Frankenstien - context

Question 1

Shelley?

Answer 1

• Stuck inside because of the rain while on a tour of Europe, Mary, Percy Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron passed the time reading a book of German ghost stories. Byron suggested they each write a horror story, and the others agreed.
• Much debate took place in the past over, first, Mary’s authorship of the novel and, second, the extent of Percy’s influence on it. The fact that Percy provided the preface to the first edition, his reputation as a writer, and Mary’s being unknown as a writer all contributed to the belief that he had written the novel when it was first published. That Mary’s other works did not enjoy success reinforced that view. Even when her authorship was finally established, some critics speculated that Percy’s editing strongly shaped the work. Indeed, one modern scholar has pointed to a few thousand edits made by Percy as evidence that he left his stamp on the book. This scholar also points out that William Godwin, Mary’s father, read and annotated the manuscript. In the 21st century, scholars agree that the inspiration and execution were Mary’s, though Percy encouraged her to write the book and read and annotated her drafts.

Question 2

Romanticism and Gothicism?

Answer 2

• Romantic writers took as their topics a deep connection to nature, the depth of human emotion, and the conflict between the individual and society. Percy Shelley, along with William Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and John Keats, were the foremost romantic poets.
• Characteristics of romanticism in Frankenstein include humans’ emotional tie to nature and attraction to the sublime, the term the romantics used for the powerful and awe-inspiring aspects of nature, as opposed to the merely beautiful.
• Frankenstein fits in the tradition of gothic literature—stories about mystery, horror, and the supernatural—that had been launched in the mid- to late 18th century by The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole and popularized in the 1790s by the novels of Ann Radcliffe. It is known that Percy Shelley read two of Radcliffe’s gothic novels in the years 1814 and 1815; while it is not certain that Mary did, it is likely. Typically set in eerie, isolated places, such as castles, monasteries, or wild expanses of nature, gothic stories usually include violence, suspense, and mystery. The gloomy setting is ideal for the brooding heroes, monsters, and deranged people in attics who often populate these novels

Question 3

French Revolution?

Answer 3

The movement (1787–99) that replaced the monarchy in France with the Republic. The mob was frequently represented as a monster, a force out of control.

Question 4

Scientific revolution?

Answer 4

• In 1791, Luigi Galvani suggested animal tissue contained a vital life force that electricity could release. Inspired, Shelley imagines the possible reanimation of a corpse.
• By 1814, there was a rift between those scientists who saw life in purely material terms and those wanting to retain some metaphysical beliefs associated with the soul.

Question 5

Polar exploration?

Answer 5

The search for a navigable sea across the North Pole was prompted by the desire to trade with the Orient and inspired Shelley’s Arctic framework.