Percy Bysshe Shelley - Mutability

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem “The flower that smiles to day” also known as “Mutability”. In this poem, Mr Shelley brings up the fact that nothing in life is permanent. The Focus is given specifically on the good things that happen in our life and how in reality they are not as great as we may have thought they were. This poem was written in stanzaic form, with a few literary devices which include personification, anaphora, euphony and cacophony. Something that really stood out for me in this poem was the recognition of the fragility of the good things in our lives.

As previously mentioned, a stanzaic form is used in this poem. There are many different types of stanzaic poems, but the stanzas in this poem are a combination of a quatrain and a tercet. The quatrain follows the pattern ABAB, and the tercet follows the pattern CCC. Within the poem the author uses the break between stanzas as an enjambement. The use of juxtaposition is very apparent in the lines “poor bliss” and “proud despair” found in the second stanza. The speaker in the poem is “We”, meaning us as humankind. This can be seen in the first stanza “all that WE wish to stay”. and that use of addressing carries on throughout the poem. In this poem Percy Bysshe Shelley chose to view the good things in our lives as the saying goes, “the glass is half empty” which sets the tone throughout the entire poem as melancholy. The fact that he decided to write friendship, virtue, and love as merely fleeting moments, ever changing, just passing through the wind, it shows that he chose to view this with a negative perspective. As opposed to how others may think of these things as, life experiences allowing us to develop, and obtain precious moments that should be cherished throughout our lives. Not entirely sad, but a bit gloomy, it gives us a cloudy vision on what to expect in life.

The poet uses both literal meanings and figurative meanings in his poem. When he talks about the flower that smiles and then die, the literal meaning would be that flowers die. Now when you take that more in depth and look at its figurative meaning, one may see that the flowers which smile, represent happiness, but when they die, it may show how your happiness could simply die off and disappear. The next two lines are quite self explanatory as to why the reader sees them as literal meanings. When virtue is frail, and friendship is rare, we know that there is no need to look further into what that may mean. Another example of literal meaning would be when he tells us that the sky is blue and bright, now it does not require a team of philosophers to figure out what that verse means. A few other figurative meanings that I have found would be the line about selling love, and the line that states what we wish tempts then flies. When he talks about love trading in poor bliss for pround despair, the reader, being me in this case, may come to the conclusion that the whole line is about watching someone you may have loved dearly, just walk out of your life, like it was nothing. For the things that tempt and then fly, figuratively it could represent our hopes and our dreams, and how they may have tempted us at first, but after a while, left our minds, or flown away.

After reading this poem I had found several literary devices. There are three instances where the poet uses personification. The flowers that smile, lightning that mocks the night, and love how its sells poor bliss. In each of these verses, Percy personifies the non human things by giving them three different human qualities. He also