Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem

The poem gives voice to Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, a figure from medieval Christian mythology. According to legend, Ahasuerus jeered at Jesus before the Crucifixion, and was cursed to travel the world until Jesus returns. In the poem, Ahasuerus subverts the traditional Judeo-Christian narrative of a just and moral God; rather, his version of God is petty, spiteful, and vengeful. Through Ahasuerus, Shelley expresses his allegiance with atheism.

Queen Mab declares straightforwardly, “There is no God!” (Line 7.13). When Ianthe’s spirit recounts a childhood memory of seeing an atheist burned at the stake, Queen Mab responds that only people could have concocted a deity that prizes violent retribution and justifies evil. Their God doesn’t actually exist—“Nature’s only God” (Line 7.23) is the generative potential of every seed. Nature values freedom and life, whereas the God of man wants to enslave and kill.

To prove this, Queen Mab calls on Ahasuerus, who recounts the plot of the Bible, from the story of Genesis to the death of Jesus in a way that highlights God’s bloodthirstiness. He sees the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden as cruel and vengeful—because two people ate the forbidden fruit, all of humanity is doomed to suffering and misery. Later, God allowed his followers to be enslaved and worked to death—a reference to the story of Exodus. Finally, Ahasuerus critiques Jesus Christ, whose incarnation inflamed zealotry and religious extremism that led to wars, hatred, and the belief in the damnation of nonbelievers. Faith in this God has made Christians into hypocrites who are willfully blind to its contradictory features: Those who obey this unmerciful God have one hand “red with murder” while the other hand reaches out falsely seeking “brotherhood and peace” (Lines 7.238, 7.241). Christianity preaches love, and yet justifies hateful, immoral actions. The only natural reaction to the chaos, war, and pain that Christianity generates is to reject God, like Ahasuerus, continually “Mocking my powerless tyrant” (7.257).