Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
By Mary Shelley

Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students of Marymount University, Ally Freeland, Amy Ridderhof, Sabrina Koumoin, Ashley Swann
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Sources

London : Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818Page images are sourced from the first edition of the text housed in the Rare Books Collection of Library of Congress.Public domain electronic text: Romantic Circlesn.d.First-pass plain text sourced from the 2009 Romantic Circles edition. Minor corrections were made to the text to correct inconsistencies with the original text. Ontario, Canada: Broadview Pressn.d.3rd edition (2012), edited by D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, was employed as a base reading text.Public domain digital facsimile: HathiTrustn.d.A complete, multi-volume facsimile copy of the 1818 edition is available via HathiTrust, for reading and downloadm at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102286691.

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Citation

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818 . Literature in Context: An Open Anthology. http://anthology.lib.virginia.edu/work/Shelley/shelley-frankenstein-1818. Accessed: 2024-03-29T09:02:10.247Z

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[title page] FRANKENSTEIN;
OR,
THE MODERN PROMETHEUS.prometheus
prometheus graphic Prometheus (1750 illustration of Prometheus Attacked by an Eagle by René-Michel Slodtz pictured from the Melbourne Museum) is a Greek trickster Titan known as "Forethought". In one myth, Prometheus created man, but in the more common myth, Prometheus protected man by tricking Zeus out of a prize sacrifice of meat and giving it to humans. Zeus then prevented humans from accessing fire, which Prometheus gave to humans by hiding it inside a fennel-stalk. This slight against Zeus caused Zeus the Olympian to punish Prometheus dearly; in one instance he is tied to a rock and his liver is continually eaten and replenished every day. While Frankenstein was being published, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley’s husband, wrote a closet drama about the myth entitled Prometheus Unbound which can be read at Poetry Foundation. In Shelley’s poem Zeus falls from power, allowing Prometheus to escape his fetters. This poem is a response to Aeschylus’ drama Prometheus Bound, one of the first classical tragedies that pits Zeus’ power against Prometheus’ ego. A full-text version of the Aeschelus play is available at the Internet Classics Archive. Victor Frankenstein--the "modern Prometheus"--is more akin to the Prometheus of Aeschylus’ drama, a creator who finds his creation "wretched." Frankenstein is very different from the Hesiodic understanding of Prometheus, which, as Norman Austin notes in Meaning and Being in Myth, saw him as a benefactor and caretaker, not a creator who abandoned his creation (77). - [AF]
IN THREE VOLUMES
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? epigraph epigraph This epigraph quotes Paradise Lost (X.743-745), where Adam laments his expulsion from Eden. Milton’s epic poem is one of many texts that had a profound effect on Mary Shelley. Its influence can be seen throughout the novel, particularly in relation to the creature’s self-education, and it is one of the books that he finds and reads while he is living near the De Lacey’s cottage (Volume II, Chapter 7). When the creature confronts Victor Frankenstein, his "Maker," he compares himself to Adam (Volume II, Chapter 2). For more information about the influence of Paradise Lost in Frankenstein, see John Lamb’s "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Monstrous Myth" and the overview of Paradise Lostin the "Romantics and Victorians" exhibit at the British Library .
- [AF]
PARADISE LOST.paradise_lost paradise_lost John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet most notably known for Paradise Lost, a twelve-volume epic poem in blank verse about the fall of man. Milton’s poem is an important intertext--even, as BBC Britain’s Benjamin Ramm notes, the inspiration, for Shelley. The Romantics placed importance in feeling and nature, and Milton epitomized that throughout his poem, showing the the evolution of human consciousness and the building up of the human spirit. The independence and individuality he gives to Satan creates sympathy for a hated stock character, redeeming him in the reader’s eyes. This in turn projects the idea of redemption of the spirit through internal means, removing the need for deliverance through an omnipotent being. See more in The Oxford Handbook of Milton by Nicholas McDowell. At the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton states that the purpose of the poem is to "justifie the wayes of God to men" (I.26). This idea speaks to Shelley’s themes of free will and theodicy. The story of Paradise Lost is felt acutely by Victor Frankenstein and his Creature, and many allusions to it appear throughout the text. An interesting juxtaposition of religious thought to her scientific filled novel, Mary Shelley combines the contemporary understanding of science with an obvious allusion to the religious folly and fall of man. For more information about the influence of Paradise Lost in Frankenstein, see Burton Pollin’s Philosophical and Literary Sources of Frankenstein, John Lamb’s "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Monstrous Myth", and the overview of Paradise Lostin the "Romantics and Victorians" exhibit at the British Library. - [AF]

VOL. I.
London:
PRINTED FOR
LACKINGTON, HUGHES, HARDING, MAVOR, & JONESpublisher publisher graphic Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, was published by the Lackington firm, founded by James Lackington in 1774. Advertised as "The Cheapest Bookseller in the World," Lackington's business--which both sold and lent books as well as published them--capitalized on a new, middle-class reading public. In 1791, the bookseller moved from Chiswell Street to a large purpose-built store in Finsbury Square, dubbed "The Temple of the Muses"--above the entrance, an inscription advertised "The Cheapest Books in the World." Lackington's 1799-1800 catalog, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, boasted nearly 300,000 volumes available for sale. In 1789, the founder's cousin, George Lackington, took over operations, and it was here that Shelley's book was sold. William St. Clair, in The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, describes the publication of Frankenstein. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley's husband and noted Romantic poet, arranged the initial printing with Lackington & Co., which was known to specialize in books about magic and the supernatural. Turned down by other publishers, likely for reasons of self-censorship, Frankenstein found a home at Lackington's. The first run--at 500 copies--was relatively small for such a well-known shop, but the book was popular and sold well; St. Clair notes that the first edition of Frankenstein "made more money than all [Percy] Shelley's works were to fetch in his lifetime" (360). The book was published anonymously, though because the publishing contract was negotiated by Percy Shelley, early reviewers assumed he had authored it, as Germaine Greer suggests. The image above, from the British Library, shows an 1809 engraving by Rudolph Ackermann depicting the interior of "Messrs. Lackington Allen & Co: Temple of the Muses, Finsbury Square." - [TH],
FINSBURY SQUARE.
1818.date date The first edition of Frankenstein was written while Mary Shelley was in the prime of her life, but it was published in January of 1818, shortly after she buried her first child. The second edition, published in 1831, came after the loss of her husband, most of her children, and her family. There are many differences between the two texts, which can be viewed in Dana Wheeles’ public Juxta collation. One of the main structural differences between the texts is the loss of the three volumes found in the 1818 edition. In the 1831 edition, after the first four letters, the chapters are numbered 1-24, which not only removes the multiple volumes but also obscures the separated narratives of Victor, the Creature, and Walton. Another noticeable difference comes from the removal of the epigraph from Milton’s Paradise Lost, which, in the beginning of the 1818 edition, announces the key theme of the novel. Its removal from the 1831 edition obscures the importance of the allusions to Milton’s work throughout the novel. In the newly-added forward to the 1831 edition, Mary Shelley wrote, somewhat disingenuously, "I have changed no portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or circumstances." Shelley in fact makes many changes that drastically change the interpretation and meaning of the text. First, many of the scientific ideas written about in the 1818 edition are removed, detaching the novel from an intellectual context and further pressing it into the fantastical. Shelley also removes many of Elizabeth’s more independent thoughts about women’s rights as well as her indictment of the justice system in regards to Justine. Finally, one of the largest differences between the editions is Victor Frankenstein’s character. Whereas in the 1818 edition, Victor’s own hubris is to blame for the outcome of the Creature, in the 1831 edition, Victor is at the mercy of fate or chance. To explore more about the differences between the editions, see Jill Lepore’s article in The New Yorker, "The Strange and Twisted Life of Frankenstein", Jacqueline Foertsch’s The Right, the Wrong, and the Ugly: Teaching Shelley's Several "Frankensteins", or James O’Rourke’s "The 1831 Introduction and Revisions to Frankenstein: Mary Shelley Dictates Her Legacy. To explore visual differences between the texts, see the Shelley-Godwin Archive, which compares facsimiles of the original manuscripts, and Brigit Katz’ article for The Smithsonian Magazine, "‘Frankenstein’ Manuscript Shows the Evolution of Mary Shelley’s Monster." - [AF]
Page [title page]Page [title page]

Footnotes

prometheus_ graphic Prometheus (1750 illustration of Prometheus Attacked by an Eagle by René-Michel Slodtz pictured from the Melbourne Museum) is a Greek trickster Titan known as "Forethought". In one myth, Prometheus created man, but in the more common myth, Prometheus protected man by tricking Zeus out of a prize sacrifice of meat and giving it to humans. Zeus then prevented humans from accessing fire, which Prometheus gave to humans by hiding it inside a fennel-stalk. This slight against Zeus caused Zeus the Olympian to punish Prometheus dearly; in one instance he is tied to a rock and his liver is continually eaten and replenished every day. While Frankenstein was being published, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley’s husband, wrote a closet drama about the myth entitled Prometheus Unbound which can be read at Poetry Foundation. In Shelley’s poem Zeus falls from power, allowing Prometheus to escape his fetters. This poem is a response to Aeschylus’ drama Prometheus Bound, one of the first classical tragedies that pits Zeus’ power against Prometheus’ ego. A full-text version of the Aeschelus play is available at the Internet Classics Archive. Victor Frankenstein--the "modern Prometheus"--is more akin to the Prometheus of Aeschylus’ drama, a creator who finds his creation "wretched." Frankenstein is very different from the Hesiodic understanding of Prometheus, which, as Norman Austin notes in Meaning and Being in Myth, saw him as a benefactor and caretaker, not a creator who abandoned his creation (77).
epigraph_ This epigraph quotes Paradise Lost (X.743-745), where Adam laments his expulsion from Eden. Milton’s epic poem is one of many texts that had a profound effect on Mary Shelley. Its influence can be seen throughout the novel, particularly in relation to the creature’s self-education, and it is one of the books that he finds and reads while he is living near the De Lacey’s cottage (Volume II, Chapter 7). When the creature confronts Victor Frankenstein, his "Maker," he compares himself to Adam (Volume II, Chapter 2). For more information about the influence of Paradise Lost in Frankenstein, see John Lamb’s "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Monstrous Myth" and the overview of Paradise Lostin the "Romantics and Victorians" exhibit at the British Library .
paradise_lost_ John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet most notably known for Paradise Lost, a twelve-volume epic poem in blank verse about the fall of man. Milton’s poem is an important intertext--even, as BBC Britain’s Benjamin Ramm notes, the inspiration, for Shelley. The Romantics placed importance in feeling and nature, and Milton epitomized that throughout his poem, showing the the evolution of human consciousness and the building up of the human spirit. The independence and individuality he gives to Satan creates sympathy for a hated stock character, redeeming him in the reader’s eyes. This in turn projects the idea of redemption of the spirit through internal means, removing the need for deliverance through an omnipotent being. See more in The Oxford Handbook of Milton by Nicholas McDowell. At the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton states that the purpose of the poem is to "justifie the wayes of God to men" (I.26). This idea speaks to Shelley’s themes of free will and theodicy. The story of Paradise Lost is felt acutely by Victor Frankenstein and his Creature, and many allusions to it appear throughout the text. An interesting juxtaposition of religious thought to her scientific filled novel, Mary Shelley combines the contemporary understanding of science with an obvious allusion to the religious folly and fall of man. For more information about the influence of Paradise Lost in Frankenstein, see Burton Pollin’s Philosophical and Literary Sources of Frankenstein, John Lamb’s "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Monstrous Myth", and the overview of Paradise Lostin the "Romantics and Victorians" exhibit at the British Library.
publisher_ graphic Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, was published by the Lackington firm, founded by James Lackington in 1774. Advertised as "The Cheapest Bookseller in the World," Lackington's business--which both sold and lent books as well as published them--capitalized on a new, middle-class reading public. In 1791, the bookseller moved from Chiswell Street to a large purpose-built store in Finsbury Square, dubbed "The Temple of the Muses"--above the entrance, an inscription advertised "The Cheapest Books in the World." Lackington's 1799-1800 catalog, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, boasted nearly 300,000 volumes available for sale. In 1789, the founder's cousin, George Lackington, took over operations, and it was here that Shelley's book was sold. William St. Clair, in The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, describes the publication of Frankenstein. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley's husband and noted Romantic poet, arranged the initial printing with Lackington & Co., which was known to specialize in books about magic and the supernatural. Turned down by other publishers, likely for reasons of self-censorship, Frankenstein found a home at Lackington's. The first run--at 500 copies--was relatively small for such a well-known shop, but the book was popular and sold well; St. Clair notes that the first edition of Frankenstein "made more money than all [Percy] Shelley's works were to fetch in his lifetime" (360). The book was published anonymously, though because the publishing contract was negotiated by Percy Shelley, early reviewers assumed he had authored it, as Germaine Greer suggests. The image above, from the British Library, shows an 1809 engraving by Rudolph Ackermann depicting the interior of "Messrs. Lackington Allen & Co: Temple of the Muses, Finsbury Square."
date_ The first edition of Frankenstein was written while Mary Shelley was in the prime of her life, but it was published in January of 1818, shortly after she buried her first child. The second edition, published in 1831, came after the loss of her husband, most of her children, and her family. There are many differences between the two texts, which can be viewed in Dana Wheeles’ public Juxta collation. One of the main structural differences between the texts is the loss of the three volumes found in the 1818 edition. In the 1831 edition, after the first four letters, the chapters are numbered 1-24, which not only removes the multiple volumes but also obscures the separated narratives of Victor, the Creature, and Walton. Another noticeable difference comes from the removal of the epigraph from Milton’s Paradise Lost, which, in the beginning of the 1818 edition, announces the key theme of the novel. Its removal from the 1831 edition obscures the importance of the allusions to Milton’s work throughout the novel. In the newly-added forward to the 1831 edition, Mary Shelley wrote, somewhat disingenuously, "I have changed no portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or circumstances." Shelley in fact makes many changes that drastically change the interpretation and meaning of the text. First, many of the scientific ideas written about in the 1818 edition are removed, detaching the novel from an intellectual context and further pressing it into the fantastical. Shelley also removes many of Elizabeth’s more independent thoughts about women’s rights as well as her indictment of the justice system in regards to Justine. Finally, one of the largest differences between the editions is Victor Frankenstein’s character. Whereas in the 1818 edition, Victor’s own hubris is to blame for the outcome of the Creature, in the 1831 edition, Victor is at the mercy of fate or chance. To explore more about the differences between the editions, see Jill Lepore’s article in The New Yorker, "The Strange and Twisted Life of Frankenstein", Jacqueline Foertsch’s The Right, the Wrong, and the Ugly: Teaching Shelley's Several "Frankensteins", or James O’Rourke’s "The 1831 Introduction and Revisions to Frankenstein: Mary Shelley Dictates Her Legacy. To explore visual differences between the texts, see the Shelley-Godwin Archive, which compares facsimiles of the original manuscripts, and Brigit Katz’ article for The Smithsonian Magazine, "‘Frankenstein’ Manuscript Shows the Evolution of Mary Shelley’s Monster."
william_godwin_ graphic Mary Shelley dedicated Frankenstein to her father, William Godwin, the well known author of An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Caleb Williams. William Godwin was an anarchist and supporter of the French Revolution, and many of his theories of absolute sovereignty are alluded to within the text of Frankenstein. Shelley learned much from her father’s library growing up, and thus was highly influenced by her father’s beliefs. To learn more about Godwin, read Chapter 4 of Rebecca Baumann’s Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life, and Resurrection of Mary Shelley's Monster, "Mary’s Father, William Godwin". To learn more about Godwin’s influence on Frankenstein, listen to the University of Oxford’s podcast on the matter. The image above, via Wikimedia Commons, is a painting by Henry William Pickersgill, housed in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
political_justice_ Published in 1793, William Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness is a philosophical text concerning politics. Written after the French Revolution, a ten-year period of political upheaval in France culminating in the overthrow of the monarchy and the creation of a republic, Godwin’s Enquiry also responds to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man--specifically, on questions of authority. Godwin wrote the Enquiry to advocate for the Enlightenment project of social improvement. His radical writing resonated deeply with Romantic authors, especially Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley. For a more in-depth look at how this work affected the authors of the Romantic Period see Andrew McCann’s "William Godwin: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Manners", and for more information about Godwin’s influence on Mary Shelley, see an online exhibit Shelley’s Ghost, developed by the Bodleian Libraries.
caleb_williams_Published in May 1794, Things As They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams tells the story of an impoverished young man named Caleb Williams, who learns that his wealthy employer, Ferdinando Falkland, is guilty of murder. When Falkland realizes that Caleb suspects him, he falsely accuses Caleb of attempted robbery, forcing him to flee the estate. Throughout the novel, Caleb is accused of various crimes, pursued, robbed, beaten, arrested, and convicted, but manages ultimately to escape captivity. The novel is a pointed critique of the English judicial system, particularly its abuse of power, and continues to develop themes that Godwin presented in his 1793 philosophical treatise, An Enquiry concerning Political Justice. For a detailed examination of Godwin’s writings and an overview of Godwinian scholarship, see Pamela Clemit’s "Revisiting William Godwin" from Oxford Handbooks Online.
mary_shelley_ graphic Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England, to William Godwin and famed feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft—the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Mary had a difficult upbringing, as her mother died shortly after her birth and her father remarried to Mary Jane Clairmont, who had a tenuous relationship with Mary. Mary was never formally educated but read many of her father’s books and was introduced to many influential writers like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Mary, while on a trip to Scotland visiting family friends, met and fell in love with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married and also a student of her father. The two eloped in 1814 and travelled around Europe. It was in Switzerland, with a cohort made up of the Shelleys, Jane Clairmont, Lord Byron, and John Polidori, where Mary first began Frankenstein one rainy afternoon during a ghost story writing exercise. Frankenstein was published in 1818 anonymously with a foreword by Percy Shelley, whom many people assumed wrote the novel. The novel was a huge success, and is now often considered the first science fiction novel. After the success of her first novel, Shelley continued to write but her personal life declined rapidly. She lost three children in her lifetime, her half-sister committed suicide, and her marriage, riddled with affairs, ended in 1822 when Percy Shelley drowned in the Gulf of Spezia. Mary died at 53 of brain cancer on February 1, 1851 in London, England. She was buried at St. Peter's Church in Bournemouth, laid to rest with the cremated remains of her late husband's heart. The portrait of Shelley included above, painted by Richard Rothwell (1840), is housed in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
event_ Frankenstein was created on a rainy afternoon in 1816 when Mary Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley), Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and others were vacationing in Geneva. Lord Byron suggested a gothic ghost story contest to alleviate their cabin fever--as 1816 was known as the "year without a summer" due to a volcanic explosion in the Dutch East Indies, causing a long winter in most of the world. After working their way through established German ghost stories, the group decided to try their hand at writing their own. For more information on the circumstances of the creation of Frankenstein and how it affected the development of the text, see Marshall Brown’s "Frankenstein": A Child’s Tale", and for images of Shelley’s manuscript for Frankenstein see the Shelley-Godwin Archive.
erasmus_darwin_graphic Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin, was a physician and poet (pictured above is a reprint in the National Portrait Gallery, London by Joseph Wright based on a work from the 1770’s). An industrialist, free thinker, and inventor, he is well known for his for his classification novel, Zoonomia, Or, The Laws Of Organic Life which created classes and categories for animals, and discussed pathology, anatomy, and psychology. His works influenced many Romantic authors, such as William Wordsworth, who referenced Darwin in "The Tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill." For more information, see Gavin Budge’s article "Erasmus Darwin and the Poetics of William Wordsworth: ‘Excitement without the Application of Gross and Violent Stimulants’". A radical thinker for the time, Erasmus Darwin posited the development of life from "one living filament" (Section XXXIX, Line 8); Darwin’s arguments would later be seen precursors to the theory of evolution. Darwin also wrote poetry about nature and science, most notably, The Loves of the Plants, Economy of Vegetation, and The Temple of Nature. His views on living organisms and the creation of life gives authority to] Victor’s ability to create life and offers a litmus for the Romantic era skepticism about "playing God." For more information on Erasmus Darwin in general see Michon Scott’s website Strange Science; to see Darwin’s influence on both Romantic and Victorian writers, see Thomas Hart’s article on The Victorian Web.
iliad_The Iliad, composed in approximately the 9th century BCE, is an epic poem in elevated and formal verse, narrating the events that occurred in the ninth year of the attack on Troy. The story begins with Agamemnon, the wanax of Mycenae and commander of the various independent Achaean kingdoms, insulting Achilles. Turmoil ensues among the Achaeans, who have been laying siege to the City of Troy for nearly ten years. The story includes the death of Achilles’ closest friend Patroclus, which causes Achilles to defeat and defile his murderer, Hector, Prince of Troy. The story concludes with Achilles surrendering Hector’s body to King Priam, father of Hector, and his recognition of a kinship between them through grief. See MIT’s full text version of The Iliad translated by Samuel Butler.
tragedy_Tragedy is an elevated literary form that originated in ancient Greece. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, "Tragedy is, then, a representation of an action that is heroic and complete and of a certain magnitude—by means of language enriched with all kinds of ornament, each used separately in the different parts of the play: it represents men in action and does not use narrative, and through pity and fear it effects relief to these and similar emotions." (1449b), Romantic authors were greatly influenced by the ancient tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, however they often turned the genre on its head. While tragedy in the original sense featured a hero of noble birth, the Romantics, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, preferred to consider the common man. Often, Romantics turned the argument inward, invoking Shakespeare’s tragedies in lieu of Ancient ones (Macbeth,Hamlet, Othello).
william_shakespeare_graphic William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is one of the greatest writers in the English language, known for composing 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and two long narrative poems (pictured above is a digital print of Earl of Warwick’s 1623 first folio of William Shakespeare’s works via the Folger Shakespeare Library). Shakespeare’s works, known for his innovative, vivid use of language and his exploration of individual subjectivity, were of special interest to the Romantics. As Jonathan Bate argues in Shakespeare and the English Romantic Imagination (1989), the idea of natural genius and the veneration of the creative imagination was essential to the Romantic ideology, and Shakespeare became a key sign of natural creative genius. The "bardolatry" that began in the mid-eighteenth century, particularly through the actor David Garrick’s (1717-1779) energies, came to a head in the Romantic era, and has in many ways persisted to this day. For more information on the role of Shakespeare in the Romantic era, see Bate’s important monograph as well as Joseph M. Ortiz’s edited collection, Shakespeare and the Culture of Romanticism . Mary Shelley would have been familiar with his works both through her education at the hands of her father, William Godwin, and through her close relationship with Byron, Shelley, Polidori, and other Romantics. Godwin, with his second wife Mary Jane Clairmont, created and published works in a juvenlie library series for the improvement of young readers’ imaginations that included, among histories of Greece and bible stories, Tales From Shakespeare.. All of these authors influenced her writing, and Shakespeare colored her entire life; Shelley had lines from The Tempest carved into her husband’s tombstone. To read more about Shakespeare’s influence on Mary Shelley’s life and writing see Robert Sawyer’s article "Mary Shelley and Shakespeare: Monstrous Creations" or David Lee Clark’s article, "Shelley and Shakespeare". For a full list of Shakespeare’s works, as well as summaries and criticisms, see the Folger Shakespeare Library.
tempest_The Tempest is a comedy written in 1610 by William Shakespeare telling the story of the banished Duke of Milan, Prospero, who has recreated his home on an island using magic--and usurped the native inhabitants of the island to do so, imprisoning Sycorax and enslaving her son, Caliban. Prospero causes the shipwreck of the King of Naples, Alonso, and his brother, Antonio, who, twelve years earlier had conspired for Prospero’s position thus banishing him from the kingdom. During the tale, Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, and Ferdinand, Alonso’s son, fall in love, but must survive the tests placed upon them by Prospero. Other castaways from the shipwreck land on the island and conspire to destroy Prospero but in the end common ground and love triumph. Explore more of the text on the Folger Shakespeare Library.
midsummer_ graphic Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. A play within a play, the story is set in a fairyland Athenian forest during the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. The play’s complex subplots involve a variety of complementary stories. The play opens with a love triangle between Hermia, who is in love with Lysander but is being forced to marry Demetrius by her father Egeus. Helena, Hermia’s best friend is in love with Demetrius. On another side of the story are the "Rude Mechanicals," a group of six skilled laborers who are planning a performance of Pyramus and Thisbe. The last subplot involves the king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania, who are in an argument over a small child Titania is protecting from Oberon. Oberon, in his frustration over Titania’s disobedience, sends his sprite, Robin "Puck" Goodfellow, to create a love potion to shame Titania into obedience. Puck wreaks havoc on all the characters, causing the men to fall in love with Helena and rebuff Hermia, turning Bottom part donkey, and prompting Titania to fall in love with Bottom. During this confusion, Oberon steals the child from Titania, upon which success he orders Puck to set everything straight. The play concludes with the Mechanicals’ inexpert play-within-a-play, staged for the marriage festivities of Theseus and Hippolyta. Explore more about the text at the Folger Shakespeare Library or see David Wiles Shakespeare and Carnival: After Bakhtin, especially chapter 4, "The Carnivalesque in A Midsummer Night's Dream." The image here is Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing by William Blake (1786) hosted by Tate Britain.
john_milton_graphicJohn Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet most notably known for Paradise Lost, a twelve-volume epic poem in blank Encyclopedia Britannica. The image included here is a portrait of Milton (1690) by Godfrey Kneller, via Wikimedia Commons.
novel_Throughout the eighteenth century, the novel as a modern form of entertainment accessible to a wide, middling-class, and generally-educated audience grew. For more information on the "humble" novel, see John Mullan's "The Rise of the Novel" at the British Library.
time_ According to a footnote in the 3rd Broadview edition of Frankenstein, or; The Modern Prometheus, the novel takes place in 1796. If this is true, the entire tale takes place around the date of the author's birth and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's death.
artic_ graphic According to Kathryn Shultz in "Literature's Arctic Obsession," Shelley--like many during the early nineteenth century--was intrigued by the prospect of arctic exploration, as her frequent allusions to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and her letters make clear. While Shelley may have added the arctic setting as "an afterthought" after reading about attempts to discover the long-elusive Northwest passage, by the time Frankenstein was published, two major expeditions were underway; the Passage would be discovered in 1850 after many deaths on the ice. As Shultz notes, "the book reminded readers that their world was already full of Dr. Frankensteins." For further reading, see "'A Paradise of My Own Creation': Frankenstein and the Improbable Romance of Polar Expedition," by Jessica Richard. The image above, via WikiMedia Commons, shows a portrait (c.1833) of the explorer John Ross (1777-1856).
electromagnetism_ url="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Br%C3%BAjula_azimutal_espa%C3%B1ola_s.XVIII_%28M.A.N._Madrid%29_01.jpg/506px-Br%C3%BAjula_azimutal_espa%C3%B1ola_s.XVIII_%28M.A.N._Madrid%29_01.jpg" /> From the 13th through the 19th centuries, scholars and scientists were investigating the nature of electromagnetism, though, as noted in the American Physical Society newsletter of July 2008, most people thought they were separate forces. The Economy of Vegetation, a 1791 poem by Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, speculates on the nature of electromagnetism (see canto 2 lines 193ff). In 1820, two years after the publication of Frankenstein, Danish scientist Hans Christian Oersted discovered that electric current could produce a magnetic effect on a compass, which normally points due north--toward the Earth’s magnetic core. For more information on Darwin’s influence in the late eighteenth century, see Jenny Uglow’s review of his work in The Guardian The image above, via Wikimedia Commons, shows an eighteenth-century compass of Spanish origin.
enthusiasm_Enthusiasm is an important concept in the development of Romanticism. Deriving from the Greek word "enthous," meannig possessed or inspired by a god, the concept of enthusiasm was linked to religious fanaticism (particularly Methodism) during the early eighteenth century and described by philosophers like Locke and Hume as an error in thinking that reason and reflection could correct. Enthusiasm was also, however, understood as the ability to "see the truth transparently and spontaneously without mediation" (Mee 8). Jon Mee, in Romanticism, Enthusiasm, and Regulation, goes on to note: "Although it was often associated with the sort of implosion of the self that came from the prophet retiring into the wilderness, a species of melancholia and gloomy introspection, it was also routinely construed in terms of the delirium of the senses that manifested itself in the mania of the crowd" (10-11). Closely related to concepts of imagination and fancy, enthusiasm is a complex term that suggests many of the negative aspects of the Romantic sensibility. For Wordsworth and Coleridge, enthusiasm is a kind of corruption of or detour in the imagination (Mee 12).
Homer_Homer is the figure credited with the composition of two epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, considered to be the first extant works of Greek literature. Though modern scholarship questions the existence of a single person called "Homer," the idea of such authorship has had an enduring interpretive effect from ancient times to the present. Known as the "Father of Western Literature," Homer is credited with a number of hymns and lesser works in addition to The Iliad and The Odyssey. If such an individual existed, scholars have suggested his floruit as anywhere between the 9th to 7th centuries BCE. To learn more about Homer, see Suzanne Saïd’s entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.
the_Mariner_ graphicIn this excerpt from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (451- 456), the Mariner has killed the albatross and the other sailors turn on him, viewing his act of violence as a sin against God and nature. The luck of the ship dissipates, and they are becalmed on the ocean. The Mariner watches as each of the sailors die of thirst, while he alone is saved. This direct allusion highlights the similarities between the Mariner and Frankenstein, who are both reeling after accomplishing their respective goals--killing the albatross and creating a sentient being--and both in the process of telling their stories. The use of the quote is two-fold; it highlights Frankenstein’s isolation and his decision to abandon his creature, but it also juxtaposes the Mariner’s violence with Frankenstein’s act of creation. Explore more about Coleridge’s poem in William Christie’s “The Search for Meaning in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,". See Michelle Levy’s article, “Discovery and the Domestic Affections in Coleridge and Shelley," for a discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s influence on Mary Shelley.
Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner_ graphic This is a reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Coleridge’s most famous poem is a tale narrated by an ancient sailor returned from a long, ambitious journey during which, having shot and killed an albatross, all other members of the crew die and the mariner is cursed. The poem foregrounds the act of storytelling; the mariner with his "strange power of speech" (587) is compelled to tell his story, and others, due to its fantastical nature, are compelled to pay attention. The 1876 illustration above, via the University of Adelaide, depicts the Ancient Mariner telling his tale to the Wedding Guest, who "cannot chuse but to hear" (18). To learn more about Coleridge’s poem, published as the opening poem in Lyrical Ballads , read Seamus Perry’s introduction at the British Library.
Plain_work_"Plain work" here refers to sewing and needlework that is "plain," as opposed to "fancy." Caroline Beaufort, however, is also making money by taking orders for piece work, which refers to any work paid for "by the piece" or according to what is produced, like modern factory work.
cousin_marriage_Marriage between cousins was a common practice in history, often deployed to maintain family property and wealth. Read more about marriage between cousins in Adam Kuper’s Incest and Influence especially the Coda, or his article in Past and Present "Incest, Cousin Marriage, and the Origin of the Human Sciences in Nineteenth-Century England." In the 1818 edition of Frankenstein, Elizabeth Lavenza, is Victor’s first cousin on his father’s side; however, in the 2nd edition of 1831, Mary Shelley revises this plot point to make Elizabeth an unknown orphan and no longer related to the Frankensteins. She is instead rescued by Victor Frankenstein’s mother. To learn more of Mary Shelley’s revisions between the first and second editions see the annotation linked to the publication date in the Preface of the novel, or head to Dana Wheeles’ Juxta Commons comparison of the 1818 and 1831 editions of Frankenstein.
fancy_Fancy and imaginagion are important concepts in that shifted in meaning througout the eighteenth century, being associated with mental creativity and wit. For William Wordsworth, fancy is, like the imagination, a force for association and creation; in his Preface of 1815, he writes that fancy is "capricious as the accidents of things... Fancy depends upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and images" (xxxiv-xxxv). Fancy is more "given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our nature," while "Imagination [works] to incite and to support the eternal" (xxxv). For Coleridge, fancy is inferior to imagination, lighter, and is more like wit in terms of its power to make connections between ideas; Coleridge explores the distinctions between primary imagination, secondary imagination, and fancy in Book 13 of Biographia Literaria (1817). For a good general historical overview, see Fancy and Imagination (1969) by R. L. Brett.
chivalric_romance_Chivalric romance, according Oxford Reference, is a genre of literature that began in Medieval Europe and flourished into the 17th century. Chivalric romances, usually written in poetic verse, tell stories of the great deeds of knight-errantry. Chivalry, in particular, refers to "an idealized code of civilized behaviour that combines loyalty, honour, and courtly love." These sorts of stories were often called "romans," from which the word "romance" derives. Formally loose or episodic in structure, heroic romances written in later periods "deliberately eschew[ed] contemporaneity"; their plots featured courtly lovers engaged in "heroic stories of love and war in a remote and idealized past" (1046), as Shellinger states in the Encyclopedia of the Novel. Some representative heroic romances include Euphues by John Lyly, L'Astrée by Honore d'Urfé, Artamène by Madame de Scudéry, Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, and Amadís de Gaula by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. Romance of this sort declined in popularity during the 18th century, but during the Romantic period--so named by later scholars for its turn toward these very romantic ideals of individualism, heroism, and the imagination--such stories were revived. For a fuller discussion of the origins and meaning of the word "romantic" see Michael Ferber’s Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction (3-7), and for a broader overview of the medieval genre, see the Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry on Romance.
Orlando_Furioso_ graphic Orlando Furioso is an epic poem published in 1532 by the Italian poet Ludovico Arisoto, and an example of the "books of chivalry and romance" that Clerval enjoys. Set in the 8th century, Orlando Furioso tells the story of the protagonist Orlando, leader of the Christian knights, fighting the so-called Saracens for control of Europe during the reign of Charlemagne (Charles I). As the first lines of the poem point out, its subject is "Dames, knights, and arms, and love! The deeds that spring / From courteous minds, and venturous feats" (1.1-2). The chivalric romance combines realism and fantasy throughout its 46 cantos. First published in English translation in 1591, Orlando Furioso is a source for Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. While the story is episodic, one of the most important plots focuses on Orlando’s dangerous passion for the pagan princess Angelica, which is the cause of his titular madness. The image above, via Wikimedia Commons, shows Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica (1818-1819), painted by Jean Auguste Domininque Ingres. Ariosto’s tale was also famously illustrated by the late nineteenth-century artist Gustave Doré.
Robin_Hood_graphic Robin Hood is a legendary outlaw who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Numerous ballads have been written about the character, who may have been based on a real person. Robin Hood lived the true heroic code, protecting women, supporting the lowly, and remained faithful to the monarch. Read more about Robin Hood in Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, one of the more popular adaptations of the legend written in 1883. The photograph above, by RichardUK2014 via Wikimedia Commons, shows a relief plaque outside Nottingham Castle ostensibly illustrating King Richard the Lionheart marrying Robin Hood and Maid Marian.
Amadis_de_Gaula_graphic Amadís de Gaula is a prose romance composed in Spain or Portugal in the 13th or 14th century (title page of the 1533 Spanish edition by Olaf Simons pictured above). The story’s protagonist is Amadís, the bravest and most just of knights, who falls in love with Oriana, the daughter of Lisuarte, the king of England. Amadís is an orphan who was separated from his English parents at birth, but through this hardship becomes a better man. Arthurian in nature, the story is one of chivalry, though more chaste and romanticized than the Celtic tales of knights it was most likely based on. According to Romantic Circles, Mary Shelley was reading Robert Southey’s translation of the poem while writing Frankenstein. The full text of the 1520 edition printed by Juan Cromberger can be found online at the National Library of Spain.
St._George_graphic St. George, a converted Roman soldier martyred for his newfound Christian faith, is often depicted slaying a dragon, a symbolic rendering of the triumph of Christianity over evil. Not only is St. George the patron saint of England, but by the 14th century, he had been declared both the patron saint and protector of the royal family. For more information on St. George, see Reliques of Ancient English Poetry collected by Thomas Percy and edited by D.L. Ashliman. Pictured above is Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1432) by Rogier van Der Weyden from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Natural_Philosophy_Natural Philosophy is the study of nature through a philosophical lens. The two canonical discussions of natural philosophy occur in Aristotle’s On the Heavens, Meteorology, and On Generation and Corruption. In the eighteenth century, natural philosophy was a form of science with an emphasis on scientific inquiry, but in the Romantic period, it was seen as a method of unifying physical nature with the spiritual. As Michael Manson and Robert Scott Stewart point out in Heroes and Hideousness: "Frankenstein" and Failed Unity, natural philosophy fueled the Romantic idea of the natural world as a giant organism, in stark contrast to the Enlightenment, which saw the natural world as more like a mechanical machine. For more information about natural philosophy and its influence on Frankenstein, see Patricia Fara’s "Hidden depths: Halley, Hell and Other People" or Rebecca Baumann’s "Mad Science."
Cornelius_Agrippa_ graphic Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) was a German alchemist and scholar. He studied both medicine and law but did not receive a degree in either. His most well-known work is the three-volume De Occulta Philosophiae, a defense of "hidden philosophy" or magic, drawing from alchemy, astrology, and Kabbalah. A later work, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum (Of the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences), attacks contemporary renaissance scientific theory and practice. To read more about his philosophy see his intellectual biography in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The engraved portrait of Agrippa above, via Wikimedia Commons, is housed at the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Chimerical_graphic Chimeric or chimerical was defined by Samuel Johnson in his 1755 Dictionary of the English Language as "A vain and wild fancy, as remote from reality as the existence of the poetical Chimera, a monster feigned to have the head of a lion, the belly of a goat, and the tail of a dragon." The image here is a 1590–1610 drawing of a chimera attributed to Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627) hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
Paracelsus_graphic Paracelsus, the adopted name of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1490-1541), was Swiss physician, alchemist, and astrologer of the German Renaissance. He studied medicine and homeopathic cures for disease, as well as alchemy and metals. A free thinker, he believed in learning from more than just academics, and stressed experience as a model for learning. To learn more about Paracelsus’ scientific and medical advancements in the medieval ages see Joseph Borzelleca’s "Paracelsus: Herald of Modern Toxicology". Pictured here is Paracelsus by Quentin Matsys from the Musée du Louvre, via Wikimedia Commons.
Albertus_Magnus_graphic Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-1280), teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, was a German Catholic Dominican Friar. He was canonized a saint in 1931 (despite contemporaries considering him neglectful of theology for sorcery), has been referred to as the one of the greatest German philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, and is distinguished as one of the 36 Doctors for the Catholic Church. A student of many disciplines, influenced by Aristotle, and a prolific writer, he composed 38 volumes encompassing many topics such as logic, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, mineralogy, alchemy, zoology, physiology, phrenology, justice, and law. Albertus’ work represents the entire body of theological and philosophical knowledge during his time. His influence on natural science is most important as he brought Aristotelian knowledge of nature to the forefront as well as increasing knowledge through his experiments promoting the idea that Christian faith and experimental science were not hostile to one another. For more information on the alchemical sciences, see the Hay Library exhibit on the evolution of modern chemistry and the archived Getty Library colloquium on the "Art of Alchemy." To explore more of Albertus Magnus’ works see the Beinecke Library’s digital edition of his "Alchemical Miscellany." For more information on the role of alchemy and science in Frankenstein, see Alan Rauch’s Useful Knowledge: The Victorians, Morality, and the March of Intellect (2001), especially chapter 3, "The Monstrous Body of Knowledge in Frankenstein" Pictured above is Vincenzo Onofri’s bust of Sant’ Alberto Magno (c. 1493), via Wikimedia Commons.
Philosophers_Stone_In the study of alchemy, ""the Philosopher’s Stone" is sometimes referred to as the 5th element (the other four being earth, water, fire, and air). The Stone was understood to turn base metals into gold, and it was thought to be able to create an elixir of life. The Stone has been referenced throughout literature from the Middle Ages to modern popular culture, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s "Yeoman’s Tale" to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Prior to the conception of the Creature, Victor's fascination with this stone and its apparent abilities highlights his willingness to step out of the human realm and into the realm of the divine by "penetrating the secrets of nature" (Shelley 38). Outside of Frankenstein, much has been written about alchemy and the Philosopher’s Stone, but Stanton Linden’s Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration gives an overview of the history of alchemy in literature. To read a book of alchemy from 1754, see The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius, by M. de Burigny.
Economy_of_Vegetation_This is a direct reference to Erasmus Darwin’s poem, the Economy of Vegetation, which explores the new technological innovations and scientific discoveries of the early nineteenth century. In Darwin’s paean to "unconquer’d steam!" (289), he imagines it "[dragging] the slow barge, or [driving] the rapid car;/ Or on wide-waving wings…[bearing]/ The flying-chariot through the fields of air" (290-292). His poems were helpful to the Romantics’ exploration of science as he combined poetry, the epitome of feeling, with scientific ideas. To see more of Darwin’s influence on the Romantics, see D. King-Hele’s book, Erasmus Darwin and the Romantic Poets.
Boyles_Law_graphic Robert Boyle (1627-1691), the first modern chemist and originator of Boyle’s Law--which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas--performed experiments in the seventeenth century involving air-pumps, better known today as vacuum pumps. Boyle’s pumps were created to his specific dimensions by Robert Hooke (1635-1703) (also known for the bringing the use of microscopes into the community of scientists). In his (1662) book, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects, (Made, for the Most Part, in a New Pneumatical Engine), Boyle detailed all of his air-pump experiments, most notably Experiment 41, in which he studied the reactions of animals to a vacuum. In Experiment 41, Boyle placed birds, mice, and other small creatures into the air pump and slowly removed the air to prove the necessity of respiration. While watching a lark in one reiteration of the experiment, he observed: "…the Bird for a while appear'd lively enough; but upon a greater Exsuction of the Air, she began manifestly to droop and appear sick, and very soon after was taken with as violent and irregular Convulsions, as are wont to be observ'd in Poultry, when their heads are wrung off: For the Bird threw her self over and over two or three times, and dyed with her Breast upward, her Head downwards, and her Neck awry" (cite page 98). These experiments intrigued the public. Joseph Wright’s (1734-1797) oil paintings imagined these experiments as subjects of middle-class, domestic education. To read more about Robert Boyle, see Thomas Birch’s biography from 1772, The works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. Shelagh Stephenson’s (1955-) play An Experiment With an Air Pump", a play revolving around two overlapping plots 100 years apart which highlight the lack of empathy scientific thought has over human emotions and affections.
The_Swiss_Alps_graphicThe Swiss Alps (including the Central and the Bernese Alps) are a region in central Europe with expansive mountains, considered both beautiful and dangerous, that span most the southern and eastern area of Switzerland. The Jura are a range of mountains in the northwest following the France-Switzerland border forming the watersheds for both the Rhone and Rhine basins. These two ranges make up the majority of the natural setting within the novel. Among the peaks named in the novel are Mont Blanc (the highest), Mole, and Mont Saleve. Montanvert is also part of the Alps, but is the eighteenth-century name for Mer de Glace, a glacier on the Mont Blanc massif. Romantic artists--including Percy Shelley, Coleridge, J.M.W. Turner, and others--frequently visited, wrote about, and painted this sublime landscape. The image here shows landscape artist Francis Towne’s (1739-1816) Arveyron River on the Mer de Glace (1781), via Wikimedia Commons. See more works depicting the area described in Frankenstein in Richard Stephens’ Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne.
Ben_Franklin_experiments_graphic This is a direct allusion to experiments performed by Benjamin Franklin and other scientists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ben Franklin was a contemporary of Mary Shelley’s parents, and he influenced the world of politics, culture, and science. Well-known inventing bifocals, Franklin is also associated in the popular imagination with his electrical experiments involving keys, storms, and kites. Contrary to popular belief, Franklin did not discover electricity, but he connected electrical conduits through substances like water and metal, and he understood that electricity can be held and discharged. Read more about his electrical experiment at The Franklin Institute. Franklin’s experiments with electricity were the precursor to Galvani’s and Volta’s experiments with electricity and galvanism. These two scientists sought to prove that electricity could animate deceased matter, namely frogs, but went so far as to momentarily animate the bodies of beheaded criminals. To learn more about these experiments, read Alan Brown’s "The Science That Made Frankenstein." This is not the first time electrical experiments had been referenced in literature; Erasmus Darwin, whose works are alluded to in Frankenstein often referenced Franklin, in his Economy of Vegetation. Darwin describes Franklin as taming lightning through his invention of the lightning rod, for instance: "-Led by the phosphor-light, with daring tread/ Immortal Franklin sought the fiery bed;/ Where, nursed in night, incumbent Tempest shrouds/ His embryon Thunders in circumfluent clouds" (Canto 2.2 355-358). To explore more about Darwin, see Stephen Foster’s addition to the Victorian Web; to learn more about the science of Frankenstein, see Sharon Ruskin’s article from the British Library. The image used is a comic from Dwayne Godwin and Jorge Cham hosted on Scientific American.
University_of_Ingolstadt_ graphic Victor Frankenstein attends the University of Ingolstadt, a university founded in 1472, known for its focus on the natural sciences. The university had a massive chemistry laboratory and one of the finest operating theatres at the time Frankenstein was written, making it a perfect setting for his experiments. Ingolstadt is located in Germany, within the Free State of Bavaria. In the eighteenth century, an intellectual movement for the reconstruction of European society was centered in the city. Mary Shelley would have been aware of this, and the significance of the change of European society may have been the perfect historical setting for a tale calling into question freedom, status, and autonomy. The image here shows an Italian operating theatre built in the sixteenth century to give an example of what the operating theatre may have looked like to Victor Frankenstein. The image was taken by Kalibos and is hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
Old_Familiar_Faces_This is a direct allusion to Charles Lamb’s (1775-1834) poem, "Old Familiar Faces", a poem about Lamb looking back on his life through the lens of nostalgia. Victor uses the allusion at this point in the text because he is retelling his story from a similar place once he leaves his family and friends, will never find them or return to them the same way again.
Sir_Humphrey_Davy_ graphic Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) was a Cornish scientist as well as poet, and according to Richard Holmes’ "Humphrey Davy and the Chemical Moment," is best known today for his work on nitrous oxide (which he coined "laughing gas"), his use of the Voltaic battery to resolve new elements, sodium and potassium; his innovations in agricultural chemistry and animal tanning; his invention of the arc light; and above all for his design of the miner's safety lamp. He was the first Englishman knighted for service to science since Sir Issac Newton and the first professional chemist to be elected President of the Royal Society of London. Mary Shelley was intimately aware of Sir Humphrey Davy, as he knew Coleridge, Wordsworth, and her father William Godwin. Explore more of her background with these iconic figures in the NIH’s History of Medicine Exhibit, Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature. Percy Shelley, Mary’s husband, was also interested in the work of Sir Humphrey Davy. In school he was a political and religious radical, having been expelled from Oxford for supposedly writing a pamphlet denouncing the existence of God, he turned himself to Davy’s work. The Shelleys were seduced by the study of galvanism, a branch of natural philosophy discovered by Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) who investigated the effect of electricity on animal limbs. Sir Humphrey Davy corroborated the discovery and supported the theory in a speech given to the Royal Society of London. Davy’s influence can be found in all of the science of Frankenstein; however, he is most obviously the inspiration for M. Waldman, Victor’s mentor. Many of M. Waldman’s scientific ideas are very similar to Davy’s, and Shelley frequently alludes to his 1802 Discourse Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry (1802; collected in this accessible 1839 edition). Frankenstein is filled with allusions to Davy’s works. To read more about Davy and his influence on the Shelleys, see Sharon Ruston’s literary critique, Shelley and Vitality, the Smithsonian Institute’s exhibition The Body Electric: Inspiring Frankenstein, and Theodore Ziolkowski’s article "Science, Frankenstein, and Myth." To explore more of Davy’s work, see his 1812 Elements of Chemical Philosophy, via the Internet Archive. The image above, from the British Museum, shows Scientific Researches! New Discoveries in Pneumaticks! An Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air (1802) a satirical etching by James Gillray depicting Davy and colleagues experimenting with nitrous oxide.
Lectures_in_Chemistry_Shelley references Humphry Davy and his Discourse Introductory to a Course of Lectures in Chemistry (1802). Here, both Victor and Davy are gesturing toward the history of the development of the sciences by way of alchemy and discussing the height to which science and discovery have come in the early nineteenth century. Both suggest that while the views of the "ancient teachers" of alchemy are now seen as unscientific, modern study began there: "[The alchemists’] views of things have passed away, and a new science has gradually arisen. The dim and uncertain twilight of discovery, which gave to objects false or indefinite appearances, has been succeeded by the steady light of truth, which has shown the external world in its distinct forms, and in its true relations to human powers. The composition of the atmosphere, and the properties of the gases, have been ascertained; the phenomena of electricity have been developed; the lightnings have been taken from the clouds; and, lastly, a new influence has been discovered, which has enabled man to produce from combinations of dead matter effects which were formerly occasioned only by animal organs" (Davy, "Discourse" 321). Note the reference at the end of this passage to galvanism.
the_Microscope_graphic While the idea of lenses and magnification dates far back in time, the earliest known examples of compound microscopes appeared in Europe around 1620, as explained in David Bardell’s article “The Invention of the Microscope." The inventor of the microscope is unknown, yet many have claimed it--including Galileo. However, it wasn’t until Robert Hooke (1635-1703) published Micrographia (1665) that the use of the microscope became accepted and adopted by the scientific community. Hooke held titles such as scientist, astronomer, philosopher, architect and inventor, and was a polymath. In his book, Hooke describes in minute detail the visions of insects, leaves, and other objects, accompanying many of his descriptions with richly detailed illustrations. is work has contributed to cell theories and even helped create the discipline of paleontology. The image used is one of many that can be viewed, hosted by the British Libraries online collection.
Penetrative_In his Discourse Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry (1802), Humphry Davy describes the "penetrative" agency of the masculine scientist-explorer in virtually identical terms. Davy’s writes, "Not contented with what is found upon the surface of the earth, he has penetrated into her bosom, and has even searched the bottom of the ocean for the purpose of allaying the restlessness of his desires, or of extending and increasing his power." Davy, going on to state that "[h]e [the modern chemist] is to a certain extent the ruler of all the elements around him," emphasizes the almost unlimited power and omnipotent will of the scientist: "he is capable of using not only common matter according to his will and inclinations, but likewise of subjecting to his purposes the ethereal principles of heat and light. By his inventions they are elicited from the atmosphere; and under his control they become, according to circumstances, instruments of comfort and enjoyment, or of terror and destruction" (Davy, "Discourses" 318).
Circulation_of_the_Blood_graphic The circulation of the blood in the body was first demonstrated by William Harvey (1578-1657) in the early 17th century, though his seminal work on the subject, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus, was not published (in Latin) until 1628; the first English translation appeared later. Harvey's theory derived from the science of the Ancient Greek physician Galen, but he used direct observation and experimentation--like vivisection--to illustrate and explore his ideas. For more information, see William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood, an informational video produced by the Royal College of Physicians (1971-72). For more information about anatomy during the 16th and 17th centuries, see Anatomia Animata, a digital exhibit of works in the Lilly Library of Indiana University. The image to the right, via the Lilly Library exhibit, shows a page from Harvey's De Motu Cordis.
unlimited_powers_This language of “unlimited powers" refers an idea perhaps best expressed in a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestley in 1780. Franklin writes, “It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport." This sentiment is reiterated in both Godwin’s Political Justice and Humphry Davy’s “Lectures on Chemistry." During this time science was thought to be a source of unlimited powers. The idea that science was all powerful forms an important context for Shelley’s Frankenstein. Mary Shelley would have been very aware of Franklin’s experiments with electricity. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft was tutored Dr. Richard Price (a supporter of the American Revolution) and uses the same publisher as Franklin, Joseph Johnson. Her father, William Godwin, was a member of the Royal Society of London, of which Franklin was also a member. For more information on the reach of Ben Franklin’s experiments and his views of science, see Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment by Michael Schiffer.
Ariosto_ graphic Victor references Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), an Italian poet from the 16th century, when talking about Justine’s "frank-hearted and happy" expression. In Orlando Furioso, the first 10 stanzas of Canto 10 describe the cause of female desirability as resistance and flight, using in stanza 7 a classical hunting metaphor to do so: "So the keen hunter follows up the hare / In heat and cold, on shore, or mountain-height; / Nor, when 'tis taken, more esteems the prize; / And only hurries after that which flies" (10.7.5-8). While it is not clear that this is "the reason…[for] the beauty of Angelica," Ita Mac Carthy points out in Women and the Making of Poetry in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (Chapter 3) that Angelica is the "supreme object of [unattainable] desire" who repeatedly flees sexual pursuit and generates the narrative of the poem. Her beauty is described as angelic, and capable of making her suitors--like the titular Orlando--lose their wits. In Ariosto’s epic romance, Angelica is a pagan princess besought by many knights. The image here shows a scene from Orlando Furioso of a man bending over and holding the hand of a woman, presumably Angelica, who sits on the ground beneath a tree, the trunk inscribed "ANCE MEDO," created by Angelica Kauffman (1740-1807) and hosted by the British museum.
_cato graphic Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95 BC-46 BC), also known as Cato the Younger, was a Roman statesman known for his sense of justice and fairness. Cato was immensely close to his brother, Caepio, and when his brother passed, Cato spared no expense for his funeral. Clerval invokes this sentiment when he tells Victor, "even Cato wept over the dead body of his brother." Read more about Cato in Plutarch’s The Parallel Lives. The image of Cato, above, housed in the British Museum, is an etching from Lucan's Pharsalia, Book IX (1718).
_ByronAn allusion to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818), a somewhat autobiographical narrative poem in four cantos by Romantic poet George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824), which "The poem tells of a disillusioned young man, a melancholy, solitary, cynical ‘Byronic hero’, who tires of his sinful, pleasure-seeking lifestyle and decides to travel" (British Library). This line is from Canto III: But these recede. Above me are the Alps,
⁠The Palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
⁠Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
⁠And throned Eternity in icy halls
⁠Of cold Sublimity, where forms and falls
⁠The Avalanche—the thunderbolt of snow!
⁠All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
⁠Gather around these summits, as to show
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
Read more about Byron's poem at The Guardian.
Switzerland_Frankenstein_Trail_ graphic Switzerland is not only the setting of most of the novel but also the place that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. As Switzerland was the birthplace of the novel, many people follow the "Frankenstein Trail" and have written about the experience. See Tony Perrottet’s article in The New York Times and Nigel Richardson’s in The Telegraph for wonderful descriptions of the landscape and countryside. In honor of the 200th anniversary of the novel, an art collective KLAT created and erected a bronze cast statue of the Creature in the city of Plainpolis. The image here is a panorama taken by Attila Terbócs of the view of Geneva from the top of St. Peter’s Cathedral and it is hosted on Wikimedia Commons. In the summer of 1814, Mary Shelley and her then-lover, Percy Shelley, travelled in secret to the continent, visiting France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. The couple published a collection of letters about their travels, titled History of a Six-Week Tour. In Letter II, Switzerland is depicted as a place "with more equality of classes...than in England" (103); this interest in the freer and more natural lives of the "lower orders" (103) was also central to the Romantic ideology. As the discussion of the Six Week History on the British Library website makes clear, this idea is "echoed in chapter 6 of Frankenstein, where Elizabeth writes ‘the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral’."
Romanticism_In order to truly explain the Romantic imagery throughout the text, one must have a full understanding of what constitutes Romanticism. Romanticism has little to do with feelings of romance and more to do with a philosophical way of thinking that prioritizes imagination, nature, and the self. Romanticism began in England and Germany (two countries not home to the romance languages begotten from Vulgar Latin), most notably with the poets William Wordsworth, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The early Romantic period is one of revolutionary thought heavily influenced with the American and French revolutions. These revolutions are important to note as they changed the political and individual structure and thought of their countries, overthrowing monarchies and creating democracies. The Romantics valued imagination over reason as the imagination was the primary method of creation. Nature, to the Romantics, was a work of art created by the divine imagination, full of symbolism and meaning. Nature plays a central symbolic role in Frankenstein. Victor’s mood is often reflected in the nature he observes around him, and once he creates the Creature, he describes storms and ominous natural elements meant to instill foreboding in the reader. However, nature is also beautiful and could only be created by a higher power, so while it mimics Victor’s interior state of duress, it is also a reminder that something is a more powerful and a better creator than Victor, whose creation is “grotesque" and “malformed." To learn more about Romanticism, read Glen Levin Swiggett’s article "What is Romanticism?" or explore the British Library’s resources on Romanticism.
Gospel_of_Mark_ Frankenstein references a passage from Chapter 9 of the Gospel of Mark, in which Christ describes the wicked undergoing eternal torment in Hell: "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." This sentiment is also reflected in Lord Byron’s The Bride of Abydos ("The worm that will not sleep-- and never dies… That winds around and tears the quivering heart!" [2.644-649]) and John Milton’s Paradise Lost (Satan’s torment is "th’undying Worm" VI.739).
Satans_Soliloquy_Shelley alludes to Satan's soliloquy upon Mount Niphates in Book IV of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton’s narrator reflects upon Satan’s "dire Attempt" to cause the fall of humankind, characterizing his wrath as "a devillish Engine [that] back recoiles / Upon himself" (IV.17-18). Satan’s "Hell" is an internal, self-perpetuating engine of doubt, pride, and torment recoiling upon itself; " within him Hell / He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell / One step no more then from himself can fly / By change of place" (IV.20-23). For more information about the influence of Paradise Lost in Frankenstein, see John Lamb’s "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Monstrous Myth" and the overview of Paradise Lostin the "Romantics and Victorians" exhibit at the British Library.
Sorrows_of_Young_Werther_ graphic The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. The story follows the life of Werther, a young artist, who is writing to his friend Wilhelm. Werther falls in love with Charlotte, a woman already promised to his friend, Albert. Despite the agony caused by this love triangle, Werther cultivates a friendship with the couple, until the pain and sorrow of his love overpowers him and he leaves. When Werther returns, he finds the couple now married. He lessens his visits to Charlotte, out of respect for her husband, but ultimately realizes that in order to resolve the love triangle, he must die. He commits suicide, and the novel ends with Charlotte potentially dying of a broken heart. The novel was an amazing hit, creating a wave not only in literary circles but also across fashion and society. As Patrick Devitt summarizes, "It was widely believed that von Goethe’s work led to a wave of young men deciding to end their lives all over Europe, many of whom were dressed in the same clothing as von Goethe’s description of Werther and using similar pistols. Some even had the copies of the novel beside their bodies with the page opened to the page of the suicide scene." This became known as the "Werther Effect."The novel was banned in several countries, only escalating its popularity. To learn more about the Werther Effect, see David Phillips’ article in The American Sociological Review. The image to the right shows the title page of the first edition of Sorrows, via Wikimedia Commons. Due to its unbridled passion, valuing human emotion over human life and rational thought Sorrows was popular among the Romantics. obvious influence over Mary Shelley’s novel, from the epistolary format of Frankenstein to the reflections on the value of life, not only in creating life but ending life (Victor contemplates suicide and the Creature praises suicide). Finally, Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is a book of unrequited love: Frankenstein’s bride is killed on their wedding night, the Creature’s love is ripped apart by Frankenstein, and the Creature never receives or love from another. Ultimately, the Creature most identifies with Sorrows as he is desperate to feel complete through love. By invoking Sorrows in conjunction with her Creature, Shelley is both highlighting and criticizing Goethe’s novel for the theme of love triumphing over all. First, Shelley is critiquing Enlightenment thinking by pointing out that problems cannot always be solved using logic, especially in regards to building a human being as humans are more than a series of automations or mechanical processes—humans are emotional and unpredictable. In the same vein, Shelley is critiquing the idea that love can be engineered to solve problems. Instead, she argues the romantic idea of organically developing love, like that between Safi and Felix, is desirable, unlike the engineered or arranged romances of Frankenstein and Elizabeth (or the Creature’s partner to-be). To read more on the reception and meanings within Sorrows see Bruce Duncan’s Goethe’s ‘Werther’ and the Critics. For the influence Sorrows on Frankenstein, see Joyce Carol Oates’’Frankenstein’s Fallen Angel, Rebecca Baumann’s Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life, and Resurrection of Mary Shelley's Monster (especially "Case 8: The Monster’s Books"), and Clayton Koelb’s The Revivifying Word: Literature, Philosophy, and the Theory of Life in Europe's Romantic Age (especially "Chapter 8: "I sickened as I read": Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein").