Quotes from work
The Revolt of Islam

The Revolt of Islam

The Revolt of Islam is a poem in twelve cantos composed by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817. The poem was originally published under the title Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century by Charles and James Ollier in December 1817. Shelley composed the work in the vicinity of Bisham Woods, near Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire, northwest of London, from April to September. The plot centres on two characters named Laon and Cythna who initiate a revolution against the despotic ruler of the fictional state of Argolis, modelled on the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Despite its title, the poem is not focused on Islam as a specific religion, though the general subject of religion is addressed, and the work draws on Orientalist archetypes and themes. The work is a symbolic parable on liberation and revolutionary idealism following the disillusionment of the French Revolution.


Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Fear not the future, weep not for the past.”

Canto XI, st. 18
The Revolt of Islam (1817)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Can man be free if woman be a slave?”

Canto II, st. 43
The Revolt of Islam (1817)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

Similar authors

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley 246
English Romantic poet 1792–1822
William Blake photo
William Blake 249
English Romantic poet and artist
George Gordon Byron photo
George Gordon Byron 227
English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 220
English poet, literary critic and philosopher
Robert Southey photo
Robert Southey 51
British poet
Emily Brontë photo
Emily Brontë 151
English novelist and poet
Mikhail Lermontov photo
Mikhail Lermontov 34
Russian writer, poet and painter
Hector Berlioz photo
Hector Berlioz 9
French Romantic composer
Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 88
English poet, author
Thomas Hardy photo
Thomas Hardy 171
English novelist and poet