![]() In The Last Man, Shelley crafts an intricate meta-narrative that disrupts this view of men as the universal subject by discrediting and complicating the legacy of her male narrator. Men’s experiences were viewed as universally human whereas women were designated to the ‘other’-a difference predicated on an acknowledgment of a culturally constructed definition of the ‘default’ human. Beginning with Renaissance humanism from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, it was “an attitude of thought which gives primary importance to human beings” which developed “as a reaction against the religious authoritarianism of Medieval Catholicism.” Humanism “emphasized human dignity, beauty, and potential, and affected every aspect of culture in Europe, including philosophy, music, and the arts.” (New World Encyclopedia) And yet, these artistic achievements that put forth a universality of the human condition existed within a predominantly patriarchal context: historical retellings were centered on men as the subject. Humanism is a philosophical belief that stresses the value of rational thought and reasoning, putting humans atop the natural hierarchy. ![]() ![]() Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s final novel, The Last Man, is often interpreted by scholars as being critical of humanistic ideology. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |