The Empire Within

Shelley’s sonnet decries tyrannical government, for so taming the masses that they can no longer really feel the power of great emotions or Art. True social order, he says, comes not through external controls by law or custom but through individual men and women conquering their own internal realm of mind and heart.

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Poets and Poetry (46) Percy Bysshe Shelley (3) Extracts from Poetry (53) Extracts from Literature (459)

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