Mary Shelley & Her Circle a brief overview of a life Sources St. Clair, William. The Godwins and the Shelleys: The biography of a family . New York: Norton, 1989. various essays in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Age of Romanticism . various essays in The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period .
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Mary Shelley FRNKSTN - Cal Poly CoLA - College of …cola.calpoly.edu/~pmarchba/SLIDESHOWS/231_GOTHIC_LL/Mary...Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) wealthy family educated at Eton; short-lived
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Mary Shelley & Her Circle
a brief overview of a life
Sources
St. Clair, William. The Godwins and the Shelleys: The biography of a family. New York: Norton, 1989.
various essays in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Age of Romanticism.
various essays in The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period.
Famous Parents
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97)
family of origin: troubled
maternal figure to: sisters, students, young charges
free thinking: proposal to Henry Fuseli
1793: meets Gilbert Imlay & child (Fanny) results
1794-95: suicide attempts
1797-97: marriage to Godwin, pregnancy, death by John Opie (c.1797)
Literary Works
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)
Mary: A Fiction (1788): inspired by Fanny Blood
Original Stories from Real Life (1788): governess Mrs. Mason
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790): attacks aristocracy, advocates republicanism
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792): nature vs. nurture, reason not gendered, critiques beauty w/o intelligence
William Godwin (1756-1836)
family of origin: middle-class; strictly Calvinist
1801: marries Mary Jane Clairmont; adopts Charles & Claire Clairmont
by James Northcote (1802)
Political Justice (1793, 1796, 1798)
composed quickly, just prior to war w/ France
decries monarchy: envisions stateless, ethical society (philosophical anarchism) w/o faith
“political justice” = utilitarianism of individual’s responsibility to behave justly towards all others
illustration of fire & rescue (choice between writer Francois Fénelon & chambermaid’s own mother)
Godwin modifies ideas w/ each new edition
Political Justice (1793, 1796, 1798)
chain of necessity: deterministic (allowing some small measure of free will guided by reason)
perfectibility: progressive nature of man (knowledge, institutions, etc.)
truth-telling: sincerity over obfuscation & deception
reason: logic should overwhelm emotion & passion
no personal property: eliminate greed, vanity, rivalry (note: Godwin’s own loaning & borrowing)
Godwin’s approach to sexual politicsideas
marriage immoral because monopolizing
sex as pragmatic, unattached to passion
experience
London women too playful; unserious
Mary Wollstonecraft: marriage, emotion & WG’s subsequent alterations to Political Justice
Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Jan. 1798)
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
parents: impoverished childhood foot, sports, appearance, diet 1798 (age 10) becomes 6th Lord Byron; spends $ at Trinity C, Cambridge 1809 (age 21): House of L (defends Luddites, promotes Catholic E.); trip to Greece & writing Childe Harold 1816: leaves England for:
Geneva, Switzerland (circle) Venice, Italy (3 yrs, libertine) Pisa, Italy (Austrian control) Missolonghi, Greece (Ottoman war, death to fever at 36 yrs) by Richard Westall (1813)
1816: tryst w/ Claire Clairmont (17 yrs); birth of “Allegra” in Jan. 1817
by G. H. Harlow (c.1815)
Sexual Experience
April 25, 1816; leaves England once public learns of Augusta
1817: arrives in Venice and sets to work (as author & “player”)
April 1819: settles into “faithful” relationship w/ young (married) Teresa Guiccioli in Venice; political activism begins (for Italy, then Greece)
by Thomas Phillips (c.1835)
Literary Creations1807: Hours of Idleness (lyric poems) 1809: “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” (satire of STC, WW, etc.) 1812: publishes 1st two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (instant fame; Byronic hero) 1813: “The Giaour,” 1 of 4 “Turkish” tales 1816: continues work on Childe Harold after leaving England 1818: begins Don Juan (“immoral”) note: despite debt, always gave royalties away (because aristocrat) by Thomas Phillips (1814)
“Lord Byron on His Deathbed” by Joseph-Denis Odevaere (1826)