Shelley’s Doubles

The contradictions of Shelley’s radical politics and his aristocratic birth and upbringing place him as a potential victim of the revolutionary change he envisages and wishes for. He embodies some of the qualities which his own social critique deplores. This imports a quasi-suicidal logic into his work, where his influence is felt to be most effective once emancipated from his living person and social identity. This contradiction is explored in analysis of passages from Prometheus Unbound, and then in a sustained reading of Julian and Maddalo, where the central figure of the ‘madman’ throws into relief the civilized, gentlemanly manners of the Shelley/Byron characters. The contrast between ‘civilized’ and ‘mad’ is represented not simply in thematic terms but as a contrast in poetic styles.

‘Mechanism of a kind yet unattempted’

Prometheus Unbound is amongst Shelley’s greatest achievements, and is widely read and admired. However, it offers challenges to interpretation of an unusual kind. The characters and action of the drama are intrinsically difficult to understand, given their quasi-mythic and transhistorical nature. But most challenging is the combination in the plotting in the drama of inexplicit scientific concepts and phenomena, with elements from classical culture, including prophecy and its mechanisms. The difficulty of grasping ideas which are very obscure but nevertheless brilliantly realized, and crucial to understanding of the action (particularly in Act II), is demonstrated through detailed reading of key passages. The growing realization by Asia and Panthea of their revolutionary destiny is dramatized using contemporary understanding of chemical gases and their beneficial and harmful effects.

Prometheus, Unbound

SUBMITTED FOR “SURGICAL REFLECTIONS” A short essay on the lessons “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” still has to teach us.

Modern Rape-Revenge Movies and Shelley’s The Cenci

Viewing Shelley’s The Cenci from the political upheavals of the nineteenth century would limit one’s response to the play to the issues of that century. However, this play continues to be played in the twenty first century, which makes one wonder how a modern spectator with a feminist inclination might react to the theme of rape and revenge. The Cenci shares with a number of movies flourishing with the rise of the second wave feminism during the 1970s, the theme of a female victim transformed into a hero-avenger, who takes law into her own hands and avenges herself in the face of a dysfunctional legal state. As revisions of the archetypal narratives of violation-revenge-violation, these modern movies have been praised for depicting heroines who are no longer powerless, miserable and victimized, but strong enough to avenge themselves with impunity. Though The Cenci repeats the traditional pattern of violation-revenge-violation, it focuses on the corruption and irresponsibility of the patriarchal legal system as well as its reformation, which have been neglected by both mythical narratives and modern rape-revenge movies. By reading The Cenci along with William Blake’s “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” and Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound,” we examine how The Cenci challenges the modern rape-revenge movies and how Beatrice could have used her agency and her anger in a more effective way to fight against tyranny.