Editing The Last Man (section)

===Failure of romantic political ideals===
''The Last Man'' not only laments the loss of Shelley's friends, but also questions the [[Romanticism|Romantic]] political ideals for which they stood.<ref>Paley, Introduction to ''The Last Man'', xvi; Lokke, 117.</ref> In a sense, the plague is metaphorical, since the revolutionary idyll of the élite group is corroded from within by flaws of human nature.<ref>Lokke, 128–29.</ref> As literary scholar Kari Lokke writes, "in its refusal to place humanity at the center of the universe, its questioning of our privileged position in relation to nature, then, ''The Last Man'' constitutes a profound and prophetic challenge to Western humanism."<ref>Lokke, 116.</ref> Specifically, Mary Shelley, in making references to the failure of the [[French Revolution]] and the [[William Godwin|Godwinian]], [[Mary Wollstonecraft|Wollstonecraftian]], and [[Edmund Burke|Burkean]] responses to it, "attacks Enlightenment faith in the inevitability of progress through collective efforts".<ref>Lokke, 128.</ref>