Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Lord Byron ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ◽  
Story Writing

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley conceived of the central idea for Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus—most often referred to simply as Frankenstein—during the summer of 1816 while vacationing on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It is her first and most famous novel. Although the assertion is debatable, some scholars have argued that Frankenstein is the first work of modern science fiction. Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein in response to a “ghost story” writing contest between herself, Percy Shelley, Percy Shelley’s physician and friend John Polidori, and Lord Byron, who were trapped indoors reading German ghost stories as the result of inclement weather. Polidori’s contribution to this contest, “The Vampyre: A Tale” (1819), influenced the development of Gothic literature. According to Shelley, she drew inspiration from a nightmare she had, which she attributed to discussions she overheard between Percy and Byron regarding experiments with electricity and animation. Shelley began working on the novel when she returned home to England in September, and the book’s first edition was published anonymously in 1818. Shelley’s father William Godwin made minor revisions for a second edition in 1821; and Shelley herself made more substantial changes for the third edition in 1831. The story is told through an epistolary frame, and follows Victor Frankenstein, a university student of the “unhallowed arts” who assembles, animates, and abandons an unnamed human-like creature. The creature goes on to haunt his creator both literally and metaphorically. Over the past two hundred years, the story has been widely influential, and re-interpreted in various forms of culture and media. In literary studies, scholars have discussed which edition of the text is the “truest” to Mary Shelley’s intended vision. The novel has been analyzed for its messages about human pride and hubris, the pursuit of knowledge, the nature/nurture question, as put forth by Rousseau, ethical questions in medicine and science, and family, gender, and reproduction, among other topics.

Philosophical Fictions and ‘Jacobin’ Novels in the 1790s

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deidre Shauna Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social System ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mary Hays ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Conflicting Goals

This essay on the novel of ideas in the 1790s investigates the sometimes conflicting goals pursue by the ‘Jacobin’ novelists—figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, and Mary Hays—and also charts their characteristic preoccupations with the proper relations between reason and passion and mind and body. Revamping the Enlightenment tradition of the conte philosophique, these supporters of the Revolution in France and political reform in Britain advocated a newly ambitious species of novel capable of building bridges between the discursive domains of fiction and political theory. These novelists also set out to claim the power over readers’ emotions they found in sentimental fiction’s stories of suffering individuals. At the same time, contrariwise, they aimed to assemble comprehensive accounts of the social system—of ‘things as they are’, in Godwin’s phrase—and touted their commitment to the promulgation of universal, impersonal truth.

“Diabolic rays” in the novel of M.A. Bulgakov “The Fatal Eggs”: about one modern literary topic in science fiction of the 1920s

Neophilology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 548-556
Author(s):  
Vladimir V. Kolchanov
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
The Road

Science fiction literature of the 1920s connected with the topic of heat rays is studied. Begun in the novel of Herbert George Wells “The War of the Worlds” (1897) and in the novel of A.F. Ossendowski “Brig “Horror” (1913), in the decade after October Revolution it became more widely distributed. In each work heat rays got its name: “death rays” in the novel of H. Dominik (1921), “violet rays” in the novel of V.P. Kataev “The Island of Erendorf” (1924), “red ray”, or “life ray” in the novel of M.A. Bulgakov “The Fatal Eggs” (1924), heat rays in the novel of A.N. Tolstoy “The Garin Death Ray” (1926–1927), “orange ray” in the novel of A.F. Paley “Gulfstream” (1927). In all literary works, including pre-revolutionary ones (except for the last one – “Gulfstream”), the heat ray played an extremely negative role in the development of humanity and civilization. The Martians were the first to use weapons to destroy humanity, then the ray fell into the hands of brilliant scientists. The ray, created by brilliant scientists, most often end up in the hands of self-interested and obsessed people, and Russian writers brought a serious doubt to the scientistic aspirations of the human mind. This theme ran parallel to the road of modern re-search and discoveries in the field of science and technology: in the world laser weapons were be-ing developed as weapons of mass destruction for the future wars of a planetary scale. In the So-viet press, it was “baptized” as the “diabolic rays”, and most important – they tried to implement into the field of social transformations in society, which brought the October Revolution, plans on establishing a socialist system on the entire planet. The central place is given for the novel M.A. Bulgakov’s “The Fatal Eggs”, which absorbed not only the achievements of modern science and technology, not just fantasies of writers – predecessors and contemporaries, but also allusions on the occult motifs in literature and culture: black magic of doctor Faust from the drama-miracle play of J.W. Goethe “Faust”, spells from the “Egyptian Book of the Dead”, old Russian ritual “Troyetsyplyatnitsa”, the egg motif “ad ovo”. Numerous occult details in the story tell about the mechanism of the “red ray”.

The Satire of Walker's Vagabond on Rousseau and Godwin

PMLA ◽  
1937 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh H. MacMullan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
William Godwin ◽  
The Novel ◽  
View Point ◽  
Large Section ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Century Thought

George Walker, a London bookseller and publisher, author of several Gothic tales, printed in 1799 a satirical novel, The Vagabond, directed against the Jacobins and their philosophic forerunners. The author's purpose was a serious one, to refute and counteract the works that had poured from the Jacobin presses. As a result the novel, though amusing and fanciful in the manner of the Anti-Jacobin, represents a consistent view-point and an earnest desire to show the beauties of society as then organized. In its way, it is a summary of the reactionary position, and, by giving the opinions of the opponents of Rousseau, Hume, Mary Wollstonecraft, Holcroft, Paine, William Godwin, and others, illustrates a large section of late eighteenth-century thought.

Chronology of Science and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Shelley
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ◽  
History Of

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.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

The Monk

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lewis
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Young Girl ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Black Magic ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Profound Insight

‘He was deaf to the murmurs of conscience, and resolved to satisfy his desires at any price.’ The Monk (1796) is a sensational story of temptation and depravity, a masterpiece of Gothic fiction and the first horror novel in English literature. The respected monk Ambrosio, the Abbot of a Capuchin monastery in Madrid, is overwhelmed with desire for a young girl; once having abandoned his monastic vows he begins a terrible descent into immorality and violence. His appalling fall from grace embraces blasphemy, black magic, torture, rape, and murder, and places his very soul in jeopardy. Lewis’s extraordinary tale drew on folklore, legendary ghost stories, and contemporary dread inspired by the terrors of the French Revolution. Its excesses shocked the reading public and it was condemned as obscene. The novel continues to beguile and shock readers today with its gruesome catalogue of iniquities, while at the same time giving a profound insight into the deep anxieties experienced by British citizens during one of the most turbulent periods in the nation’s history.

The Novel Theology of H. G. Wells

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-123
Author(s):  
Stuart Bell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The Novel ◽  
British Army ◽  
Rebecca West ◽  
The Way

Abstract “Lambeth Palace is my Washpot. Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” So declared the novelist and secularist H. G. Wells in a letter to his mistress, Rebecca West, in May 1917. His claim was that, because of him, Britain was “full of theological discussion” and theological books were “selling like hot cakes”. He was lunching with liberal churchmen and dining with bishops. Certainly, the first of the books published during Wells’s short “religious period”, the novel Mr. Britling Sees It Through, had sold very well on both sides of the Atlantic and made Wells financially secure. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (“Woodbine Willie”) wrote that, “Everyone ought to read Mr. H. G. Wells’s great novel, Mr. Britling Sees It Through. It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Yet, Wells’s God was explicitly a finite God, and his theology was far from orthodox. How can we account for his boast and for the clerical affirmation which he certainly did receive? This article examines and re-evaluates previous accounts of the responses of clergy to Wells’s writing, correcting some narratives. It discusses the way in which many clergy used Mr. Britling as a means by which to engage in a populist way with the question of theodicy, and examines the letters which Wells received from several prominent clerics, locating their responses in the context of their own theological writings. This is shown to be key to understanding the reaction of writers such as Studdert Kennedy to Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Finally, an assessment is made of the veracity of Wells’s boasting to his mistress, concluding that his claims were somewhat exaggerated. “Lambeth Palace is my Washpot, Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” Mit diesen Worten erklärte der literarisch außergewöhnlich erfolgreiche und entschieden säkular denkende, kirchenkritische Schriftsteller und Science-Fiction-Pionier Herbert George Wells seiner Geliebten, dass seinetwegen Großbritannien “full of theological discussion” sei. Nicht ohne Eitelkeit schrieb er es seinem im September 1916 mit Blick auf den Krieg geschriebenen und stark autobiographisch gefärbten Roman Mr. Britling Sees it Through von knapp 450 Seiten zu, dass theologische Bücher reißenden Absatz fänden. Auch war er stolz darauf, liberale Kleriker zum Lunch zu treffen und von Bischöfen zum abendlichen Dinner eingeladen zu werden. In einer kurzen Phase seines Lebens war – oder inszenierte sich – Wells als ein frommer, gläubiger Mensch. Sein damals veröffentlichter Roman Mr. Britling Sees It Through verkaufte sich sowohl in Nordamerika als auch im Heimatland so gut, dass der Autor nun definitiv finanziell gesichert war. Der anglikanische Priester und Dichter Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, der im Ersten Weltkrieg Woodbine Willie genannt wurde, weil er verletzten und sterbenden Soldaten in den Phasen der Vorbereitung auf den Tod Woodbine-Zigaretten anbot, empfahl die Lektüre von Wells’ “great novel” Mr. Britling mit den Worten: “It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Allerdings war H. G. Wells’ Gott ein durchaus endlicher Gott, und seine Theologie war alles andere als orthodox. Wie lassen sich dennoch seine evidente Prahlerei und die emphatische Zustimmung zu seinem Roman in den britischen Klerikereliten erklären? Im Aufsatz werden zunächst einige ältere Deutungen der Zustimmung führender Kleriker zu Wells’ Roman untersucht und einige der dabei leitenden Deutungsmuster kritisch infrage gestellt. Deutlich wird, dass nicht wenige anglikanische Geistliche Mr. Britling dazu nutzten, um höchst populistisch das umstrittene Theodizeeproblem anzusprechen. Auch werden die Briefe prominenter Geistlicher an Wells analysiert, mit Blick auf ihre eigenen Publikationen. Diese Reaktionen haben stark Studdert Kennedys Haltung zu Mr. Britling Sees It Through beeinflusst. Besonders aufrichtig war Wells mit Blick auf sich selbst allerdings nicht. Die Selbstinszenierung gegenüber seiner Geliebten war einfach nur peinliche Übertreibung.

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