Frankenstein and Paradise Lost

LIVING ON OR TEXTUAL AFTERLIFE: FRANKENSTEIN AND PARADISE LOST Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá* * [email protected] Talita Cassemiro Paiva** Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá has a PhD in Literary Studies and is a Junior Researcher at CNPq. ** [email protected] Talita Cassemiro Paiva has a Master’s degree in Literary Studies. RESUMO: Propomo-nos a ler Frankenstein de Mary Shelley como ABSTRACT: We propose to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein uma adaptação de Paradise Lost, de John Milton. Adaptação, na as an adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Adaptation, as nossa leitura, se inicia na qualidade “palimpsestuosa” ou lógica we assess it, departs from the “palimpsestuous” quality of or suplementar inerente a este processo de criação, como teoriza- supplementary logic inherent in this process of creation, as the- do por Julie Sanders e Linda Hutcheon, e chega ao momento orized by Julie Sanders and Linda Hutcheon, and reaches the em que um texto (Frankenstein), em face do evento de outro moment when a text (Frankenstein), in the face of the event of texto (Paradise Lost), tenta responder ou produzir uma contra- another’s text (Paradise Lost), tries to respond or to countersign -assinatura (Jacques Derrida). Neste sentido, a adaptação não é it (Jacques Derrida). In this sense, adaptation is neither imita- nem imitação, nem reprodução, nem metalinguagem, mas um tion, nor reproduction, nor metalanguage, but an acknowledge- reconhecimento da fluidez dos textos ao longo do tempo (histó- ment of the fluidity of texts over time (history, literary history), ria, história literária) e espaço (culturas, diferentes posições do and space (cultures, different subject positions). Ultimately the sujeito). Em última análise, a questão não é como um escritor ou question is not how one writer or text influences another or how um texto influencia outro, ou como podemos visualizar trajetó- we can visualize textual trajectories in literary tradition, but the rias textuais na tradição literária, mas a possibilidade de a adap- extent to which adaptation becomes a pointed, critical, finite re- tação se tornar uma resposta pontual, crítica, finita de um texto a sponse of one text to another, a kind of reading as countersigna- outro, uma espécie de leitura como contra-assinatura (Derrida). ture (Derrida). PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Adaptação; contra-assinatura; Milton; Shelley. KEYWORDS: Adaptation; countersignature; Milton; Shelley. 264 In reference to Jean Genet and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich of the fluidity of texts and of the afterlives they take upon 5. In relation to other major 5 contributions to adaptation studies, Hegel, Jacques Derrida affirms that “Playing with proxim- themselves as they live on. besides the seminal studies by ities and contradictions, one can say that they are close in Linda Hutcheon and Julie Sanders, Ultimately the question is not how one writer or text influ- see Christa Albrecht-Crane and 1. DERRIDA. Countersignature, p. 24-25. what opposes them and in what connects them”1. This very ences another or how we can visualize textual trajectories in Dennis Cutchins’ Adaptation dynamic between proximities and contradictions is what Studies: New Approaches: literary tradition, but the extent to which adaptation becomes “Adaptation studies ought to makes the two-handed engine of countersignature work: a pointed, critical, finite response of one text to another, a focus on the space of disjunction between texts and media to ask kind of reading as countersignature. The challenge of this es- what that space, that necessary that is, of authentication and repetition without imitation, say is not only to acknowledge the validity of Frankenstein as difference, enables. One is without counterfeiting, a doubling of the “yes” in the irre- reminded of Derrida’s concept a fluid text but also to study its mode of deviation: proximi- of the ‘aporia’ of texts. […] If placeable idiom of each “yes”, as at a wedding where each “yes” ties and contradictions are enhanced by return trips, counter ‘understanding’ a text always says “yes” to the other, doubling it without repeating it—and implies that some part of it remains paths, wanderings. From the epigraph citing Milton’s Paradise I could insist on this paradigm of the wedding, the conjugal ineffable, then adaptations, rather Lost to the scene where the Creature makes it known that he than ‘adapting,’ in the simple couple, spousal conjugality, countersignature joining two sense, a prior text, actually create reads Milton’s epic as true history, Frankenstein makes appar- conjoined affirmations, absolutely identical and different, a new text with its own manifold ent that it is a derivation without being derivative6 and that it relationships to source text(s).” 2. DERRIDA. Countersignature, p. 26. 2 (2010, p. 20). Minor contributions similar and radically other. 7 is a “revisionary” adaptation . From the Creature’s reading of – because still entangled in the Milton’s major work, in order to comprehend his condition bushes of “fidelity” to the author, Departing from Derrida’s view of countersignature, we to film theory, and to the “impure” in relation to his creator, to the plethora of analogies that propose to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an adaptation gendered screen/text – come can be drawn between the characters of the epic poem and from Deborah Cartmell, Timothy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Adaptation, in our reading, Corrigan, and Imelda Whelehan. the characters of the novel (Frankenstein as Adam and Eve, starts in the “palimpsestuous” quality of or supplementary 3. SANDERS. Adaptation and Frankenstein as God, Frankenstein as Satan, the Creature as 6. HUTCHEON. A Theory of Appropriation: The New Critical logic inherent in this process of creation, as theorized by Adaptation, 2006. Idiom, 2005. Adam and Eve, the Creature as Satan), Shelley’s proximities Julie Sanders3 and Linda Hutcheon4, and reaches the mo- with and contradictions to the epic are highlighted. Regarding 7. DERRIDA. Countersignature, p. 26. 4. HUTCHEON. A Theory of ment when a text (Frankenstein), in the face of the event of Adaptation, 2006. theme, Frankenstein drives its point home very clearly: it is not another’s text (Paradise Lost), tries to respond or to coun- a mere product of a linear evolution/deviation of the media, tersign it. In this sense, adaptation is neither imitation, nor from epic to novel, or, say, from script to print to screen, but reproduction, nor metalanguage, but an acknowledgement EM TESE BELO HORIZONTE V. 22 N. 3 SET.-DEZ. 2016 SÁ; PAIVA. Living on or textual afterlife: Frankenstein and Paradise Lost […] P. 263-278 Crítica Literária, outras Artes e Mídias 265 it stresses the incommensurability of a Paradise Within being imagination exceeds literary traditions, made Frankenstein rewritten as a Hell Within, among other thematic detours. one of the most read Romantic works. In sum, we want to show that the good or strong adaptation, in the case of Frankenstein is one of the few novels valued by both liter- Frankenstein, marks itself as an adaptation, it does not dis- ary critics and the general public. With regard to the good solve into the pure idiom of the source. As such, the novel reception from both sides of the “readerly” divide, academic may be said to be an adaptation of the epic poem exactly and general public, Paul Cantor’s reason “is that the under- because Frankenstein is unique and introduces readers to an standing of creativity embodied in Frankenstein is close to archetypal world of the Romantics and simultaneously it is the common-sense understanding: while creativity can be a something else (another text) which responds or corre- exhilarating, it can also be dangerous, and passes over easily sponds in an equally singular, which is to say irreducible and 8. CANTOR. The Nightmare of into destructiveness”8. As long as the general reception of Romantic Realism, p. 109. irreplaceable, new way to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Shelley’s novel is concerned, in his introduction to a collec- tion of essays on Frankenstein, Harold Bloom affirms: Bluntly said, Frankenstein is an outstanding Romantic response to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Not only does the novel al- ... what makes Frankenstein an important book, though it is lude to the lost paradise and its inhabitants, but it also sheds only a strong, flawed novel with frequent clumsiness in its nar- new light on, or says “yes, yes” to, the Miltonic characters rative and characterization, is that it contains one of the most and themes through a Romantic perspective. Regarding vivid versions we have of the Romantic mythology of the self, the proximities and contradictions of both Frankenstein and one that resembles Blake’s Book of Urizen, Shelley’s Prometheus Paradise Lost, Lucy Newlyn defends that: Unbound, and Byron’s Manfred, among other works. Because it lacks the sophistication and imaginative complexity of such Frankenstein takes its place in the genre both as a typical prod- works, Frankenstein affords a unique introduction to the ar- uct of the Gothic and as a self-conscious commentary on 9. BLOOM. Introduction, p. 4. chetypal world of the Romantics9 Romanticism. It adds the further ingredient of conscious and sustained Miltonic allusion, manipulated in such a way as to Mary Shelley’s clear narrative combined with many suggest a revisionary reading of Paradise Lost alongside a ques- 10. NEWLYN. Paradise Lost and the 10 Romantic characteristics, such as the admiration for a re- tioning of religion. Romantic Reader, p. 134. bellious figure, the allusions to mythology, and the idea that EM TESE BELO HORIZONTE V. 22 N. 3 SET.-DEZ. 2016 SÁ; PAIVA. Living on or textual afterlife: Frankenstein and Paradise Lost […] P. 263-278 Crítica Literária, outras Artes e Mídias 266 Milton’s epic is present in Frankenstein not simply in dynamics: “Paradise Lost is the monster’s Bible: he reads it terms of direct quotation or (in)direct references, but also ‘as a true History’; and it teaches him the values by which 12.

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