Abdolmohammad Movahhed

This thesis provides a reading of Shelley's last major poem, The Triumph of Life, through the concept of mise en abyme. The wide-ranging interpretations of the device of mise en abyme makes it an apt figure for an eclectic understanding of complex literary works such as The Triumph of Life. Mainly drawing on the classifications suggested by Lucien Dällenbach and Brian McHale, this study examines mise en abyme as a mirror in the text, a heraldic shield within shield, or an ekphrastic and metaleptic device evoking such themes as instability, apocalypse, escape from control, and infinite regress. The thesis reveals a number of points about the functions of mises en abyme in the poem. First, the abyme structure in Triumph makes the deferral of meaning inevitable; second, the various duplications cause multi-mirroring by being interlinked and reversible with their higher narrative layers, hence evoking both infinity and aporia, especially emblematized in the "shape all light" section; third, mise en abyme, as a metaleptic and ekphrastic device, is a way for the narrators to escape control under the ubiquitous presence of light and water as mirror metaphors by crossing the boundaries between diegetic levels; fourth, the theme of apocalypse is represented in the poem as an incessant event endlessly reduplicating itself in déjà vu worlds.