Monstrosity in P. B. Shelley's The Triumph of Life through Akkerman’s Citadel-to-Garden trajectory

Abstract

Through its impossible and grotesque form, the monstrous expresses an original sense of the Dionysian philosophical critique of rationality. Challenging the epistemological authority of form, structure, and identity, the monster guides the mind toward a new understanding about the nature of things. Presenting Rousseau and the rider of the chariot of life as a deformed monster, Shelley's The Triumph of Life challenges the poet's previous identity as an alienated self and paves the way for a new understanding and a restoration of his communal self that provides the basis for the New Jerusalem as the opposite of the Tower of Babel, that is, the biblical prototype of the Citadel. Using the concept of monster and applying Abraham Akkerman's myths of the Garden and the Citadel, this article will attempt to explore the modality of the transition from the Tower of Babel (the Citadel) to the New Jerusalem (the Garden) in Shelley's The Triumph. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.