It must be quite unusual for the reading of a poem to pitch anyone
right out of one set of political co-ordinates and into another. In
fact, it's exceedingly rare for *anything* to accomplish that - a fact
which ceaselessly calls for an elucidation it has yet to receive.
Still, a person receiving intelligence of the Peterloo massacre with
the kind of brow-furrowing melancholia familiar to today's consumers
of the Guardian newspaper might once have been moved to something more
resembling a cold, militant fury by reading _The Masque of Anarchy_.
I'd count that as a result.
Apologies for the prose style - I've been attempting to read Lacan.
Dominic
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