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May 25, 2026The Classical World0 citations

“The Chain that Make our Life”: Prophecies of Constantinople in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

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CMChris Murray

Key Points

  • This analysis explores Mary Shelley’s framing of The Last Man as a sybilline prophecy influenced by Edward Gibbon and Greek tragedy.
  • Literary analysis of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and its historical references.
  • Examination of themes of decline and prophecy as represented by Constantinople.
  • Comparison of Shelley’s narrative techniques with Gibbon’s philosophical perspectives.
  • Shelley's framing of the novel highlights Constantinople as a symbol of decline.
  • Verney’s perspective reflects a philosophical inquiry into causation versus contingency.
  • The narrative suggests a curse connected to historical figures like Constantine the Great.

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Mary Shelley compels us to view her novel The Last Man (1826) through a classical aperture: the tale is framed as a sybilline prophecy. A central source for Shelley is the treatment of Constantinople in Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . Yet while narrator Verney regards himself in the mode of Gibbon’s “philosophic spectator,” Shelley also draws on Greek tragedy to suggest that her characters have inherited a curse that originates with Constantine the Great. Constantinople looms over the novel, emblematic of decline, but Verney cannot decide whether events unfold by causation or contingency.

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Cite This Study

Chris Murray (2025) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a13e8030e02ee3982d32b7bhttps://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2025.a991175
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