Nature As Schism Between Romantic Generations and As Catalyst Between Romanticism and Science Fiction
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ROMANTIC SCIENCE: NATURE AS SCHISM BETWEEN ROMANTIC GENERATIONS AND AS CATALYST BETWEEN ROMANTICISM AND SCIENCE FICTION by Gabrielle Helo A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida December 2015 Copyright 2015 by Gabrielle Helo ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express her gratitude to her thesis committee for all the inspiration gleaned from their classes and their advice, but especially to her thesis chair for his patience and guidance. Additional thanks is to be given to consultants at the University Center for Excellence in Writing for their feedback as well as to peers Mellissa Carr, Gyasi Byng, Megan Mandell, and Mikaela von Kursell for their advice and constructive criticism. Last, but not least, the author expresses appreciation to her mother and father for their encouragement and to her sister, who, though no longer present, would have been proud of her little sister. iv ABSTRACT Author: Gabrielle Helo Title: Romantic Science: Nature As Schism Between Romantic Generations and As Catalyst Between Romanticism and Science Fiction Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. John Golden Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2015 After 1815’s eruption of Mount Tambora, the following period was named the “Year without a Summer” and experienced irregularly cold weather, failed crops, rampant disease, and riots. In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley met in the Alps and wrote “Darkness,” “Mont Blanc,” and Frankenstein respectively. This thesis focuses on these works’ depictions of nature in light of how these features may have been impacted by the climate. It argues in Chapter One that the volcanic eruption caused global climate changes that affected these writers. In Chapter Two, it illustrates differences in nature’s representation between first generation and second generation Romantic works. The conclusion synthesizes the arguments made in Chapters One and Two, suggesting that 1816’s climate affected these writers in such a way as to produce an environment from which science fiction could emerge in Frankenstein. v ROMANTIC SCIENCE: NATURE AS SCHISM BETWEEN ROMANTIC GENERATIONS AND AS CATALYST BETWEEN ROMANTICISM AND SCIENCE FICTION INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: THE WEATHER AS ROMANTICISM AND SCIENCE FICTION KNOW IT ............................................................................................................... 4 Historical Background .................................................................................................. 4 Global Effects ............................................................................................................... 6 The Alps ...................................................................................................................... 13 Social Effects .............................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 2: THE SECOND GENERATION’S NATURE ........................................... 31 “Descriptive Sketches” ............................................................................................... 32 “Book Sixth” of The Prelude ...................................................................................... 38 “Darkness” .................................................................................................................. 46 “Hymn Before Sunrise” .............................................................................................. 56 “Mont Blanc” .............................................................................................................. 61 Frankenstein ............................................................................................................... 65 vi A CONCLUSION UNCONCLUDED: A TALE OF TWO GENRES, ROMANTICISM AND SCIENCE FICTION ...................................................... 73 NOTES .. …………………………………………………………………………………75 WORKS CONSULTED ................................................................................................... 77 vii INTRODUCTION I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air -George Gordon Byron, “Darkness” The goal of this thesis is to posit a relationship of weather to the development and evolution of literary genres. I seek to first suggest that the severe meteorological fallout of the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 affected second generation Romantic authors, specifically Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord George Gordon Byron; I will attempt to show that the representation of nature in their writing, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, “Mont Blanc,” and “Darkness” respectively, reveals a reaction to the weather and the social climate of the summer of 1816, especially when compared with depictions of nature in several first generation Romantic works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. I would like to propose that these visible reactions to the environment contributed to the creation of a then emerging genre, science fiction, a genre whose first work is credited with being Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Thus, I am going to talk about the weather, but it is not because I have nothing more and less offensive to talk about that I wish to discuss the weather; rather, I want to talk about the weather because although it is certainly one of the most constant elements of our environment, it is also one of the most overlooked, especially as it pertains to 1 literature. Certainly, there has been no dearth of artists or authors ready to allow that nature, especially in the guise of weather, has played a role in the production and style of their work, but what can be said for the power of weather to instigate more than a singular mood change or an individual response in an artist or author, especially when such a catalyst is of a more substantial and powerful nature? Although few would deny the power of severe and extreme weather anomalies to alter history, little research has been conducted on the subject as to how weather and climate change have affected and currently affect literature. Seen by some as a reflection of the people, culture, and society of the time, literature in terms of its growth and evolution and not only its content and origin should be investigated for such moments. In sum, these three works represent literature produced from a singular time in the summer of 1816. All written within close proximity to each other, some only a few days apart, these works all reflect a trend toward describing nature, particularly weather phenomenon, in terms of the sublime; however, the sublime present in these works seems to be different from the sublime explored in previous Romantic works by Coleridge and Wordsworth In addressing the topic of weather then, this thesis also attempts to synthesize the research from two different fields, the sciences and the arts and humanities, to show how these frequently divorced fields are interrelated, with each affecting the other. This thesis focuses on one work from each of these three second generation Romantics’ works written in the summer of 1816, though references to their journals and correspondence are also used to support analyses of their works. Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron were chosen for this paper due to their arguably longer-lasting, 2 greater impact on the genre as a whole as well as due to their unique circumstances that summer. This thesis concentrates specifically on these works’ depictions of nature in light of how this feature may have been impacted by the social and physical climate of the time. This thesis attempts to show in Chapter One that the eruption of Mount Tambora likely affected these three authors, half a world away and a year later. It then suggests that this effect explains differences, which are examined in Chapter Two, in the representation of nature between the early works of first generation Romantics and early works of second generation Romantics. In the conclusion, this thesis synthesizes the arguments made in Chapter One and Two to suggest that the eruption of a little discussed, but globally affecting volcano produced an environment from which science fiction could emerge—specifically, what is arguably the first work of science fiction, Frankenstein. Consequently, this thesis offers a much stronger relationship between Romanticism and science fiction than what previous literature has suggested. This thesis draws connections between two widely divergent fields, the sciences and the arts, as well as widely divergent literary genres, Romanticism and science fiction, in order to reveal new, exciting, and provocative areas of inquiry that have the potential to open communication and discussion in the literary field. 3 CHAPTER 1: THE WEATHER AS ROMANTICISM AND SCIENCE FICTION KNOW IT She would not have been surprised if I had talked of the burning sun and delicious fruits of December, or of the frosts of July. - Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley, History of a Six Weeks’ Tour Historical Background My investigation of the power of nature, in the form of weather,