Queen Mab

Abstract

In Queen Mab, a poem of some 2300 lines, we have a frank record of Shelley’s beliefs at the age of 20. He tells us clearly what he thinks the evils of society are, and how much better we should be without them. His opinions were still changing, and he hesitated to expose them too openly to the public eye. Queen Mab was privately printed, only about seventy copies being circulated. Though these qualms are worth remembering, there is no need for a great show of apology over the poem, provided we do not let its emphatic tone mislead us into thinking that Shelley is expounding a rigid dogma. Unfortunately, since he never again spoke out quite so loud and clear, the widespread delusion persists that Queen Mab fairly represents his later opinions. Shelley’s ideas are regularly undervalued because too many critics are quick to judge, and condemn, the stripling author of Queen Mab and conveniently ignore the subsequent changes in his views.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat.

Hamlet