3 - “A Chamæleonic Race”

Summary

Shelley believed that poetry transcends the moral precepts of its time to present ethical truths that are eternally valid. Yet he was also committed to the power of poetry to effect political change in its present. This chapter approaches the latent contradiction between timelessness and contemporaneity through the figure of “chameleonism.” Shelley mentions the concept in a letter about Adonais, where he suggests that poets are “a very chamæleonic race: they take the colour not only of what they feed on, but of the very leaves under which they pass.” The formulation suggests a form of inadvertent intertextuality: the poet’s work is colored by other writings whether he intends to or not. The chapter explores how Shelley’s poetry takes its color from discourses surrounding the enslavement of Africans in Britain’s overseas colonies. While Shelley was not purposefully intervening in debates around abolition or the scientific codification of “race,” his writings reflect the anti-Black ideological horizon of his time. Looking at a number of his works, including Adonais, The Cenci, Hellas, and the translation of Plato’s Symposium, the chapter also historicizes the relationship between criticism and ethics: are we entitled to judge Shelley’s racial attitudes with the standards of our time?