The Revolt Of Islam

by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nathan Haskell Dole (Editor)

The plot centres on two characters named Laon and Cythna, inhabitants of Argolis under Ottoman rule who initiate a revolution against its despotic ruler. Despite its title, the poem is not focused on Islam as a specific religion, though the general subject of religion is addressed, and the work draws on Orientalist archetypes and themes. The work is a symbolic parable on liberation and revolutionary idealism following the disillusionment of the French Revolution.

Genres: Poetry, Romanticism, Classics

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, British romantic poet, include "To a Skylark" in 1820; Prometheus Unbound , the lyric drama; and "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.

The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.

People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .

Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.

Reviews

[John Dishwasher John Dishwasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a long rather mystic poem in which two youths try deliver their people from many forms of slavery. With this story, Shelley is exhorting humans to total freedom: Not just a freedom from physical captivity, but one of mind, heart and soul. Interestingly he unifies the more spiritual aspects of the struggle with the physical aspects. So while there are battles against tyrants and priests (whom he calls the ‘dark conspirators’ against human freedom), there are also neighboring passages about how the desire for gold makes you its slave.

Shelley says that our personal slavery rests in our greed and our lust and our hate and our shame; and that to escape these we need only embrace virtue, truth, joy, and, most importantly, love. He also takes pains to say that, if we are to be totally free, we have to be willing to forgive ourselves. If we can do this, he says: “The past is Death’s, the future is thine own.” (Canto 8, stanza 22)

This book is a quintessential example of The Romantic Age, a time in Western literature which greatly inspires me: High ideals, elements of the supernatural, the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity, and lyrical. However, until I stopped paying attention to the unusual rhyme scheme and just read it like prose, I had trouble following. So I never felt that hypnotic rhythm that other rhyming epics have given me. Very enjoyable, though! And the climax had me rapt.

Thematically the end is ambiguous, suggesting that perhaps total freedom is not possible for us.

[Steve R · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this 1817 epic poem by Shelley to be maddeningly obscure and thematically elusive. I cannot remember any other work prompting me to look up Wikipedia’s explanatory article in order to get some idea as to what was actually going on. For instance, midway through the fourth of its twelve Cantos, I had the impression that the narrator was named Laon, but was not sure. If there was any major thematic intent, I feel it was subsumed under a veritable tidal wave of romantic imagery. Just when the narrator seemed to be making an argument about something relatively concrete, winds would blow, the sky would darken, thunder would crack, and he would be carried away on indeterminate journeys. Or, maybe, all of that was a dream.

Here and there are lines which seem to indicate some serious social criticism. But then, the emotional reaction to such becomes so overwhelming as to extinguish whatever thematic thrust the original analysis may have represented. The bald question ‘Can men be free if women be a slave?’ is asked, but any subsequent expostulation was lost to my understanding. Later, a divine female figure named Laone proclaims that Wisdom and Love will rule over all Folly, Faith and Melancholy, but how this will be worked out in practical terms is left unexplained in the gush of romantic imagery surrounding the consequent bacchanalian feast.

There is an image of an Eagle fighting a Serpent. Laon, the hero, has a female named Cythna accompanying him, but when he is chained to a rock, she appears to depart on a slave ship. Then, an aged figure rescues Laon, and they voyage overseas to a place where he is wounded by a spear but then celebrated by his attackers as the one who vanquished their Tyrant oppressor. Rescued by Laone (not Laon), they engage in a battle with their unarmed forces being overwhelmed by those of the Tyrant. Only Wikipedia helped me understand that these were meant to be Ottoman oppressors. Again rescued, Laon reunites with Cythna, and they spend blissful nights together under the light of a meteor and then the moon. Wikipedia advises that Shelley ran into troubles getting this work published because of implied incest, but I was seemingly so obtuse as to see no evidence here of this. Cythna gives an extended recounting of her period of captivity, with again a proclamation that Fear, Faith and Tyranny must be overcome by Wisdom, Peace and Love. More battles, majestic feminine figures, a confrontation between a Spanish priest and representatives of all the major religions and a final confrontation, ultimatum, suicide, and voyage to a resplendent Temple bring this confusing work to a close. I actually refrained from accessing Wikipedia’s explanatory reflections on this final section, thinking if Shelley didn’t deem to make it clear, one needn’t expend the effort to achieve an understanding he failed to convey.

Cyntha’s earlier lengthy discourse, after some stirring denunciations of the enslavement of women in society and the soul-destroying effect of greed for gold, ends rather meekly and inconclusively, with her lying in Laon’s arms and admitting ‘There is delusion in the world – and woe, And fear, and pain – we know not whence we live, or why, or how, or what mute Power may give their being to each plant, and star, and beast, or even these thoughts.’ Such a sad expression of intellectual despair contrasts starkly with the perorations against Faith and Tyranny and in favour of Wisdom and Love. It would appear Shelley was not above the honest admission that he hadn’t got it all figured out.

Not recommended.

[Stephen McQuiggan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Repetitive, naive, self indulgent - Shelley was so much better than this.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since it is a fairly lengthy poem and took me just about a year to read, I'm counting it toward my total for the year.

I am admittedly a "newbie" when it comes to reading poetry, so I can't comment on its merits in any informed way. I can only provide my impressions as I read it.

Why did it take me a year? Well, because it is rather long as well as being loaded with imagery and meaning to be gradually pondered instead of crammed into one's mind all at once.

It immediately captured my attention with some of the most beautiful and epic fantastic imagery and language I've read in my native English language. Shelley was an immature, impulsive jerk in life but he left behind some true linguistic and artistic treasures in his poetry (even if some of the philosophical and political ideas contained therein are rather hare-brained).

It is that complexity that makes him so intriguing both as a person and as a poet. I don't think it has anything to do with Islam as such, but I might have missed something. At any rate, if you want to be confronted with true beauty in words this is a must-read poem by a must-read poet.

[Akanksha Chattopadhyay · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat inconsequential and ambiguous, this symbolic epic in Spenserian stanzas is Shelley’s first important poem, containing violent attacks on theism and Christianity. This is also Shelley's first treatment of the incest motive. Unlike ‘Queen Mab’, it preaches a bloodless rebellion. There are severe drawbacks in this work. Despite being Shelley's most ambitious work, it suffers relentlessly from incoherence, tedious action, moral instruction and an overt excess of sweetness. It is nonetheless esteemed for its sustained story of man's insurrection against tyranny, and for the glimpse of a golden age. For its autobiographical elements, Laon and Cythna may be Percy and Mary. The work is undoubtedly controversial. Critics have censured it for endorsing treason, skepticism, promiscuity, and incest. At the same time, it has also been acclaimed its magnificence and sparkle of vision. The poem is largely imbued with Shelley's spirit of intellectual and impassioned energy; his convictions that love; cosmic and uncompromising, can regenerate man, and deliver humanity from the bondage of institutions. Despite the fact that this work was a path breaker of sorts, it has slipped into obscurity among the readers of Shelley.

[Keerthi Vasishta · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's good about this poem is it's philosophical consistency and clarity of movement. Shelley accomplishes in-part what only the best poets do in doing so. However, the philosophy itself; that is the celebration of love and revolution remain too idealistic and hence has lacks the nuance of the woof and the weave (as Shelley would like). Instead, the core ideas-- as sympathetic as one may be towards them, can offer nothing beyond superficial hope and an interesting story. What one can appreciate is the radical atheism that Shelley offers in this poem as he does otherwise. The atheism is counter-balanced by the mysterious natural laws that provide their own enigma, balm or foil to the development and sustainence of one's mind reminiscent of Wordsworth or Coleridge.

[Benni Zev · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well
Was choked with rotting corpses, and became
A cauldron of green mist made visible
At sunrise."
Beautifully profound and moving images quake in what is an almost unconquerable mass of jumbled storytelling. The narrators identity, thematic journey, relationship to the world seem to jump, and I truly can only lightly gleam a narrative from this poem. But it is beautiful. Canto X is astonishingly sincere and morbid, its desperation and despair pounds through, as the people starve. Beautiful imagery and descriptions are abound, romantic and sentimental and powerful and emphatic. It is simultaneously everything and futile. Perhaps it demands multiple readings. But it is well worthy simply for its contents, if not as a whole.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some beautiful language in this, and I enjoyed the Spenserian form of the Cantos. But the poem is a narrative, and its depiction is almost entirely abstract. The supposed hero and heroine are what we would now call Mary Sues - incapable of doing wrong, and pretty much godlike. And the actions that occur, even though they are in sometimes beautifully described locations, are so generalized that they cease to have any emotional force, at least for me. Very disappointing.

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

对他的成长很重要，但本身则几乎是艺术弱点大集合（。不过我喜欢题献和最后一章。

[Mr. Nobody · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Sebastian Pollick]

Shelleys best book ignore the reviews

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is now my favorite poem/book. I don't think it's the greatest in English, but definitely my favorite.

[Alfred Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

self-indulgent and solipsistic.