Byron, Shelley, and Now Zelensky
In the early 19th century, the European world had just defeated an imperialist tyrant, Napoleon Bonaparte, only to find the continent’s recently conquered monarchs quickly back in force. Intent on preventing another Napoleon from emerging on their own turf, the monarchies promptly cracked down on dissidents, on peaceful demonstrations, on the forming of unions, on the oppositional press. Standing up to this suppression and sharing a commitment to liberty were two famous poets, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, celebrated in some circles, a cause for scandal in others. More than anything else, in that moment, they wanted to show how words can change minds. “It is a grand object—the very poetry of politics,” Byron cheered himself on in a journal entry, early in 1821. With Byronic moxie, he also understood the politics of poetry.
We live in different times, but as Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown us, this struggle for self-determination is still present, and the force of words, in a world where we are surrounded by their onrush, has become yet more important. We only have to turn to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, to see how the poetry of politics lives on.
