Mutability

Queen Mab by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1813)

Queen Mab is one of Shelley’s longer poems, and like “Mutability,” it functions as a work of cultural criticism. The title refers to a fairy in William Shakespeare’s tragic romance Romeo and Juliet (1597), and the poem features the voice of the fairy, a spirit, and an unidentified speaker. The poem explicitly adds to the melancholy situation of “Mutability” when Queen Mab calls the human condition a “melancholy tale” (Book 2, Line 117). Part of what makes humans forlorn is mutability and the “earthquakes of the human race.” As in “Mutability,” humans lack power, and the poem uses a simile to compare their precarious state to nature: “Man’s brief and frail authority / Is powerless as the wind / That passes idly by” (Book 3, Lines 220-23). Shelley also delves into purity and corruption and sees commerce as a poisonous factor. To try and ward off mutability, people stockpile wealth and goods. As “Mutability” argues, there is no overcoming mutability, so all greedy people are doing is causing more misery.

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

“Ozymandias” is one of Shelley’s more famous lyrics, and it, too, stresses the theme of mutability and change.