"In the mean time, what did Perdita?": Rhythms and Reversals in Mary Shelley's The Last Man

All plot summaries of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's 1826 novel, The Last Man, begin with two elements: the novel is set in the closing years of the twenty-first century and it concerns a plague which destroys all human life on earth except for one man. Although the novel contains a series of intricate puzzles concerning time, of which Shelley's setting in the distant future is only the first, the novel has usually been read as a roman à clef, with the author's late husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron among the contemporary figures modeled. Other critical readings have focused on Shelley's projections of her own guilt, anger and emotional loss into the novel or on the tradition of the Last Man theme. Lionel Verney, the narrator of the tale, looks back upon the final decades of the human race's existence from the year 2100. Yet his narrative was prophesied thousands of years in the past by the Cumaean Sibyl, who recorded the prophecy (in various ancient and modern languages) on "Sibylline leaves" in a cave visited in 1818 by the "Author" (who may or may not be Mary Shelley, as Audrey A. Fisch has observed). It falls to this individual to translate the Sibyl's account, which is "scattered and unconnected," to fill in gaps, to "transform" the leaves since "they were unintelligible in their pristine condition." Verney's account thus consists of his recollection of events (from a point when time has already lost its former meaning), a series of events prophesied by the Sibyl, recorded as she remembered her prophecy, translated and edited by the frame narrator and finally interpreted by the reader. (Even the individual who entered the cave and scattered the Sibylline leaves has influenced the narrative). This framing process allows Shelley, absent the time machine that H.G. Wells would not "invent" until nearly seventy years later, to use the past tense and establish what Giovanna Franci has termed "one of the most widely used models in science fiction; the use of the past in the narration to describe things which are supposed to happen in the future." Gregory O'Dea has observed that "The Last Man is founded upon complex puzzles of time and history; indeed Shelley constructs a basis for the novel so perplexing as to cast its shadow over almost every aspect of the work itself," and proceeds to discuss the "intricacies of source, subject, and authorship" as a means to explore the problem of historical perspective which the novel presents. Yet there is another aspect of Shelley's use of temporal perspective which has not received any critical attention: Besides the "simple" temporal framing of ancient prophecy/future events/recollection in flashback, the novel is permeated by narrative rhythms that work to complicate constantly the reader's perception of time. Consider Verney's auspicious beginning: Shelley's use of "I AM," (in small capitals), to begin Verney's narrative, suggests the ancient Hebrew name for God. Verney has created this history, his own as well as his country's, and in fact has created this entire world, symbolically dividing the waters from the land. His view of space is vast enough that England is a mere speck to him (when it presents itself to his mind) and his perspective of time is comparably vast. His "I am" affirmation also calls to mind Coleridge's concept of the imagination: In The Last Man we see multiple levels of primary and secondary imagination at work: Verney's act of perception and then recreation is enclosed within the Sibyl's perception and recreation, which in turn is enclosed within the Author's perception of the tale written …