TRUE NORTH The Intertextual Dialogue of Frankenstein’s Polar Plot Jean Li Spencer Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in English Under the Advisement of Marilyn Sides May 2021 © 2021 Jean Li Spencer 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................(3) Part I: Locating Frankenstein’s Polar Plot in a Larger Conversation …………………………...(5) Part II: Coleridgean Ice and Frost ..............................................................................................(28) Part III: Traveling Shelleys .........................................................................................................(63) Epilogue .....................................................................................................................................(76) Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................(78) 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many years before I began writing this thesis, I was fortunate enough to travel from Argentina–across the turbulent and dangerous Drake Passage–to Antarctica, on a trip dedicated to climate change awareness. Naked with wind, biologically and oceanographically lush, and tantalizing as outer space, the Antarctic is otherworldly. It is one of the most vulnerable and ephemeral, yet entirely imposing, places I have ever been– for the Antarctic may seem indomitable, but within a matter of days, the landscape will shift and change irrevocably and without signal; metamorphosing quickly and dangerously. The polar landscape is exactly the “region of beauty and delight” (7) that Mary Shelley describes, but it also harbors the threat of an “[early] grave amidst” a “scene of desolation” (154).1 Unlike in the populated setting of Chamonix, a favorite vacation destination of Mary Shelley’s in France, there are no sweet Alpine cottages, no reprieve in the mossy palette of pine trees or easy distraction in fashionable winter sport. Standing on the snowy bank of some mountain nearby an abandoned whaling station, I never felt so small– a pinprick of matter in the 1 Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and J. Paul Hunter. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Criticism. 2nd ed, W.W. Norton & Co, 2012. 3 cosmos. It is from my own polar trip that my appreciation of Mary Shelley’s Arctic descriptions originates. I owe a debt of gratitude not to a person, but to a place. Without this opportunity to travel Southwards, I may have never been drawn to the polar elements in Mary Shelley’s novel. I would like to give my eternal thanks to Professor Marilyn Sides, without whom this project would have never started. It means more than I can say that you took me on as your advisee in the strangest of years, and in the wildest circumstances, even though we did not know each other before. I am so lucky and grateful to you for the time you gave me whenever I requested it, and for your lengthy editorial notes on my finished draft. To get your personal attention is quite special indeed, and I have come out a better writer for it. Special thanks to the professors who read my work and offered their expertise and feedback: Tim Peltason, Alison Hickey, and Mingwei Song. You have been part of my journey at Wellesley in important, lovely, and profound ways. I am honored by your help on this project. My appreciation to Professor Tracy Ware at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, for corresponding with me about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and English Romanticism, and for connecting me with Ian MacLaren, who directed me to critical reading material. I am greatly indebted to you both. You were sources of clarity in the general lack of scholarship surrounding Coleridge’s polar knowledge and “Frost at Midnight”; thank you for filling that puzzling gap. Thank you also to my dads, who knew that Wellesley was the place where I might grow and challenge myself. You have encouraged my lifelong joy in reading, and your care for me is boundless. Thank you to my partner, Brendan, for his unconditional love and total belief in my skills as a writer. And thank you to my senior year blockmates–Sam, Maddie, Hunter, and Macy–who supported me whenever I felt overwhelmed, and told me not to toss my writing in the trash because I had already come so far. It really does take a village (or a dorm). 4 PART I: Locating Frankenstein’s Polar Plot in a Larger Conversation 5 Origins Mary Shelley, who wrote her most famous novel Frankenstein at the young age of eighteen, was perhaps always destined to be a great writer. Mary held pen to paper throughout her life: one might argue that she even expected herself to do so as the daughter of two celebrated literary and political figures of the nineteenth century. Through William Godwin’s and Mary Wollstonecraft’s library, and her own ambitiously self-directed studies growing up, she became the author of a novel that helped write women novelists into the British literary marketplace. To this day Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) holds a firm position at the intersection of contemporary gender and literary studies, and is often regarded as the mother of the science fiction genre. But to strip all that down and to read Frankenstein in an early nineteenth-century context is a richly rewarding exercise. Indeed, what is so interesting about Mary Shelley’s commentary on early nineteenth century literary conventions and themes is that she, more than any other woman writer of the day, was positioned tightly between the great male writers of England: William Godwin, Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, and of course, the great poet Percy Shelley (her lover and husband). Rather than suffocate under the intense challenge of these men, Mary Shelley–who was never properly educated the way a son would have been (she was mostly self-taught)–rose to the occasion to write a great work of literature that is far better remembered and inscribed in the modern cultural imagination than any of her male contemporaries. I posit that to appreciate certain overlooked elements of the story–mainly, that of the Polar narrative, which opens and closes the novel–we must understand Frankenstein in an early 6 nineteenth century context. For Mary Shelley takes polar elements from her real life travels, the contemporary public polar fascination, and from selected poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Shelley, to inform Robert Walton’s expedition to the Arctic and the “Sea of Ice,” where Victor Frankenstein and his creature face off. The implications of my conclusions are limited to the polar theme in Frankenstein because it is an integral thread that ties the novel together, and is perhaps even the most important narrative thread of the novel, as it is the one that makes cohesive her opinions about the conventions of creative/artistic genius in literary tradition. The polar theme also writes Mary Shelley into a larger contemporaneous scientific and literary conversation, one that dramatizes elements of horror within the novel to turn it into a book concerned with morality and pathos. Mary Shelley was known to have kept personal diaries throughout her life, detailing not only the daily events and conversations she thought worthy enough to keep an account of, but also the reading material she engaged with. Unfortunately, any kind of record by Mary Shelley from the period in which she wrote Frankenstein does not exist, and so I would like to propose that not only was the Arctic more than a peripheral element of the book–which is how the polar theme has largely been viewed– but also that Frankenstein’s polar theme is one such monumental clue to piecing together the history of how this enduring novel came to be. This thesis attempts to tell the story, so far as I understand it, of the origins of Frankenstein’s polar elements, and its turn–its glacial Alpine stretch–in three remarkably influential works. Two of them, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) and “Frost at Midnight” (1798), preceded Mary Shelley and were written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), the famed poet who was also a regular childhood visitor at the Godwin house and one of Mary’s enduring poetic idols. The other work, History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, is a memoir and travelogue 7 that includes “Mont Blanc.” History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817) is co-authored by Mary and Percy Shelley, bringing together works by each writer in one volume. Within this ripe body of source material is a strong fixation with the polar regions and its scientific and literary potential. The fascination with the North Pole makes sense if we consider that Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley were writing at a time where there was already more than half a century’s worth of popular, scientific, and empirical interest in Arctic exploration and in voyages of discovery. I chose these three works to ground my research because their icy climes, dizzying heights, and icebergs line the road that leads to Frankenstein. Percy Shelley was an integral supporter, editor, and advocate for his wife’s novel, helping to bring it to “full term” over the nine months that the couple dedicated to “drafting, expanding, and fair-copying.” He furthermore presented it to the public on Mary’s behalf on publication day, 1 January 1818.2 An integral figure indeed was Percy Shelley. Percy Shelley (1792–1822) occupies a sometimes contrapuntal, yet also complimentary, role in the writing of Frankenstein; but he was more than Mary’s editor and reviser, he was truly her creative partner. Likewise, what cannot be overlooked is the fact that Mary utilized Frankenstein as a clever way to facilitate an intellectual and philosophical conversation with Percy Shelley about topics that interested them both greatly–science and philosophy–in the literary mode that suited their prolific artistic talents. The conversations Mary had with Percy were fertile sites of material for her. Based on what we know of Mary Shelley’s life, the shadow of these brilliant men cast themselves strongly across her 2 Robinson, Charles E.