Topical Art Made to Last- Shelly's "The Mask of Anarchy"

This is an interesting example of an enduring topical poem. Name-dropping and references to political officials seem to be very strong trends in establishing a sophisticated quality in much art and entertainment today, whether in t.v, songs, magazine articles, or movies. Sometimes overloading on this device can make material amusing for the audience of the immediate time period but ultimately dispensable. So it was striking to me that a poem so clearly grounded in its own time, and so abounding with allusions pertaining to a particular event and political regime, would be anthologized as an abiding classic. It would be one thing if it was a very broad, internationally recognized event, but the “Peterloo Massacre”, while certainly indicative of a country’s emergence from a conflict that was very significant to a large part of the world (the Napoleonic Wars), is still not an event that most people look back on immediately as representative of a major global incident or era.

Most of the direct name-dropping was in the first couple of pages, but references to King George III and, of course, the scene at Manchester still pervade the lengthy piece.

I started considering what it was that made this a more lasting, standout contribution to poetry and art in general despite its frequent reliance on the knowledge readers must have, or attain, of the episode in question.

It really wasn’t difficult to discern the reason for this poems embalmment. The early barrage of names like Castlereagh, Eldon, and Sidmouth gives way to a grander case for freedom and revolution. And of course, Shelly’s linguistic elegance solidifies the work’s amaranthine quality, and strengthens the emphasis on the poem’s universal theme, its narrow basis notwithstanding; “This is slavery!-savage men/Or wild beasts within a den,/ Would endure not as ye do-/ But such ills they never knew// What art thou, Freedom? O! could slaves/ Answer from their living graves/ This demand, tyrants would flee/ Like a dream’s dim imagery.” Lines such as these occur frequently, and they singularly describe ideas that are recognizable regardless of one’s familiarity with the slaughter at Manchester. This is also a fairly long poem, and that may have helped announce it as a diatribe of exceeding passion and significance- it's conducive to expressing a fierce call to arms rather than a short, delicate indulgence. That isn't to say that poems of that nature can't survive with equal potency.

If there are any facets of this poem which detract from its immortality, they would be found in a present generational intolerance rather than in the work itself. I feel the shorter attention spans of mass audiences, as well as their increased attraction to exclusively ostensible layering in art that doesn’t require reference checks beyond their own knowledge of current pop culture are responsible for the more ‘disposable’ quality of younger media. If those are to be the trends that eventually leave poems like this behind in relative obscurity without successors, it would be sad, but accord “The Mask of Anarchy” and many other poems of its ilk some extra measure of triumph in the mere fact of their now seemingly inimitable canonization.