Masks Of Anarchy
The History Of A Radical Poem, From Percy Shelley To The Triangle Factory Fire
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Masks of Anarchy tells the extraordinary story of Percy Shelley’s poem “The Masque
of Anarchy,” from its conception in Italy and suppression in England to the moment it became a
catalyst for protest among New York City workers a century later.
Shelley penned the poem in 1819, after hearing of the Peterloo Massacre, where British cavalry
charged peaceful political demonstrators near Manchester. His words would later inspire figures
as wide-ranging as Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi—and also Pauline Newman, the
woman the New York Times called the “New Joan of Arc” in 1907. Newman was a Jewish immigrant who worked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and came to be a leading organizer—and
the first female organizer—of one of America’s most powerful unions, the International Ladies’
Garment Workers’ Union. As she marched with tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of New
Yorkers in the streets, Shelley’s poem never ceased to inspire her.
“Shake your chains to earth like dew,” it implores. “Ye are many—they are few.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley's famed works have helped his reputation extend to the worlds of politics and history thanks to the influence of his poem "The Masque of Anarchy," a passionate allegorical championing of nonviolent resistance as political protest. Written to comment on the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where cavalry charged a mass of demonstrators, it has had a long and potent life as the vanguard of civil resistance. This graphic novel documents the history of the poem's influence, interspersing the life and times of Shelley with labor activist Pauline Newman, champion of early 20th-century organized strikes and resistance by female laborers of New York's garment trade in response to squalid working conditions and the deadly 1911 Triangle Factory fire. McClinton's bold artwork has little continuity between panels or pages, giving an impression of a very heavily illustrated text rather than a flowing narrative comic. Demson's extensive text and dialogue frequently overcrowds and overwhelms the page, and some poor choices in lettering fonts create legibility issues. While the historical scholarship is impressive, this graphic novel would have had much more appeal and strength as a written text.
