Sonnet To Liberty Analysis

NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,--
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea,--
And give my rage a brother----! Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades10
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved--and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

.: :.

The opening line ostensibly suggests that he does not have an emotional attachment with his fellow man – perhaps due to his social estrangement because of his homosexuality, but on further reading, one might discern a strong correlation between his experience of social repression and the class struggles of all man.
Liberty, according to Rand, is defined as the “freedom of individual decision, individual choice, individual judgment and individual initiative; it means also the right to disagree with others.” A common Marxist and Liberal [viz: On Liberty] interpretation may generally lead one to believe that everyone is oppressed by the capitalist, economic system – both of which have strong influence the status quo and social policy, and therefore both common man and perversion are subjugated by the one system.
It is an interesting idea that - whether or not fully associated to this particular poem – a perversion (as homosexuals once were) and one then considered a “normal” citizen can be alienated in similar ways.

| Posted on 2008-09-26 | by a guest

.: :.

"Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know"
This reminds me of the phrase, "ignorance is bliss." He sees children or, perhaps in the realm of great cities and civiliztions, younger kingdoms that are quickly loosing their ways. These cities or kingdoms are only obsessed with knowing their own conflicts and own businesses.

Over all, I think Wilde is talking of wars and soldiers dying for their countries. I feel that he did not share many views for the cause of these wars, or even those of the will to fight them, but he did agree with one thing --- liberty. He wanted to be free and sometimes you have to fight to get that.

He mentions kings robbing people of their rights, perhaps this is a poem to a specific dynasty or monarch of his time (as often poets did write about back then).


| Posted on 2005-02-20 | by the weird eel