Dis/Locating the Derridean Ghost in Shelley

Abstract

The protean Percy Bysshe Shelley communicates the knowledge of instability in the stable course of life. At times, Shelley’s fragile hopes and dreams are decimated upon the eerie encounter with reality. On other occasions, universe heightens his ethical sensibility by investing it with a generative vision to ameliorate his shattered convictions, and as such the messianic faith gives a new scope to his worldview. The oscillation between desire and despair, between reconstruction and destruction, parallels the Derridean exorcism of Western metaphysics. My point throughout the article is that Shelleyan philosophy visualises a transcendental wisdom – not hampered by the neutralising boundaries of tradition – which wards off totality in his Promethean fashion. I suggest that Shelley anticipates a simulacrum of the kind imagined and inscribed in Derridean discourse as a “ghost”.

Opsomming

Die proteaan Percy Bysshe Shelley dra die kennis van onbestendigheid in die bestendige verloop van die lewe oor. By tye word Shelley se brose verwagtinge en drome uitgedun tydens die onheilspellende kennismaking met die werklikheid. By ander geleenthede verhoog die heelal sy etiese verstandigheid deur dit met ʼn generatiewe visie te beklee om sy verpletterde oortuigings te verbeter, en as sodanig verleen die Messiaanse geloof ʼn nuwe omvang aan sy wêreldbeskouing. Die skommeling tussen begeerte en wanhoop; tussen heropbouing en vernietiging ewenaar die Derride-aanse uitdrywing van Westerse metafisika. Die punt wat ek regdeur die artikel maak, is dat Shelley se filosofie ʼn transendentale wysheid visualiseer – onbelemmer deur die neutraliserende beperkings van tradisie – wat die geheel afweer op sy Prometeaanse manier. Ek gee te kenne dat Shelley ʼn nabootsing wat in Derriaanse diskoers as ʼn “spook” voorgestel en ingeskryf word, antisipeer.