The Radical Ecology of the Shelleys: Eros and Environment

221 Pages·2018·4.546 MB·English

by  Colin Carman

The Radical Ecology of
the Shelleys
The Radical Ecology of the Shelleys: Eros and Environment is the first
full-length study to explore a queer ecology at work in writings by Percy
Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as their discussions of
nature and the natural consistently link ecology and erotic practice. Ini-
tiated by Timothy Morton in 2010 as a hybrid of two schools of thinking
about nature, queer ecology combines the alertness of environmentalists
to constructions of the “natural” with the efforts of sexuality scholars
to denaturalize identity and to expose sexuality as a culture-bound con-
struct. Conceptions of place are central to this investigation not only
because an attachment to place is traditionally thought to be the onto-
logical basis of all environmental consciousness (e.g., think- globally- act-
locally), but because these two Romantic writers underscore the dynamic
interaction between a person’s natural surroundings and his or her in-
terpersonal attachments. The poetical and prose writings of the Shelleys
claim our special attention because of their unusual conception of the oi-
kos, the etymological root of “ecology,” to mean both local grounds and
the social, often domestic, places in which people dwell and desire. The
overarching thesis of this book asserts that proto- ecological theories in
Romantic-era England cannot be understood separately from discourses
related to married/family life, and the texts considered demonstrate the
comingling of earthly and erotic enjoyment. The issues raised by The
Radical Ecology of the Shelleys are fundamental not only to literary and
queer history but to all humanistic studies. They render the study of na-
ture from a queer perspective a matter of intense interest to scholars in
numerous disciplines ranging from ecocriticism and the natural sciences,
including climate studies, to feminist criticism and sexuality studies.
Colin Carman, Ph.D., is an Instructor of English at Colorado Mesa Uni-
versity, USA.
Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the
Environment
1 Captivity Literature and the Environment
Nineteenth-Century American Cross-Cultural Collaborations
Kyhl D. Lyndgaard
2 Ecogothic in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Edited by Dawn Keetley and Matthew Wynn Sivils
3 The Ecophobia Hypothesis
Simon Estok
4 The Radical Ecology of the Shelleys
Eros and Environment
Colin Carman
The Radical Ecology of
the Shelleys
Eros and Environment
Colin Carman
First published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Colin Carman to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-03023-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-02136-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
For my parents, Roy and Catherine, and for Marc,
the brother of my heart

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Primary Works Often Referenced, With Abbreviations xiii
Author Bio xv
Introduction 1
1 Queer Ecology and Its Romantic Roots 17
2 “The Nature of Love and Friendship”: Ecotones
and Other Fine Lines in Percy Shelley’s Writings on
Romantic Friendship 37
3 Percy Shelley’s Hermaphroditus: Queer Nature and
the Sex Lives of Plants in The Sensitive-Plant and
The Witch of Atlas 77
4 Communal Ecology and the Queer Domesticities of
Mary Shelley’s Maurice and Valperga 118
5 Osculate Wildly: Earth-Kissing and Tree-Kissing in
Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and Lodore 153
Conclusion: Tangled, or the Shelleyan Network 191
Index 201

List of Illustrations
2.1 Dedication, in Percy Shelley’s hand, of the first-edition
of Alastor: or, The Spirit of Solitude (1816), to friend
and editor Leigh Hunt 39
3.1 The frontispiece to the first edition of Posthumous
Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London, 1824. This was
the first major attempt to generate a wide readership for
her late husband’s poetry and translations, the latter of
which comprises the longest part in this volume 79
5.1 The frontispiece to the first American publication of
The Last Man by Mary W. Shelly [sic], Philadelphia, 1833 172
C.1 Leigh Hunt’s presentation copy of Percy Shelley’s
Alastor volume in which the author changed
“wrinkled his quivering lips” to “convulsed his
curling lips” in line 291 194