FRANKENSTEIN BACKGROUND MARY SHELLEY, ROMANTICISM, GOTHIC LITERATURE, AND HOW THE STORY CAME TO BE BACKGROUND ON SHELLEY • Born as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (named after her mother) • Born in Somers Town, London, England on August 30th, 1797 • Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died only 11 days after birth • She and her four half-sisters were raised by her father, William Godwin, who encouraged his daughters to write at a very early age. BACKGROUND CONT’D • Shelley had an affair with the married poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary became pregnant with Percy’s child and upon hearing such, her father refused to receive her. • She became ostracized from society as an adulterer • Mary’s daughter died soon after her birth and led Mary into a deep depression. Percy • In 1816 Mary gave birth to a son, William, which eased her depression. Shelley BACKGROUND CONT’D • Mary and Percy gave birth to another child, Clara in 1817 • Mary grew very ill during her final years • While on a trip together, William and Clara both • She died on February 1, 1851 became extremely sick and died • Some believe the cause of her death to be a • She later gave birth to another son, Percy, whom brain tumor she feared she would also lose THE MAKING OF FRANKENSTEIN • The idea for the novel came to Shelley in a dream • During this time, the party would engage in • She would spend the summer with Lord Byron, ghost stories and talking about galvanism her friends affair at the time • This led to Shelley producing the first sketch of • They would be confined to their house due to what would become Frankenstein bad weather SHELLEY’S INFLUENCES • Both parents were prominent writers • Mother was a feminist writer who wrote a book about the equality of the sexes Shelley’s mother • Her father, William, was an accomplished journalist and novelist and father SHELLEY’S IMPACT ON LITERATURE • Through this novel, Shelley explicitly gave birth to a new theme in literature which is: hubris and unbridled ambition causing one’s ultimate downfall. This is also present in many Greek myths and are also two elements of a tragic hero. Shelley merely brought it to modern literature. • Example: ROMANTICISM DEFINITION: ROMANTICISM IS A COMPLEX ARTISTIC, LITERARY, AND INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT THAT ORIGINATED IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18TH CENTURY IN WESTERN EUROPE, AND GAINED STRENGTH IN REACTION TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. IN PART, IT WAS A REVOLT AGAINST ARISTOCRATIC SOCIAL AND POLITICAL NORMS OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND A REACTION AGAINST THE SCIENTIFIC RATIONALIZATION OF NATURE (NEOCLASSICISM), AND WAS EMBODIED MOST STRONGLY IN THE VISUAL ARTS, MUSIC, AND LITERATURE, BUT CAN BE DETECTED EVEN IN CHANGED ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHILDREN AND EDUCATION. ROMANTICISM • The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818 ROMANTICISM • In the U.S., romantic Gothic literature made an early appearance with Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and Rip Van Winkle (1819), followed by the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, with their emphasis on heroic simplicity and their fervent landscape descriptions of an already- exotic mythicized frontier peopled by "noble savages," similar to the philosophical theory of Rousseau. • Later, Transcendentalist writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson still show elements of its influence and imagination, as does the romantic realism of Walt Whitman. But by the 1880s, psychological and social realism was competing with romanticism in the novel. The poetry of Emily Dickinson— nearly unread in her own time—and Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick can be taken as epitomes of American Romantic literature. ROMANTICISM CHARACTERISTICS: •Enthusiasm for the • THE PREDOMINANCE OF IMAGINATION OVER REASON wild, irregular, or AND RULES grotesque in nature • PRIMITIVISM • Enthusiasm for the • LOVE OF NATURE uncivilized or • AN INTEREST IN THE PAST “natural” • MYSTICISM • INDIVIDUALISM ROMANTICISM MORE CHARACTERISTICS: • INTEREST IN HUMAN RIGHTS • SENTIMENTALITY • MELANCHOLY • INTEREST IN THE GOTHIC Supernatural And Gothic Literary Themes Supernatural motifs appear throughout literature but are most prominent in the literary genre labeled "Gothic," which developed in the late eighteenth-century and is devoted primarily to stories of horror, the fantastic, and the "darker" supernatural forces. • Gothic literature derives its name from its similarities to the Gothic medieval cathedrals, which feature a majestic, unrestrained architectural style with often savage or grotesque ornamentation (the word "Gothic" derives from "Goth," the name of one of the barbaric Germanic tribes that invaded the Roman Empire). • The vaulting arches and spires of Gothic cathedrals reach wildly to the sky as if the builders were trying to grasp the heavens; and the cathedrals are covered with a profusion of wild carvings depicting humanity in conflict with supernatural forces—demons, angels, gargoyles, and monsters. • The architecture evokes the sense of humanity’s division between a finite, physical identity and the often terrifying and bizarre forces of the infinite. The Gothic aesthetic also embodies an ambition to transcend earthly human limitations and reach the divine. • Like Gothic architecture, Gothic literature focuses on humanity’s fascination with the grotesque, the unknown, and the frightening, inexplicable aspects of the universe and the human soul. The Gothic "relates the individual to the infinite universe" (Varma, 16) and creates horror by portraying human individuals in confrontation with the overwhelming, mysterious, terrifying forces found in the cosmos and within themselves. Gothic literature pictures the human condition as an ambiguous mixture of good and evil powers that cannot be understood completely by human reason. • Thus, the Gothic perspective conceives of the human condition as a paradox, a dilemma of duality—humans are divided in the conflict between opposing forces in the world and in themselves. GOTHIC • Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses. • The stock characters of Gothic fiction include tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, monks, nuns, madwomen, magicians, vampires, werewolves, monsters, demons, angels, fallen angels, revenants, ghosts, perambulating skeletons, the Wandering Jew (!?) and the Devil himself. SCIENCE AND ROMANTICISM • Anxiety about manipulating nature and pushing the limits of science (“mad scientist” figure emerges) 1. Galvanism (electric currents to stimulate muscle movement) 2. Body Snatching (theft of bodies from graves to sell to doctors and scientists) 3. Vivisections (dissecting living animals for scientific study) 4. Polar Expeditions CRASH COURSE • Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyyrwoCec1k • Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRDjmyEvmBI MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN AND THE DEPTH OF ITS THEMES. • Frankenstein is a novel that came about from a challenge and the philosophical thoughts of a 17 year old girl. • The roots of Frankenstein stem from several different sources, though one of the major contributors was the original challenge issued to her from the famous poet, Lord Byron. Not only did this challenge lead to the creation of the Gothic masterpiece, it also established THE original Vampire story and set philosophy on new trends. • The story goes as follows: Late one evening at the infamous Villa Diadoti in Switzerland, just on the Geneva coast, Lord Byron and his physician, John Palidori had rented the mansion for use as a vacationing spot. They invited their close friends including the famous poet, Percy Shelly and his 17 year old girlfriend, Mary (even though he was married at the time), and a few other close friends who shared their ideas in poetry, philosophy and life’s many splendors. of the stories, threw the book Once the vacation was across the room, denting the done, the guests were on their wall where it hit. “We can do way home. Percy and Mary, better than THIS!” He screamed however, were detained for some time afterward. at them, and so he proposed a challenge that each of them The eruption of a nearby would create their own horror volcano had clouded the sky and caused a rather dreary story and present it the next storm that increased the very year. gothic atmosphere around the It is from this challenge that Villa. Mary and Percy were Gothic literature was truly born stuck with Byron and Palidori into what it is now. Byron for a few more days until they could travel on again. produced half a poem, Percy had squat, but ironically, the One night, the group sat in young girl Mary, and the the house reading German ghost stories from the physician John Palidori had Fantasmagorianna. Byron, created modern Gothic frustrated by the low caliber Literature. • The next time the four met, Byron produced a fragment of a Fanciful poem. Shelly brought basically nothing, but John Palidori changed Gothic text forever. • The Short story he produced (only about 70 pages) was titled “The Vampyre”. It is the story of Lord Ruthvym. He was a vampire unlike any other in that he was tall, aristocratic, seductive, beautiful and he made murder of innocents attractive. “The Vampyre” had some success and can still be found today. What made it so new and interesting was that Lord Ruthvym was such an attractive creature. He was based, at least in appearance and attitude, on Lord Byron himself. This then spawned the creation of intelligent, attractive vampires such as Dracula and those in the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. Lord Byron Mary Shelley’s creation came as the result of a dream she had after a philosophical discussion of the possibilities of reanimating dead materials.