Renegotiating the Apocalypse: Mary Shelley’s "The Last Man"

1 The apocalypse has been written about as many times as it hasn't taken place, and imagined ever since creation mythologies logically mandated destructive counterparts. Interest in the apocalypse never seems to fade, but what does change is what form that apocalypse is thought to take, and the ever-keen question of what comes after. The most classic Western version of the apocalypse, the millennial Judgement Day based on Revelation – an absolute event encompassing all of humankind – has given way in recent decades to speculation about political dystopias following catastrophic war or ecological disaster, and how the remnants of mankind claw tooth-and-nail for survival in the aftermath. Desolate landscapes populated by cannibals or supernatural creatures produce the awe that sublime imagery, like in the paintings of John Martin, once inspired. The Byronic hero reincarnates in an extreme version as the apocalyptic wanderer trapped in and traversing a ruined world, searching for some solace in the dust. John Martin's and Lord Byron's works are from another era fascinated by the apocalypse: the late Romantic period, which saw the like of Percy Shelley and Thomas Campbell adding to the body of apocalyptic literature. Less well known is that Mary Shelley wrote on the subject as well, publishing The Last Man in 1826. The name Mary Shelley is so associated with Frankenstein that criticism of her work focused near-exclusively upon it until her other writing began making its way into scholarship in the late twentieth century. Originally published eight years after Frankenstein, The Last Man is now considered her second most important work (Paley, " Introduction " xiii). Not well-received in its own day, the rediscovered novel now commands a substantial body of criticism. It is unique as a Romantic apocalypse, focusing as much on the process and politics of mankind's gradual decline as on the 2 sublime awe of the apocalypse itself. Mary Shelley's apocalyptic novel is not only an exploration of the apocalypse, but an assessment of the viability of long-considered traditional Romantic themes. Since Romanticism as a whole is incredibly broad and complex, I limit my scope to Shelley's examination of a few of its main points: its optimism, belief in the power of the imagination, confidence in humankind's self-determination, and aspiration to a transcendent state of being. In Romantic millennialism, these are often wound together into a conviction that humankind constantly improves and will eventually perfect itself. In …