scholarly journals Mary Shelley e a Sibila de Cumas molduras proféticas no romance The Last Man (1826)

Herança ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janile Soares
Keyword(s):  
Mary Shelley ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Last Man

No ano de 1826 a escritora inglesa Mary Shelley publica o romance apocalíptico The Last Man, contando a história de como a humanidade fora dissipada por uma peste em 2100, restando apenas um sobrevivente que, imune à pandemia, resolve deixar registrado em forma de diário, a história do fim do mundo como ele o conhecia. Ao apresentar o relato que levou à escritura da narrativa, Mary Shelley nos coloca em contato com o mito da Sibila de Cumas, revelando ter encontrado o manuscrito que indicava os fatos que ela narrou em seu romance. Este artigo visa discutir a importância do texto introdutório do romance, considerando as molduras estabelecidas entre o mito da Sibila e as capacidades criadoras de Shelley.

scholarly journals Breaking Aesthetics and Universaling Plague in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz González Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Mary Shelley ◽  
The Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Inspiration ◽  
Last Man ◽  
Anima Mundi ◽  
The Last Man

Para los poetas románticos la imaginación era un puente necesario para salvar las distancias entre el mundo y el yo, y haciendo uso de ella estetizaron el mundo según las categorías estéticas de belleza y sublimidad. Es más, la Weltanschauung romántica permitió el resurgir del motivo del anima mundi, donde la naturaleza era fuente de inspiración, un ser vivo y madre nutricia. A lo largo de este artículo, me propongo explorar las cuestiones arriba mencionadas en la obra de Mary Shelley, The Last Man para mostrar hasta qué punto la autora consigue subvertir las pretensiones románticas y presentar una visión distópica del pensamiento romántico.Palabras clave: Romanticismo, estética, belleza, sublimidad, naturaleza, plagaABSTRACTFor Romantic poets imagination was understood as mainly a bridge to save distances between the world and the self; by means of imagination poets created an aestheticised world: nature was perceived either under the lineaments of beauty or of sublimity. Besides, the Romantic Weltanschauung favoured the resurgence of the anima mundi theme, which came to be very significant: firstly, because the spirit of nature favours poetic inspiration/ creation (wind and harp themes); and secondly, because nature is perceived as both an animated being and a nurturing-nursuring mother. Thus, my aim throughout this essay is to explore the concepts and themes stated above in Mary ShelleyKs The Last Man (1826) and to show how the author succeeds in subverting Romantic pretensions so that her work is to be understood as a dystopian vision of Romantic theory.Key words: Romanticism, aesthetics, beauty, sublimity, nature, plague

scholarly journals "Este animal aflito”: leitura de três últimos homens em tempos apocalípticos pelas mãos de Mary Shelley, Pepetela e Miguel Real

2020 ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Sofia Araújo
Keyword(s):  
Mary Shelley ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Last Man

Em qualquer contexto literário distópico –obra total ou moldura diegética de uma contra-proposta utópica– a figura do último homem, do indivíduo só, do único sobrevivente, assume-se comummente como o guardião do que foi e toma para si um papel civilizacional. A partir da análise de três romances profundamente distintos -The Last Man, de Mary Shelley (1826), O Quase Fim do Mundo, de Pepetela (2013) e O Último Europeu 2284, de Miguel Real (2015)- foi possível delinear os pontos cardiais destas figuras literárias, mas também filosóficas, e confirmar que a figura querida dos românticos mantém a plasticidade e o potencial sugestivo de antanho.

scholarly journals The Last Man and ‘The First Woman’: Unmanly Images of Unhuman Nature in Mary Shelley’s Ecocriticism

Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Éva Antal
Keyword(s):  
Mary Shelley ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The World ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The One ◽  
The Last Man

AbstractMary Shelley in her writings relies on the romanticised notions of nature: in addition to its beauties, the sublime quality is highlighted in its overwhelming greatness. In her ecological fiction, The Last Man (1826), the dystopian view of man results in the presentation of the declining civilization and the catastrophic destruction of infested mankind. In the novel, all of the characters are associated with forces of culture and history. On the one hand, Mary Shelley, focussing on different human bonds, warns against the sickening discord and dissonance, the lack of harmony in the world, while, on the other hand, she calls for the respect of nature and natural order. The prophetic caring female characters ‘foresee’ the events but cannot help the beloved men to control their building and destroying powers. Mary Shelley expresses her unmanly view of nature and the author’s utopian hope seems to lie in ‘unhuman’ nature. While the epidemic, having been unleashed by the pests of patriarchal society and being accelerated by global warming, sweeps away humanity, Mother Nature flourishes and gains back her original ‘dwelling place’.

The Last Man

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Keyword(s):  
Mary Shelley ◽  
Percy Bysshe Shelley ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
The Future ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Last Man

The last man! I may well describe that solitary being’s feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me.’ Mary Shelley, Journal (May 1824). Best remembered as the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man eight years later, on returning to England from Italy after her husband’s death. It is the twenty-first century, and England is a republic governed by a ruling elite, one of whom, Adrian, Earl of Windsor, has introduced a Cumbrian boy to the circle. This outsider, Lionel Verney, narrates the story, a tale of complicated, tragic love, and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague. The Last Man also functions as an intriguing roman à clef, for the saintly Adrian is a monument to Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his friend Lord Raymond is a portrait of Byron. The novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, as Shelley demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem her doomed characters.

Post-apocalyptic humanism in Hesiod, Mary Shelley, and Olaf Stapledon

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Mark Payne
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Life Form ◽  
Mary Shelley ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Last Man ◽  
Olaf Stapledon

Abstract This paper considers the role of anachronism in large scale narratives of speculative fiction. Mary Shelley's The Last Man and Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men signal in their titles an ambition to deal with humankind totally and all inclusively. Both authors look to Hesiod as a model for their projects: the Greek poet's account of successive creations and destructions of humankind at the hands of the gods offers a way of narrating human being as both a local cosmic occurrence that has been and one day will be no longer, and as a life form that has persisted with distinctive orientations and commitments through its various local incarnations. The question of anachronism is thus given maximum scope. Rather than a question about accuracy in the representation of local historical details, anachronism emerges as an interrogation of what we recognize and acknowledge as ourselves in the horizon of deep time.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document