines with Grav’s''Elegv,’ in “How many a rustic Milton.” etc. Further on a very romarakablo lino occurred: “bet every heart contains perfection’s germ.’ When Shelley was edscribing the youth, maturity, and senile decay of religion he was'not so much thinking of the Christianity of to-day a> the times of the Inquisition and its onto da fc; also -.hat which caused him to be cast out from bis own neople. At this stage an interesting discussion took piace among the students on love, war. marriage, atheism, and religion, after which the lecturer dealt with ‘The Revolt of Islam.’ It was a poem built on the Snencerian stanza later used by Shellev with much greater effect in ‘ Adonais.’ The “ stanza ” was invented by Sncnccr for * The Fmry Queen.’ ‘ The Revolt of Islam ’ is a vision of Shelley’s ideal; it is in conflict with superstition, with priests and their hirelings. It is characteristic of the poet that he reverses the symbols of evil and good. TJie noem has been called ‘The T< Mic of Woman.’ In it the spirit of liberty is nersonified by a woman. Throughout Shelley’s poetry the principles and virtues are personified bv women. He has a passionate abhorrence of power. There are dreadful matures in the ‘ Revolt ’ of pestilence, famine, and war. ‘ Prometheus Unbound ’ is bunt on » very ancient myth. It appears in _ various* forms, Aeschylus wrote a trilogy, of which only one exists. Ihe first was lost, the second is extant, and the third exists onlv in fragments. Prometheus was the saviour of mankind. He gave man the gifts of fire, domestic arts, and manufactures. For this he incurred the wrath of Zeus, and was chained to a rockv eminence in the Caucuses. There was an old idea that the gods were the enemies of mankind. This_ poem contains wonderful color in its opening lines. There are remarakable visions or the past times' on earth. Life makes many promises it does not fulfil. Opening sneech of Asia is noted for its wonderful imagery. The general meaning of this poem is that lovo > and faith are becoming conscious of their power in the regeneration of humankind. The mysterious personage of the Demigorgon is said by Emerson to equal “ impenetrated causes.” The poem closes with the rise of Demigorgon. Next Tuesday the class will study ‘ Epipsychidion 1 and ‘ Adonaii'-’