Shelley is absolutely reflecting the attitudes of her time  I told my students the exact same thing However I dont think that makes it unnoteworthy Toni Morrisons book Playing in the Dark Whiteness and the Literary Imagination examines precisely this sort of cultural imagining of the other as applied to race in the United States through analysis of the works of Poe Melville Cather and Hemingway Isnt ethnocentrism worthy of note regardless of its pervasiveness After all even Wikipedia works to eliminate this sort of systemic bias Perhaps this is a case where an actual work of criticism must be found to give validity to the problem