Agency from a Stone: Shelley’s Posthumanist Experiments in ‘Mont Blanc’ Cover Image

Agency from a Stone: Shelley’s Posthumanist Experiments in ‘Mont Blanc’
Agency from a Stone: Shelley’s Posthumanist Experiments in ‘Mont Blanc’

Author(s): Betsy Bolton
Subject(s): Philosophy, Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploieşti
Keywords: structural coupling; strategic anthropomorphism; translation; assemblage; agency

Summary/Abstract: This article reads Shelley’s ‘Mont Blanc’ as an extended exploration into possible modes of relationship linking the human mind to the material world. The modes of relationship considered by Shelley anticipate many of the structures and strategies developed by posthumanist theory, including structural coupling, strategic anthropomorphism, imagistic translation, and human-nonhuman assemblages. After summarizing Kantian and post-Kantian readings of ‘Mont Blanc,’ the essay works through an extended close reading of the poem to elucidate its proto-posthumanist elements.

  • Issue Year: VI/2016
  • Issue No: 01
  • Page Range: 28-47
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: English