Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Philosophical View of Reform

Mark Sandy (University of Durham)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University), Emily Rohrbach (University of Durham)

Domains

Political Philosophy

Dates

First circulation or publication 1820

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-fictional prose

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Composed between November 1819 and 20 May 1820, Shelley's fragmentary

A Philosophical View of Reform

is a considered and moderate response to recent political events in England. On 16 August 1819 the Peterloo Massacre, in St. Peter's Field near Manchester, saw a peaceful demonstration for parliamentary reform violently charged by local militia. In November 1819 a prejudicial jury found the bookseller Richard Carlile guilty of blasphemy for printing an edition of Thomas Paine's

Age of Reason

(1794-6). By December of that year the British Government had established the “Six Acts”, a series of strict laws designed to restrict public gatherings and freedom of the press. These repressive measures were apparently vindicated on 23 February 1820 when government agents unearthed the Cato…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1263 words

Citation: Sandy, Mark. "A Philosophical View of Reform". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7042, accessed 26 November 2024.]