United States or Hong Kong ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He compared it to the 'chorus of frogs' in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, he imagined a political-satirical drama on the circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve as chorus and "Swellfoot" was begun.
In the slight Aristophanic drama of 'Swellfoot', which was sent home, published, and at once suppressed, he represents the men of England as starving pigs content to lap up such diluted hog's-wash as their tyrant, the priests, and the soldiers will allow them.
What is more curious is the habit which Shelley acquired of reproducing even the minor opinions or illustrations which had struck him in his continual reading of Godwin. When Mammon advises Swellfoot the Tyrant to refresh himself with A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook Such as is served at the Great King's second table.
Much of it is beautifully written: and, though, like the burlesque drama of "Swellfoot", it must be looked on as a plaything, it has so much merit and poetry so much of HIMSELF in it that it cannot fail to interest greatly, and by right belongs to the world for whose instruction and benefit it was written. We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa.
"Peter Bell the Third", written in this year, and "Swellfoot the Tyrant", composed in the following autumn, are remarkable as showing with what keen interest Shelley watched public affairs in England from his exile home; but, for my own part, I cannot agree with those critics who esteem their humour at a high rate.
The Prometheus ranks as at once the greatest and the most thoroughly characteristic work of Shelley. Oedipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant. A Satirical Drama on the Trial of Queen Caroline. Epipsychidion. A poem of ideal love under a human personation. " Adonais. Hellas. A Drama on the Grecian War of Liberation. Posthumous Poems.
In the brief journal I kept in those days, I find recorded, in August, 1820, Shelley 'begins "Swellfoot the Tyrant", suggested by the pigs at the fair of San Giuliano. This was the period of Queen Caroline's landing in England, and the struggles made by George IV to get rid of her claims; which failing, Lord Castlereagh placed the "Green Bag" on the table of the House of Commons, demanding in the King's name that an enquiry should be instituted into his wife's conduct.
The Cenci relies more on subject, and, abandoning the lyric appeal, abandons what Shelley is strongest in; but Hellas restores this. Of his comic efforts, the chief of which are Swellfoot the Tyrant and Peter Bell the Third, it is perhaps enough to say that his humour, though it existed, was fitful, and that he was too much of a partisan to keep sufficiently above his theme.
"An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king, Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring." and to the same group belongs that not quite successful essay in sinister humour, 'Swellfoot the Tyrant' , suggested by the grunting of pigs at an Italian fair, and burlesquing the quarrel between the Prince Regent and his wife.
Some day I shall put into a book all the rage and all the hate and all the infamy of these things, and it will be a book that will make your flesh sizzle. And you will wonder why I did it! It will be better than Troilus and Cressida, better than the end of Gulliver's Travels better than Swellfoot the Tyrant! I wonder why nobody else ever reads or mentions Swellfoot the Tyrant?
Word Of The Day