Frankenstein

Mary Mary Wollstonecraft Wollstonecraft

ShelleyShelley

Born: August 30th, 1797

Died: February 1st, 1851

1818 Frankenstein

1823 Valperga: or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca

1833 The Last Man

1837 Falkner

(1759 – 1797) (1756 - 1836)

1797 Mother dies ten day after giving birth

1799 & 1806 Mary & Fanny listen to Samuel Taylor Coleridge recite “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

1801 Godwin marries Mary Jane Clairmont - Charles (6 yrs) and Jane (Claire) (4 yrs)

1811 &1812 Sent to Scotland; Meets Percy Shelley on one of her trips home

1814 Scandalous affair with Shelley; leave for France with stepsister, Claire, and Shelley; Disowned; travel through Europe

1815 Return to England, near London

1816 Travel to Lake Geneva, Switzerland to Villa Diodati; Lord Byron John Polidori, Claire, Mary and Shelley write ghost stories. Frankenstein is born.

TimelineTimeline

Percy Bysshe Percy Bysshe ShelleyShelley

1813 Queen Mab

1818 Ozymandias

1820 Prometheus Unbound

1792 - 1882

GalvanismGalvanism

A Galvanized Corpse. Harpers Weekly. 1836

1780 -1790 1780 -1790

Luigi Galvani & Allesandro Luigi Galvani & Allesandro VoltaVolta

“Animal Electricity” – Electricity applied to the body tissue of dissected animals produces muscle movement.

1791 Galvani believes electrical fluid emanates from the brain.

Life is identified with electricity from an organic source, like a battery.

Purpose of Literary Purpose of Literary AllusionAllusion

Literary allusion creates a comparison of the characters and ideas presented in the text.

By alluding to work familiar to everyone, all connotations in one is transferred to the other.

A great deal can be expressed in a title, character or epigram

Paradise Lost by John Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667 Milton, 1667

Satan rebels Satan rebels against God, is against God, is thrown out of thrown out of heaven with heaven with his army, and his army, and tempts Eve to tempts Eve to eat the eat the forbidden fruit, forbidden fruit, which gets which gets them thrown them thrown out of Eden, out of Eden, hence hence Paradise Lost.Paradise Lost.

Book 10: 743-Book 10: 743-55

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me Man, did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?

Romantic Comments by William Blake on Milton’s Satan:

“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling. And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire. The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and the Governor or Reason is called Messiah. And the original Archangel, or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is called the Devil or Satan, and his children are called Sin & Death.

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.”

[From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, ca. 1790–93]

Myth of Myth of PrometheusPrometheusPrometheus, a wise Titan,

fought with Zeus against other Titans. He created man to walk upright and gave him fire. He

tricked Zeus to take offering of bones and fat, leaving meaty

part for man. Zeus stole man’s fire in anger, which Prometheus returned. Zeus created Pandora

to punish man, and chained Prometheus to a rock in

Caucasus Mountains and had an eagle tear at his liver day and night. Freed by Heracles

and sacrifice of Centaur.

Scott Eaton

Prometheus = “Forethought”

The Legacy of The Legacy of FrankensteinFrankenstein

The Bride of Frankenstein

The Curse of Frankenstein

Blackenstein

Ghost of Frankenstein

The Bride of Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein

Frankenstein Unbound

AdaptationsAdaptations

•More differences than similarities

•1920 Rise in Eugenics – Nature vs. Nurture – Frankenstein’s monster is given brain of a criminal.

•Monster communicates with guttural grunts and moans.

Topics in Topics in NovelNovel

Dangerous Knowledge

Impact of Nature

Ambition

Isolation

Loss of Innocence

Responsibility

SublimeSublime

Longinus: "On the Sublime"Edmund Burke: "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful