lyrical drama, is the best work of
Shelley's revolutionary enthusiasm, and the most characteristic of all his
poems. Shelley's philosophy (if one may dignify a hopeless dream by such a
name) was a curious aftergrowth of the French Revolution, namely, that it
is only the existing tyranny of State, Church, and society which keeps man
from growth into perfect happiness. Naturally Shelley forgot, like many
other enthusiasts, that Church and State and social laws were not imposed
upon man from without, but were created by himself to minister to his
necessities. In Shelley's poem the hero, Prometheus, represents mankind
itself,--a just and noble humanity, chained and tortured by Jove, who is
here the personification of human institutions.[228] In due time Demogorgon
(which is Shelley's name for Necessity) overthrows the tyrant Jove and
releases Prometheus (Mankind), who is presently united to Asia, the spirit
of love and goodness in nature, while the earth and the moon join in a
wedding song, and everything gives promise that they shall live together
happy ever afterwards.

Shelley here looks forward, not back, to the Golden Age, and is the prophet
of science and evolution. If we compare his Titan with similar characters
in _Faust_ and _Cain_, we shall find this interesting difference,--that
while Goethe's Titan is cultured and self-reliant, and Byron's stoic and
hopeless, Shelley's hero is patient under torture, seeing help and hope
beyond his suffering. And he marries Love that the earth may be peopled
with superior beings who shall substitute brotherly love for the present
laws and conventions of society. Such is his philosophy; but the beginner
will read this poem, not chiefly for its thought, but for its youthful
enthusiasm, for its marvelous imagery, and especially for its ethereal
music. Perhaps we should add here that _Prometheus_ is, and probably always
will be, a poem for the chosen few who can appreciate its peculiar
spiritlike beauty. In its purely pagan conception of the world, it
suggests, by contrast, Milton's Christian philosophy in _Paradise
Regained_.

Shelley's revolutionary works, _Queen Mab_ (1813), _The Revolt of Islam_
(1818), _Hellas_ (1821), and _The Witch of Atlas_ (1820), are to be judged
in much the same way as is _Prometheus Unbound_. They are largely
invectives against religion, marriage, kingcraft, and priestcraft, most
impractical when considered as schemes for reform, but abounding in
passag