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Interpretation: Percy Bysshe Shelley “Mutability”

The poem “Mutability” by Percy Bysshe Shelley elaborates on the themes life’s transitoriness, fickleness of moral values, the volatility of human intercourse and nature’s constant change. Already the poem’s structure shows the principal ideas by employing short lines (an indication of transitoriness) and a regular rhyme sheme (an indication of constant change).
The speaker describes in the first stanza the course of life which is compared to several of nature’s phenomena (…the flower, l.1; …lightning, l.6). Especially the lightning is an indication for the transitoriness because one can see it only for a very short time. In line 7 the speaker describes the lightning as “…Brief even as bright.” The author uses the flower as symbol for life in general. Everything can and will die but the time isn’t fixed. The surprising incidents in life are responsible for the changing. But the speaker asks for the reason. Because everything which we like can disappear in the next minute.
In the second stanza Shelley describes weaknesses of life, especially the weaknesses of the people. The human virtues are frail. However the men aren’t really disturbed. They continue living without watching behind. By using a personification by the three moral values virtue, friendship and love the author gives them a human character. When these “people” fall down nobody is interested. And that’s a problem which Shelley wants to emphasize. We, the people, don’t notice that things like friendship and virtues get lost more and more. The other problem Shelley wants to underline is that we think that we have got these moral values (“…But we, though soon they fall, survive their joy, and all which ours we call.”, l. 12-14).
In the third stanza the anaphora is a very important stylistic device. The first, the second, the third and the fifth line start with “whilst”. In these lines the author describes what all can change in nature. With the demand “… wake to weep.” Shelley wants to wake up the people to show them what they have missed. These people weren’t able to see what have changed. Due to the fact that they have missed all that, they shall cry. With the anaphora the author wants to show how important and beautiful these incidents can be.
I think Shelley wants to show that everything in our lives change. And if we don’t look carefully we can miss something. Another important aspect is that we should admit it if we didn’t get everything. The people shall not set up claims for things they know that their wrong. Thus the people shouldn’t forget that nothing in nature stays forever and it’s always a loss if we miss it.

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