"The Revolt of Islam", Postcolonialism and the Arab Springs: The "Worth of Human Nature" in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

While hope is repeatedly present in Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam, two centuries later global politics seems stifled by a domination of terror, war and liberticidal power structures, echoing the poem’s ‘brotherhood of ill’. This article reflects on Revolt’s continuing relevance for the sustenance of hope amongst contemporary progressive movements. It focuses on the strategies to re-kindle hope and utopian visions that Shelley’s imagery hints at, and relates them to some aspects of the Arab Springs: these strategies are identified as Godwinian liberating truth, underground forces, symbolic locations and the endurance of culture and education.