Julian North
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199571987
- eISBN:
- 9780191722363
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571987.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter focuses on Mary Shelley's career as a biographer and her role in shaping the afterlives of Percy Shelley from the 1820s. It reads her fragmented attempts at a posthumous memoir (an ...
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This chapter focuses on Mary Shelley's career as a biographer and her role in shaping the afterlives of Percy Shelley from the 1820s. It reads her fragmented attempts at a posthumous memoir (an early, unpublished sketch, followed by three influential editions of his work) in the context of the wider picture of biography at the period – looking at the influence of William Godwin, Mary Hays, and Thomas Moore on her work. It reads her ‘Lives’ of Shelley in relation to her major biographical publication in the 1830s: her essays for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. It looks at how her early, domesticated Shelley is gradually replaced by a man whose failures of domestic responsibility are tied to his refusal to connect with his readers. The final section reviews the later nineteenth‐century biographical literature on Shelley, by T. J. Hogg, Lady Shelley, and Edward Dowden.Less
This chapter focuses on Mary Shelley's career as a biographer and her role in shaping the afterlives of Percy Shelley from the 1820s. It reads her fragmented attempts at a posthumous memoir (an early, unpublished sketch, followed by three influential editions of his work) in the context of the wider picture of biography at the period – looking at the influence of William Godwin, Mary Hays, and Thomas Moore on her work. It reads her ‘Lives’ of Shelley in relation to her major biographical publication in the 1830s: her essays for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. It looks at how her early, domesticated Shelley is gradually replaced by a man whose failures of domestic responsibility are tied to his refusal to connect with his readers. The final section reviews the later nineteenth‐century biographical literature on Shelley, by T. J. Hogg, Lady Shelley, and Edward Dowden.
Chris Baldick
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122494
- eISBN:
- 9780191671432
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122494.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book surveys the early history of one of our most important modern myths: the story of Frankenstein and the monster he created from dismembered corpses, as it appeared in fictional and other ...
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This book surveys the early history of one of our most important modern myths: the story of Frankenstein and the monster he created from dismembered corpses, as it appeared in fictional and other writings before its translation to the cinema screen. It examines the range of meanings that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein offers in the light of the political images of ‘monstrosity’ generated by the French Revolution. Later chapters trace the myth's analogues and protean transformations in subsequent writings, from the tales of Hoffmann and Hawthorne to the novels of Dickens, Melville, Conrad, and Lawrence, taking in the historical and political writings of Carlyle and Marx as well as the science fiction of Stevenson and Wells. The book shows that while the myth did come to be applied metaphorically to technological development, its most powerful associations have centred on relationships between people, in the family, in work, and in politics.Less
This book surveys the early history of one of our most important modern myths: the story of Frankenstein and the monster he created from dismembered corpses, as it appeared in fictional and other writings before its translation to the cinema screen. It examines the range of meanings that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein offers in the light of the political images of ‘monstrosity’ generated by the French Revolution. Later chapters trace the myth's analogues and protean transformations in subsequent writings, from the tales of Hoffmann and Hawthorne to the novels of Dickens, Melville, Conrad, and Lawrence, taking in the historical and political writings of Carlyle and Marx as well as the science fiction of Stevenson and Wells. The book shows that while the myth did come to be applied metaphorically to technological development, its most powerful associations have centred on relationships between people, in the family, in work, and in politics.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The epigraph and subtitle to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus signal Mary Shelley's challenging expansion of the Godwinian novel to incorporate major Western creation myths. To understand ...
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The epigraph and subtitle to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus signal Mary Shelley's challenging expansion of the Godwinian novel to incorporate major Western creation myths. To understand Shelley's commanding position in the Godwin school, however, we must consider not only the early Frankenstein, but also her ambitious formal experiments in her novels of the 1820s, Valperga and The Last Man. Frankenstein was dedicated to William Godwin, and, for several conservative reviewers, its anonymous publication in March 1818 provided an opportunity to attack the entire Godwin circle. However, Mary Shelley lacks Godwin's optimistic faith in man's capacity for rational judgement. While she accounts for the monster's deformity in terms of social oppression, her treatment of Frankenstein as an exemplar of egotistical ambition suggests a less historical approach, moving towards the conventional psychological focus of her later revisions.Less
The epigraph and subtitle to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus signal Mary Shelley's challenging expansion of the Godwinian novel to incorporate major Western creation myths. To understand Shelley's commanding position in the Godwin school, however, we must consider not only the early Frankenstein, but also her ambitious formal experiments in her novels of the 1820s, Valperga and The Last Man. Frankenstein was dedicated to William Godwin, and, for several conservative reviewers, its anonymous publication in March 1818 provided an opportunity to attack the entire Godwin circle. However, Mary Shelley lacks Godwin's optimistic faith in man's capacity for rational judgement. While she accounts for the monster's deformity in terms of social oppression, her treatment of Frankenstein as an exemplar of egotistical ambition suggests a less historical approach, moving towards the conventional psychological focus of her later revisions.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Abandoning the structural complexity of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley enacts her loss of faith in individual improvement at the level of narrative form. Given the overwhelming grief and powerlessness of ...
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Abandoning the structural complexity of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley enacts her loss of faith in individual improvement at the level of narrative form. Given the overwhelming grief and powerlessness of her first-person narrator, the reader is also forced into the role of passive witness to man's defeat by forces beyond his rational control. However, this single point of view may be seen as entirely proper to the novel's apocalyptic theme, and in this sense Shelley's disenchanted creation myth moves towards the separate genre of science fiction. Despite or because of her profound intellectual uncertainty, Shelley achieved an unparalleled extension of the imaginative scope of the Godwinian novel. Through the unforgettable images at the heart of Frankenstein and The Last Man, the symbolic concerns of William Godwin's tradition are both revitalized and deflected, and thus made available to mainstream nineteenth-century fiction writers.Less
Abandoning the structural complexity of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley enacts her loss of faith in individual improvement at the level of narrative form. Given the overwhelming grief and powerlessness of her first-person narrator, the reader is also forced into the role of passive witness to man's defeat by forces beyond his rational control. However, this single point of view may be seen as entirely proper to the novel's apocalyptic theme, and in this sense Shelley's disenchanted creation myth moves towards the separate genre of science fiction. Despite or because of her profound intellectual uncertainty, Shelley achieved an unparalleled extension of the imaginative scope of the Godwinian novel. Through the unforgettable images at the heart of Frankenstein and The Last Man, the symbolic concerns of William Godwin's tradition are both revitalized and deflected, and thus made available to mainstream nineteenth-century fiction writers.
Fiona J. Stafford
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112228
- eISBN:
- 9780191670718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112228.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Mythology and Folklore
This article discusses Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (1826), which appeared as a poem by Thomas Campbell (1823), a satirical ballad by Thomas Hood (1826), an unfinished drama by Thomas Lovell ...
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This article discusses Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (1826), which appeared as a poem by Thomas Campbell (1823), a satirical ballad by Thomas Hood (1826), an unfinished drama by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1823–25), a painting by John Martin (1826), and an anonymous prose fragment in Blackwood's Magazine (1826). All of these works focused on universal disaster and the sole surviving human being, making them attractive to writers who believed that they had outlived their cultural milieu and were stuck in an uncongenial age. The myth of the last of the race was at the same time enabling a new generation of writers to come up with their own forms without depending on earlier literature.Less
This article discusses Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (1826), which appeared as a poem by Thomas Campbell (1823), a satirical ballad by Thomas Hood (1826), an unfinished drama by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1823–25), a painting by John Martin (1826), and an anonymous prose fragment in Blackwood's Magazine (1826). All of these works focused on universal disaster and the sole surviving human being, making them attractive to writers who believed that they had outlived their cultural milieu and were stuck in an uncongenial age. The myth of the last of the race was at the same time enabling a new generation of writers to come up with their own forms without depending on earlier literature.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This book is a pioneering analysis of the school of fiction inaugurated by William Godwin, and developed in the works of his principal followers, Charles Brockden Brown and Mary Shelley. In the first ...
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This book is a pioneering analysis of the school of fiction inaugurated by William Godwin, and developed in the works of his principal followers, Charles Brockden Brown and Mary Shelley. In the first study of these authors as a historically specific group, the book argues for a greater unity between Godwin's fictional techniques and his radical political philosophy than has been perceived. Its analysis of the works of Brown and Mary Shelley, moreover, reveals how these writers modified, reshaped, and redefined Godwin's distinctive themes and techniques in response to shifting ideological pressures in the post-revolutionary period. Examining prose fiction in a period traditionally seen as dominated by poetry, the book stresses the necessity for a revised view of British Romanticism. Uncovering the links between Godwin's fictional analysis of subjective experience and his progressive political philosophy, this book paves the way for a reappraisal of the apparently quietist and introspective concerns of other writers of the period.Less
This book is a pioneering analysis of the school of fiction inaugurated by William Godwin, and developed in the works of his principal followers, Charles Brockden Brown and Mary Shelley. In the first study of these authors as a historically specific group, the book argues for a greater unity between Godwin's fictional techniques and his radical political philosophy than has been perceived. Its analysis of the works of Brown and Mary Shelley, moreover, reveals how these writers modified, reshaped, and redefined Godwin's distinctive themes and techniques in response to shifting ideological pressures in the post-revolutionary period. Examining prose fiction in a period traditionally seen as dominated by poetry, the book stresses the necessity for a revised view of British Romanticism. Uncovering the links between Godwin's fictional analysis of subjective experience and his progressive political philosophy, this book paves the way for a reappraisal of the apparently quietist and introspective concerns of other writers of the period.
Chris Baldick
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122494
- eISBN:
- 9780191671432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122494.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to achieve a double feat of self-referentiality, both its composition and its subsequent cultural status miming the central moments of its own story. Like the ...
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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to achieve a double feat of self-referentiality, both its composition and its subsequent cultural status miming the central moments of its own story. Like the monster it contains, the novel is assembled from dead fragments to make a living whole; and as a published work, it escapes Shelley's textual frame and acquires its independent life outside it, as a myth. These peculiarities of Frankenstein arise not because literary texts can refer to nothing beyond themselves, but because Romantic writing typically selects the creative labour of the artist as itself the adumbrating figure and symbol for all human engagement with the world, thereby making out of its apparently circular self-reference a wider domain of significance that aspires to the universal. There is even a case for reading Frankenstein as a dramatization of just this perversity in the Romantics' self-referring quest for universal meanings—which would make the novel self-referential to the second power.Less
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to achieve a double feat of self-referentiality, both its composition and its subsequent cultural status miming the central moments of its own story. Like the monster it contains, the novel is assembled from dead fragments to make a living whole; and as a published work, it escapes Shelley's textual frame and acquires its independent life outside it, as a myth. These peculiarities of Frankenstein arise not because literary texts can refer to nothing beyond themselves, but because Romantic writing typically selects the creative labour of the artist as itself the adumbrating figure and symbol for all human engagement with the world, thereby making out of its apparently circular self-reference a wider domain of significance that aspires to the universal. There is even a case for reading Frankenstein as a dramatization of just this perversity in the Romantics' self-referring quest for universal meanings—which would make the novel self-referential to the second power.
Timothy Webb
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199588541
- eISBN:
- 9780191741845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588541.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Byron all encountered Italy both as a vivid reality and as ‘classic ground’. Although their sojourns in Rome (especially that of Byron) were relatively brief, that ...
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Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Byron all encountered Italy both as a vivid reality and as ‘classic ground’. Although their sojourns in Rome (especially that of Byron) were relatively brief, that ‘delightful’ city played a significant part in the lives of all three and features prominently in the work of Percy Shelley and Byron. Like the Shelleys (whose son had died in the city), Byron was affected by a sense of Rome as essentially a city of the dead; he regarded contemporary Romans (like the Greeks who feature in his earlier poetry) as degenerate inheritors of traditions they could never emulate. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage finds some consolation in the durabilities of classical literature but is haunted by the recognition that history is monotonously predictable. The Shelleys allowed themselves an interpretation which was less melancholy: the enduring energies of nature could point towards liberation and an escape from the ghostly constraints of history.Less
Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Byron all encountered Italy both as a vivid reality and as ‘classic ground’. Although their sojourns in Rome (especially that of Byron) were relatively brief, that ‘delightful’ city played a significant part in the lives of all three and features prominently in the work of Percy Shelley and Byron. Like the Shelleys (whose son had died in the city), Byron was affected by a sense of Rome as essentially a city of the dead; he regarded contemporary Romans (like the Greeks who feature in his earlier poetry) as degenerate inheritors of traditions they could never emulate. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage finds some consolation in the durabilities of classical literature but is haunted by the recognition that history is monotonously predictable. The Shelleys allowed themselves an interpretation which was less melancholy: the enduring energies of nature could point towards liberation and an escape from the ghostly constraints of history.
Michael Macovski
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195069655
- eISBN:
- 9780199855186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195069655.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter discusses linguistic dialogue in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in which language or discourse is offered as a means of recovery and empowerment for the story's players. Narrative ...
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This chapter discusses linguistic dialogue in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in which language or discourse is offered as a means of recovery and empowerment for the story's players. Narrative apostrophe is employed to invoke the “silent auditor,” to bridge the interpretive gap between signifier and the signified. Many studies argue that this method serves to disperse the narrator's efforts to develop a coherent identity and undermines his attempts to veer away from solipsism by internalizing that which should remain part of the external milieu. The opposing voices often utilized in narrative apostrophe reveal the rhetorical construction of the self from multiple views. In the case of Frankenstein, the efforts of the monster to try and articulate its existence to the world illustrates the view that linguistic interaction is vital to one's “being.” The latter sections discuss and analyze the modes in which linguistic interchanges between the major characters are carried out.Less
This chapter discusses linguistic dialogue in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in which language or discourse is offered as a means of recovery and empowerment for the story's players. Narrative apostrophe is employed to invoke the “silent auditor,” to bridge the interpretive gap between signifier and the signified. Many studies argue that this method serves to disperse the narrator's efforts to develop a coherent identity and undermines his attempts to veer away from solipsism by internalizing that which should remain part of the external milieu. The opposing voices often utilized in narrative apostrophe reveal the rhetorical construction of the self from multiple views. In the case of Frankenstein, the efforts of the monster to try and articulate its existence to the world illustrates the view that linguistic interaction is vital to one's “being.” The latter sections discuss and analyze the modes in which linguistic interchanges between the major characters are carried out.
Rebecca Nesvet
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786940605
- eISBN:
- 9781786945136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940605.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Since the 1930s, critics have assumed that Frankenstein’s allusions to Donatien-Antoine-François Sade's controversial novel Justine are somehow accidental. This essay contends that Mary Shelley in ...
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Since the 1930s, critics have assumed that Frankenstein’s allusions to Donatien-Antoine-François Sade's controversial novel Justine are somehow accidental. This essay contends that Mary Shelley in fact had profound knowledge not necessarily of Justine, but of Sade’s tale ‘Eugénie de Franval’, which concludes his multivolume compilation Les Crimes de l’amour(1800). This tale anticipates many aspects of Mary Shelley’s two earliest novels, Frankenstein and Mathilda; too many to be ‘coincidental’. The ‘Eugénie de Franval’ character Monsieur Clervil anticipates Frankenstein’s Henry Clerval, while Mathilda can be read as a variation on ‘Eugénie de Franval’. Mary Shelley’s debt to Sade complicates the longstanding interpretation of his nineteenth-century global network of literary protégés as a gentleman’s club and reveals a great deal about her performance as a reader and self-fashioning as an author.Less
Since the 1930s, critics have assumed that Frankenstein’s allusions to Donatien-Antoine-François Sade's controversial novel Justine are somehow accidental. This essay contends that Mary Shelley in fact had profound knowledge not necessarily of Justine, but of Sade’s tale ‘Eugénie de Franval’, which concludes his multivolume compilation Les Crimes de l’amour(1800). This tale anticipates many aspects of Mary Shelley’s two earliest novels, Frankenstein and Mathilda; too many to be ‘coincidental’. The ‘Eugénie de Franval’ character Monsieur Clervil anticipates Frankenstein’s Henry Clerval, while Mathilda can be read as a variation on ‘Eugénie de Franval’. Mary Shelley’s debt to Sade complicates the longstanding interpretation of his nineteenth-century global network of literary protégés as a gentleman’s club and reveals a great deal about her performance as a reader and self-fashioning as an author.
Jonathan Bate
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129943
- eISBN:
- 9780191671883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129943.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
In one of his works, E. J. Trelawny illustrates how Mary Shelley, while transcribing one of Byron's plays, was able to express how Byron had not been able to appropriately exude drama as his approach ...
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In one of his works, E. J. Trelawny illustrates how Mary Shelley, while transcribing one of Byron's plays, was able to express how Byron had not been able to appropriately exude drama as his approach was seen to be too abstract. Shelley also asserted that Shakespeare was able to perfect drama while jokingly asserting that Byron had enough reason to be jealous of Shakespeare. Shelley was recognized as one of the younger Romantic poets whose works received relatively much appreciation. This chapter's focus is on Shelley's encounter with the ‘lion in the path’ in his only completed drama which was intended to be performed on stage — The Cenci.Less
In one of his works, E. J. Trelawny illustrates how Mary Shelley, while transcribing one of Byron's plays, was able to express how Byron had not been able to appropriately exude drama as his approach was seen to be too abstract. Shelley also asserted that Shakespeare was able to perfect drama while jokingly asserting that Byron had enough reason to be jealous of Shakespeare. Shelley was recognized as one of the younger Romantic poets whose works received relatively much appreciation. This chapter's focus is on Shelley's encounter with the ‘lion in the path’ in his only completed drama which was intended to be performed on stage — The Cenci.
Andrew Cayton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607504
- eISBN:
- 9781469608266
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9781469607511_Cayton
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal with Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Most controversial were the details of the ...
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In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal with Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Most controversial were the details of the romantic liaisons of Godwin's wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, with both American Gilbert Imlay and Godwin himself. Wollstonecraft's life and writings became central to a continuing discussion about love's place in human society. Literary radicals argued that the cultivation of intense friendship could lead to the renovation of social and political institutions, whereas others maintained that these freethinkers were indulging their own desires with a disregard for stability and higher authority. Through correspondence and novels, the author of this book finds an ideal lens to view authors, characters, and readers all debating love's power to alter men and women in the world around them. He argues for Wollstonecraft's and Godwin's enduring influence on fiction published in Great Britain and the United States, and explores Mary Godwin Shelley's endeavors to sustain her mother's faith in romantic love as an engine of social change.Less
In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal with Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Most controversial were the details of the romantic liaisons of Godwin's wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, with both American Gilbert Imlay and Godwin himself. Wollstonecraft's life and writings became central to a continuing discussion about love's place in human society. Literary radicals argued that the cultivation of intense friendship could lead to the renovation of social and political institutions, whereas others maintained that these freethinkers were indulging their own desires with a disregard for stability and higher authority. Through correspondence and novels, the author of this book finds an ideal lens to view authors, characters, and readers all debating love's power to alter men and women in the world around them. He argues for Wollstonecraft's and Godwin's enduring influence on fiction published in Great Britain and the United States, and explores Mary Godwin Shelley's endeavors to sustain her mother's faith in romantic love as an engine of social change.
Andrew Cayton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607504
- eISBN:
- 9781469608266
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469607504.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter focuses on the time when Thomas Medwin informed Mary Shelley that he was writing a biography of his second cousin Percy Shelley, who had drowned off the coast of Italy almost a quarter ...
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This chapter focuses on the time when Thomas Medwin informed Mary Shelley that he was writing a biography of his second cousin Percy Shelley, who had drowned off the coast of Italy almost a quarter century earlier. Medwin implied that he would mine the records of the 1817 Chancery suit in which Percy had lost guardianship of his children by Harriet Westbrook to detail the poet's desertion of his first wife and her subsequent suicide. An appalled Mary Shelley urged Medwin to give up the project entirely. At stake were the reputations of innocent people. “In modern society,” she protested, “there is no injury so great as dragging private names and private life before the world.” Medwin's book “would wound and injure the living,” Percy Shelley's daughter in particular.Less
This chapter focuses on the time when Thomas Medwin informed Mary Shelley that he was writing a biography of his second cousin Percy Shelley, who had drowned off the coast of Italy almost a quarter century earlier. Medwin implied that he would mine the records of the 1817 Chancery suit in which Percy had lost guardianship of his children by Harriet Westbrook to detail the poet's desertion of his first wife and her subsequent suicide. An appalled Mary Shelley urged Medwin to give up the project entirely. At stake were the reputations of innocent people. “In modern society,” she protested, “there is no injury so great as dragging private names and private life before the world.” Medwin's book “would wound and injure the living,” Percy Shelley's daughter in particular.
Brittany Pladek
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781786942210
- eISBN:
- 9781789629972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786942210.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Chapter four examines Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, which tells the story of an incurable plague that kills all of humanity. Shelley interrogates the Romantic belief in the possibility of a ...
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Chapter four examines Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, which tells the story of an incurable plague that kills all of humanity. Shelley interrogates the Romantic belief in the possibility of a medico-poetic panacea (cure all). The novel begins with a domestic drama whose tragedy is figured as incurable, and this metaphoric incurability sparks the far more literal plague. Characters react to both scourges by longing for a panacea, which, when it does not appear, plunges them into a despair that aggravates the initial illness. Shelley’s story critiques the binary mindset underwriting both total affirmation and rejection of panacea, posing a middle ground that offers literature as the palliation of a dying humanity. In the same way that medical philosophers like Jean Georges Cabanis tied the imperfection of medical knowledge to the necessity of palliative care, so The Last Man suggests that suffering and death are unavoidable, both individually and at a species level. In the novel, literature takes on the function of a palliative care doctor, shepherding humanity to its final end by ‘taking the mortal sting from pain’ and preserving its fragmentary memory (p. 5).Less
Chapter four examines Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, which tells the story of an incurable plague that kills all of humanity. Shelley interrogates the Romantic belief in the possibility of a medico-poetic panacea (cure all). The novel begins with a domestic drama whose tragedy is figured as incurable, and this metaphoric incurability sparks the far more literal plague. Characters react to both scourges by longing for a panacea, which, when it does not appear, plunges them into a despair that aggravates the initial illness. Shelley’s story critiques the binary mindset underwriting both total affirmation and rejection of panacea, posing a middle ground that offers literature as the palliation of a dying humanity. In the same way that medical philosophers like Jean Georges Cabanis tied the imperfection of medical knowledge to the necessity of palliative care, so The Last Man suggests that suffering and death are unavoidable, both individually and at a species level. In the novel, literature takes on the function of a palliative care doctor, shepherding humanity to its final end by ‘taking the mortal sting from pain’ and preserving its fragmentary memory (p. 5).
Patricia Cove
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474447249
- eISBN:
- 9781474464970
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474447249.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Chapter 1 analyses Romantic-era responses to the Congress of Vienna and 1820-1 Italian uprisings, with attention to Lady Morgan’s travelogue Italy (1821) and Mary Shelley’s historical novel Valperga ...
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Chapter 1 analyses Romantic-era responses to the Congress of Vienna and 1820-1 Italian uprisings, with attention to Lady Morgan’s travelogue Italy (1821) and Mary Shelley’s historical novel Valperga (1823). Although the tropes of decay and rebirth that pervade British Romantic poetry about Italy by William Wordsworth, Felicia Hemans, Lord Byron and P. B. Shelley tend to elide contemporary Italy in favour of a distant, idealised past and imminent but imagined future, Morgan and Shelley historicise Italy to demonstrate that outside influence and occupation shaped the peninsula, while Italy mediated the major European powers’ views of themselves and each other. Morgan and Shelley place Italy, a cluster of minor states, within a broad, European context of cultural appropriation, imperialist territorial expansion and failed diplomacy, to interrogate the discourse of Italian decay and offer, instead, Italy as a potential site of concrete resistance to the post-Napoleonic status quo.Less
Chapter 1 analyses Romantic-era responses to the Congress of Vienna and 1820-1 Italian uprisings, with attention to Lady Morgan’s travelogue Italy (1821) and Mary Shelley’s historical novel Valperga (1823). Although the tropes of decay and rebirth that pervade British Romantic poetry about Italy by William Wordsworth, Felicia Hemans, Lord Byron and P. B. Shelley tend to elide contemporary Italy in favour of a distant, idealised past and imminent but imagined future, Morgan and Shelley historicise Italy to demonstrate that outside influence and occupation shaped the peninsula, while Italy mediated the major European powers’ views of themselves and each other. Morgan and Shelley place Italy, a cluster of minor states, within a broad, European context of cultural appropriation, imperialist territorial expansion and failed diplomacy, to interrogate the discourse of Italian decay and offer, instead, Italy as a potential site of concrete resistance to the post-Napoleonic status quo.
Mary Shelley
David H. Guston, Ed Finn, Jason Scott Robert, Joey Eschrich, and Mary Drago (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262533287
- eISBN:
- 9780262340267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262533287.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The editors provide a brief chronology of important dates in the history of science in the context of Mary Shelley’s life and important aspects of the novel.
The editors provide a brief chronology of important dates in the history of science in the context of Mary Shelley’s life and important aspects of the novel.
Ginger S. Frost
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077364
- eISBN:
- 9781781700723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077364.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Social History
The period of the Civil Wars saw an outpouring of criticism for the church and traditional marriage practices. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's own relationships showed the risks of marital ...
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The period of the Civil Wars saw an outpouring of criticism for the church and traditional marriage practices. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's own relationships showed the risks of marital experimentation without societal changes. Wollstonecraft's plight showed the dangers of cohabitation for women. Their relationship was different, both because of Wollstonecraft's prior experience and because Godwin was more considerate. The Godwin/Mary Shelley elopement defied the ‘monopoly’ of marriage. The majority of free unions in the Romantic period had little to do with theorising against marriage. The Owenite movement made a strong argument against traditional marriage. Owenites challenged the biblical basis of marriage and highlighted the problems with England's marriage laws. The writings of Radical Unitarians influenced the women's movement that began in the 1850s. The number of men and women willing to support new family forms showed strong dissent from the English laws and church.Less
The period of the Civil Wars saw an outpouring of criticism for the church and traditional marriage practices. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's own relationships showed the risks of marital experimentation without societal changes. Wollstonecraft's plight showed the dangers of cohabitation for women. Their relationship was different, both because of Wollstonecraft's prior experience and because Godwin was more considerate. The Godwin/Mary Shelley elopement defied the ‘monopoly’ of marriage. The majority of free unions in the Romantic period had little to do with theorising against marriage. The Owenite movement made a strong argument against traditional marriage. Owenites challenged the biblical basis of marriage and highlighted the problems with England's marriage laws. The writings of Radical Unitarians influenced the women's movement that began in the 1850s. The number of men and women willing to support new family forms showed strong dissent from the English laws and church.
Mike W. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199845217
- eISBN:
- 9780199933068
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199845217.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, General
Does happiness promote virtue, and unhappiness cause vice? Mary Shelley dramatizes the issue in Frankenstein, and her insights into the moral psychology of happiness deserve attention. Her articulate ...
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Does happiness promote virtue, and unhappiness cause vice? Mary Shelley dramatizes the issue in Frankenstein, and her insights into the moral psychology of happiness deserve attention. Her articulate monster argues, based on his personal experience (and reminiscent of Rousseau), that happiness promotes virtue and unhappiness produces vice. Victor Frankenstein largely shares this “happiness principle.” Although this agreement between the two protagonists is central to the novel’s plot, Shelley conveys the more nuanced view. Happiness does tend to promote virtue, and unhappiness often promotes vice, but the unqualified belief in the happiness principle can function as a source of moral evasion.Less
Does happiness promote virtue, and unhappiness cause vice? Mary Shelley dramatizes the issue in Frankenstein, and her insights into the moral psychology of happiness deserve attention. Her articulate monster argues, based on his personal experience (and reminiscent of Rousseau), that happiness promotes virtue and unhappiness produces vice. Victor Frankenstein largely shares this “happiness principle.” Although this agreement between the two protagonists is central to the novel’s plot, Shelley conveys the more nuanced view. Happiness does tend to promote virtue, and unhappiness often promotes vice, but the unqualified belief in the happiness principle can function as a source of moral evasion.
Robert Horton
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231167437
- eISBN:
- 9780231850568
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231167437.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) spawned a phenomenon that has been rooted in world culture for decades. This cinematic Prometheus has generated countless sequels, remakes, rip-offs, and parodies in ...
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James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) spawned a phenomenon that has been rooted in world culture for decades. This cinematic Prometheus has generated countless sequels, remakes, rip-offs, and parodies in every media, and this granddaddy of cult movies constantly renews its followers in each generation. Along with an in-depth critical reading of the original 1931 film, this book tracks Frankenstein the monster's heavy cultural tread from Mary Shelley's source novel to today's Internet chat rooms.Less
James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) spawned a phenomenon that has been rooted in world culture for decades. This cinematic Prometheus has generated countless sequels, remakes, rip-offs, and parodies in every media, and this granddaddy of cult movies constantly renews its followers in each generation. Along with an in-depth critical reading of the original 1931 film, this book tracks Frankenstein the monster's heavy cultural tread from Mary Shelley's source novel to today's Internet chat rooms.
James Uden
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190910273
- eISBN:
- 9780190910303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190910273.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The final chapter of the book turns to the nexus between classical antiquity, Romanticism, and the Gothic, as it is reflected in the writings of Mary Shelley. “Reanimation” has been frequently ...
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The final chapter of the book turns to the nexus between classical antiquity, Romanticism, and the Gothic, as it is reflected in the writings of Mary Shelley. “Reanimation” has been frequently identified as a consistent trope in Shelley’s work. This chapter argues, by contrast, that Shelley repeatedly creates fantastic scenarios in which ancient and modern times meet, and modernity is revealed to be weak or insufficient when faced with the strength and vitality of the ancient world. The chapter turns first to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), in which Victor Frankenstein’s efforts at creation are implicitly compared to the ancient model announced in the subtitle, and judged a grotesque failure. Then, the chapter turns to a series of texts written while Shelley was living in Italy—the short story “Valerius, the Reanimated Roman,” her novella Mathilda, and her verse drama Proserpine—each of which dramatizes the unsatisfying and disappointed search for emotional connection with characters from antiquity. Finally, the chapter turns to Shelley’s end-of-days novel The Last Man (1826). This novel’s many allusions to Rome and antiquity reinforce the gulf that separates an idealized antiquity from a doomed, weakening present. Shelley’s writings vividly demonstrate the seductive pleasures of engaging with ideas from antiquity, but ultimately she expresses little hope that we can truly connect with the frightening giants of the past.Less
The final chapter of the book turns to the nexus between classical antiquity, Romanticism, and the Gothic, as it is reflected in the writings of Mary Shelley. “Reanimation” has been frequently identified as a consistent trope in Shelley’s work. This chapter argues, by contrast, that Shelley repeatedly creates fantastic scenarios in which ancient and modern times meet, and modernity is revealed to be weak or insufficient when faced with the strength and vitality of the ancient world. The chapter turns first to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), in which Victor Frankenstein’s efforts at creation are implicitly compared to the ancient model announced in the subtitle, and judged a grotesque failure. Then, the chapter turns to a series of texts written while Shelley was living in Italy—the short story “Valerius, the Reanimated Roman,” her novella Mathilda, and her verse drama Proserpine—each of which dramatizes the unsatisfying and disappointed search for emotional connection with characters from antiquity. Finally, the chapter turns to Shelley’s end-of-days novel The Last Man (1826). This novel’s many allusions to Rome and antiquity reinforce the gulf that separates an idealized antiquity from a doomed, weakening present. Shelley’s writings vividly demonstrate the seductive pleasures of engaging with ideas from antiquity, but ultimately she expresses little hope that we can truly connect with the frightening giants of the past.
