Quest For Life: Imagination and Science in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Univerzitet u Beogradu
Filološki fakultet – Katedra za anglistiku
QUEST FOR LIFE: IMAGINATION AND

SCIENCE IN MARY SHELLEY’S
FRANKENSTEIN
Diplomski master rad
Mentor: Dr Zoran Paunović
Student: Marija Gičić Puslojić

Broj indeksa: 001261M
Beograd, 16. 09. 2009.

APSTRAKT
Napisan gotovo pre dva veka, roman Meri Šeli “Frankenštajn, ili, Moderni Prometej”
oslanja se na jednu veoma provokativnu temu koja pripada svakom vremenu – pokušaj
čoveka, najpre naučnika, da se igra Boga u pokušaju da veštačkim putem stvori Život.
Ovaj rad proučava nekoliko aspekata ovog pojma, počev od Meri Šeli i njene ličnosti
koja se nazire kroz roman (uticaj njenih roditelja Vilijema Godvina i Meri Volstonkraft,
njenog supruga Persija Biša Šelija i romantičarskog kružooka, sopstvenog burnog života
u pogledu detinjstva i majčinstva); uticaja perioda koji je iznedrio industrijsku revoluciju
i dao maha naučnom eksperimentisanju, sa posebnim osvrtom na delovanje nekoliko
naučnika čiji su eksperimenti na leševima odavali utisak postignute reanimacije mrtvih
tela; mita o Prometeju kao drevne metafore o uzurpiranju Božijeg mesta i definisanju
“iskre Života”; nekoliko književnih primera na temu veštačkog stvaranja (golem,
homunkulus, robot); kompleksnosti odnosa između tvorca i stvorenog; i konačno, uticaja
“Izgubljenog Raja” Džona Miltona i “Rime o starom mornaru” Semjuela Tejlora
Kolridža, dva jedinstvena dela koja izranjaju iz “Frankenštajna”, oba prožeta idejama
greha i iskupljenja.
Ključne reči: Stvaranje, iskra Života, igranje Boga, reanimacija, Dipel, Frankenštajn
zamak, Prometej, golem, homunkulus, greh, iskupljenje, čudovište, čudovišnost.
Marija Gičić Puslojić: “The Quest for Life: Imagination and Science in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”
ABSTRACT
Written nearly two centuries ago, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or, The Modern
Prometheus touches on a very thought-provoking theme of any time and age – the
notions of men, specifically scientists, playing God in their attempts to artificially create
Life. This thesis examines several aspects of this notion, ranging from Mary Shelley’s
personal investment in the story (influence of her parents William Godwin and Mary
Wollstonecraft, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and the Romantic circle, her turbulent
life in regards to both childhood and motherhood); the offerings of the age that gave birth
to the Industrial revolution and a rise in scientific experimentation, with special attention
to several scientists whose experiments with cadavers gave the impression of
reanimating corpses; the Promethean myth as an ancient metaphore regarding the notion
of usurping God’s place and defining of the “spark of Life”; several other literary
examples of artificial creation (golem, homunculus, robot); the intricate relation between
creator and created; and ultimately the influence of John Milton’s Paradise Lost and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, two unique works that give
a special undertone to Shelley’s novel, both infused with concepts of sin and redemption.
Key words: Creation, spark of Life, playing God, reanimation, Dippel, Castle
Frankenstein, Prometheus, golem, homunculus, sin, redemption, monster, monstrosity.
CONTENTS
§ Introduction.....................................................................................................................1
§ Mary Shelley’s Personal Investment.............................................................................4
§ Spark of Life and the Implications of Death within the Quest for Life...................11
§ Frankenstein ‘Creation Myth’, or, The Real Mad Scientist.....................................15

Luigi Galvani................................................................................................................16
Giovanni Aldini............................................................................................................18
Andrew Ure..................................................................................................................18
Johann Konrad Dippel................................................................................................19
Castle Frankenstein.....................................................................................................21
§ The Urge for Creation..................................................................................................22

Golem............................................................................................................................23
Homunculus..................................................................................................................24
Robots and Transhumanism.......................................................................................26
§ The Method of Creation: from Alchemy to Galvanism and Natural Philosophy...28
§ The Creation of a Monstrosity.....................................................................................30
§ Conclusion: Sin, Redemption and Farewell...............................................................34
§ List of References..........................................................................................................38
§ Introduction
“It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn”
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1831)1
Nearly two centuries of criticism of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein have viewed and
examined the novel through an abundance and variety of angles – from a macabre Gothic
novel, through a feministic reading of Frankenstein’s attempt to invade on the female
function of giving birth, to a warning against new scientific developments spurred by the
fear of Industrial revolution and its effects. What I would like to propose in this thesis is a
slightly more subtle perspective, one that remains seemingly concealed but nonetheless
transpiring from the pores of the text – an assertion that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has
a rightful claim on the title of a “vindication of ways of God to man” 2, not in any degree
lessened by its “predecessor”, John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), the lines of which are
inscribed as the epigraph to Frankenstein. The full execution of the tragedy that stems
from the ambitions of Victor Frankenstein – his own desolation and demise, the loss of
his loved ones, his Being’s (I shall refer to him as Being rather than monster or creature,
as did Percy Bysshe Shelley in his review of Frankenstein) misery and solitude, the
murders the Being commits in agony and the vengeance he takes – all are a repercussion
of human attempts to imitate God. Impelled by his “creative” aspiration to take upon
himself the role of the Creator and to generate Life, Victor Frankenstein commits the
fiercest of crimes against God and against all God’s Creation. But in Frankenstein, there
is no actual “character” of God, like in Paradise Lost, there is no vengeful Being to
punish the sinner, like in the myth of Prometheus; instead, Frankenstein’s imprudent act
contains the very punishment in itself. Many critics have noted that Frankenstein’s true
tragedy is not a consequence of his act of playing God but of his inability to feel affection
for the wretched Being his act of playing God has given life to. But these two offenses
are essentially one and the same. In His might, God has created man “in His own image,
in the image of God created he him”3 and as He looked upon His Creation, “behold, it
was very good.”4 This thought is aptly conveyed in S. T. Coleridge’s The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner (1797-1798), another significant undertone to Shelley’s novel: “For the
dear God, who loveth us, / He made and loveth all.” 5 But Victor Frankenstein fails to feel
love for the “vile monster” of his creation – he fails, precisely because of his inaptitude in
the role of the Maker, because his act of creation is a poor simulacra of God’s Creation, a
1
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein; Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 1994; From the
printed version: Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein; Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley; London, 1831; with the
1818 Preface; p. 24
2
Words used by Alexander Pope in his Essay on Man (1733-34) as an analogy to Milton’s need to
“justifie the wayes of God to men” as expressed in Paradise Lost (1667)
3
Bible, King James; Genesis, from The Holy Bible, King James version; Electronic Text Center, University
of Virginia Library; at: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/KjvGene.html; 1:27
4
Ibid., 1:31
5
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; revised version, including addition of his
marginal glosses, published in 1817; Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 1994; at:
http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html; VII:613-614
1
mere play-pretend, although naive in its essence. While Shelley never invokes God onto
her pages, save for exclamations and lamentations, He is ever-present through the
negative comparison of what the Work of God is not. This “absence” of God is perhaps
driven by Milton’s counterproductive urge to “justifie” God by denoting Him into the
poem’s character – an attempt which had given rise to numerous misinterpretations,
including that of the Romantics who rendered Milton’s God inferior to his Satan and
generally interpreted Paradise Lost as a celebration of Satan, the poem’s “true romantic
hero”.
Victor Frankenstein’s self-destructive aspiration to “unfold to the world the deepest
mysteries of creation”6 is a theme that has been present in literature for centuries: the
peril inherent in the pursuit of God-like knowledge. It was a fruit from the Tree of
Knowledge that tempted the Biblical Adam to his Fall, with the serpent telling Eve “that
in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil.”7 Frankenstein also voices this when speaking to Walton: “You
seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification
of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.” 8 Literature has
provided us with ample evidence as to what happens when one pushes this temptation to
know too far, the answers offered in the form of a Faustian snare, leading to an inevitable
personal demise. The pursuit of forbidden knowledge has appeared in many different
forms, yet one particular enigma stands out as the most enthralling one: the quest for
discovering the true source of life, the elusive “spark”, reserved for the Divine and
obscured before the eyes of mortal men. This chimera has dictated both scientific and
spiritual research for centuries. While scientists sought by means of outer
instrumentation, spiritual scientists have set their wits on probing the inner
consciousness.
Perhaps the most horrid outcome of the attempt to play God would be the seeming
success of such an endeavor. There is more to Creation then simply the mere act of it, as
Victor Frankenstein will discover the very moment his Being opens his eyes: “I had
desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the
beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”9
Victor’s motivations for pursuing the secret of life reveal a fusion of the noble: “I
might in process of time … renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to
corruption.”10 and the selfish: “A new species would bless me as its creator and source;
many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim
the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.” 11 He thus reveals his
hubris through a presumptuous breach into realms designed not to be trod by humans,
and in this futile but nonetheless tragically human attempt to hold and steer the reins of
Life and Death lies the cause of his “Fall”.
The fact that what initially was a “little ghost story” of Frankenstein has seen over
ninety dramatizations onstage and over thirty movies directly influenced or inspired by
the novel, stands to assert that its theme carries with it a potency that has endured the
6
Shelley, op.cit., p. 34
7
Bible, op. cit., 3:5
8
Shelley, op. cit., p. 15
9
Ibid., p. 43
10
Ibid., p. 40
11
Ibid.
2
“sifting” dictated by the passing of time and has preserved the weight of its cautionary
message if not even enhanced it. For the modern Frankenstein reader the reality of man-
made abominations is ever more within reach, as the ideas of cloning and genetic
mutation increasingly tend to infest the Natural Order of things. Additionally, cloning
(and the development of the human looking androids) inherently carries another danger,
since clones are physically no Frankenstein’s “monsters” that could scarcely avoid
detection and alarming reaction; these “monsters” have the unique capability of being
seemingly blended into the world and thus equipping man with yet another dangerous
illusion: that he has in fact succeeded in creating a being “in his own image” and has
hence equaled himself with the ultimate Creator. As is implied in Frankenstein, the
human mind is susceptible to drawing a conditioned parallel between ugliness and evil.
Although there are generally no difficulties when connecting something beautiful to
something evil (mostly due to the awareness that evil can be disguised, preferably by a
beautiful and alluring quality), it is much more challenging to imagine, or at the very
least accept, that goodness can be shrouded by ugliness as well. Since the modern day
“monsters” are no physically challenged “abortions” of nature, they are naturally less
likely to be considered evil. But, as all creations made outside of God, they too are most
profoundly crippled – they are creatures with no soul. This raises another question – was
Victor Frankenstein’s Being also deprived of a soul? Aside from being quite humanlike
in his inner thinking and outer expression, which can deceivingly appear to be a quality
of a soul-possessing creature, he makes a reference to his “soul” only once (there are
altogether three references to his soul, as opposed to over thirty references to the soul of
Victor and roughly ten to the soul of man in general). He says: “my soul glowed with
love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?” 12 Later Victor makes a remark
to Walton that the Being’s soul is “as hellish as his form”. 13 When we turn to the Oxford
Dictionary14 in search of the word soul we come across two (relevant) levels of meaning:
first, that a soul is “the spiritual element of a person, regarded as immortal”, and second,
that a soul is “a person’s moral or emotional nature”. In view of context used to describe
the Being’s soul – it being hellish, or glowing with love and humanity, it becomes clear
that the latter connotation of the word is applied. The immortal soul given by God could
not be hellish; nor could the Being’s soul, even if he had one, ever possess true humanity.
The main testimony to the Being’s actual lack of soul – in its principal meaning – rests in
Victor’s account: “… I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the
monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous.” 15
So, finally the resolution is given – it is the “mockery of a soul” and, whether “mockery”
is here used as denoting “travesty” or “impudent imitation”, it is clear that the force of
wielding the true Spark of Life remains out of reach for Victor Frankenstein, and that the
sustenance he endues his Being with is certainly no true soul, according to the Creation of
God. Thereby the novel issues yet again the warning against overstepping boundaries;
against pursuing even the presumably noblest of goals should they drive one into the
search for secrets not meant to be revealed and consequently into struggles against the
human spirit, the spirit that itself is created, made in the image of its Maker. Human
12
Ibid., p. 84
13
Ibid., p. 188
14
Compact Oxford English Dictionary; online database; at: http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk
15
3
creative activity should perhaps best be bounded to those gifts of creation indeed
endowed upon us: the life-preserving reproductive ability and the creative imagination of
an artist.
[William Blake “And God created Adam”, 1975]
§ Mary Shelley’s Personal Investment

The daughter of two paramount radical thinkers of the 1790s – the renowned
philosopher, novelist, and journalist William Godwin, author of An Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice (1793) and celebrated feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary
Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) – Mary Shelley
(born Godwin) was born on 30 August 1797 in London. Eleven days after her birth, her
mother died of puerperal fever, leaving Godwin to care for the “pretty little Mary” and
Fanny Imlay, Wollstonecraft’s daughter to Gilbert Imlay, to whom Godwin soon gave his
name. Stricken by utter grief at the loss of his wife Godwin devised a loving tribute to
her, published in January 1798: Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of
Woman, providing the reader with specific details of her life, including her love affairs
and two suicide attempts. He writes: “This light was lent to me for a very short period,
4
and is now extinguished for ever!”16 The public’s reaction was vociferous and not at all in
the direction Godwin had hoped for. By reason of attempting suicide Wollstonecraft was
proclaimed as lacking religious conviction and her infatuations were rendered as
promiscuous, which led to her name being listed in the index to the Anti-Jacobin Review
of 1798 under “Prostitution”.17 However, when Mary was but four years old Godwin
married Mary Jane Clairmont, the self-proclaimed “widow Clairmont”, who in reality
was Mary Jane Vial, a spinster, mother to two children, Charles and Jane (who would
later become Claire Clairmont). The new Mrs. Godwin did everything in her power to
alienate Mary from her father, clearly preferring her own children to Mary and Fanny.
[Mary Shelley 1797-1851] [William Godwin 1756-1836] [Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797]
Though Mary received little formal education, she was home tutored by her father in
a broad range of subjects and has enjoyed access to the many intellectuals who visited
him, only few of whom were Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, William
Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. After Godwin’s marriage to Mary Jane Clairmont, Mary
retreated to books, the written legacy of her parents, and into her father’s extensive
library. This influence is vivid in Frankenstein, as Godwin admired Erasmus Darwin,
shared his ideas, and even wrote a lengthy study Lives of Necromancers in 1834. Godwin
never believed that a man is born evil, but that he is thus corrupted through circumstances
usually enforced by those wielding political power. Moreover, Godwin never denied
Mary the full scope of education, an idea not very popular amongst his contemporaries.
During her growing up, the suitability of scientific or even literary education for girls was
highly questioned. Even John Milton, whose Paradise Lost bore much influence on
Mary, particularly in writing Frankenstein, refused to have his daughters learn enough
Latin in order to understand it; he had them learn it only in a portion sufficient for them
to read him Latin texts (especially as his eye-sight had failed him), which they did, daily,
without ever understanding a word. He found it inappropriate for women to attain any
16
Cited in Karbiener, Karen: Introduction and Notes to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”; Barnes and Noble
Classics, NY, 2003; p. xxv
17
Mentioned in Ty, Eleanor: “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley” [biographical essay]; Dictionary of Literary
Biography 116: British Romantic Novelists, 1789-1832; Ed. Bradford Mudge; Detroit: Bruccoli Clark
Layman; 1992, 311-325; at: http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/shelleybio.html
5
intellectual knowledge, as he maintained that knowledge pertained to learned men alone.
Luckily, Godwin was free of such deliberations, and it is William Godwin to whom
Frankenstein is dedicated.
Mary first met Percy Bysshe Shelley (and his wife, Harriet Westbrook Shelley) in
November 1812, and would not encounter him again until 1814. “When Mary next met
the tall, frail-looking, elegant Percy, on 5 May 1814, she viewed him as a generous young
idealist and as a budding genius. He, in turn, had become dissatisfied with his wife and
was affected by Mary’s beauty, her intellectual interests, and, above all, by her identity as
the ‘daughter of William and Mary’.”18 Mary and Percy began meeting each other
secretly at Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave in St. Pancras Churchyard, which Mary
previously frequented and where she would read her mother’s work, and where on 26
June she and Percy would declare their love for each other. Although liberal in his
teachings, Godwin was strongly opposed to this relationship and Mary at first tried to
obey her father’s wishes, but after Percy’s attempted suicide she fled with him to France
in 1814, accompanied by her step-sister Jane Clairmont, but leaving Percy’s pregnant
wife Harriet behind. The record of their journeys was published as a History of a Six
Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, with Letters
descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni in 1817.
Mary and Percy spent eight years together, intertwined with love and both financial and
emotional turmoil. Mary gave birth to four children, only one of whom lived to
adulthood. In 1822 Mary miscarried during her fifth pregnancy and nearly lost her life.
Eleanor Ty gives record of “numerous critics—among them Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert,
and Susan Gubar—[who] have pointed out the link between the themes of creation, birth,
and death in Frankenstein and Mary Shelley’s real-life preoccupation with pregnancy,
labor, maternity, and death … Her anxieties about motherhood and the inability to give
life may have led her to write the tale of the aspiring scientist who succeeds in creating a
being by unnatural methods.”19 In addition, the Being she portrays is a “motherless
child”, which somewhat resonates her own motherless childhood. Karbiener proposes
that Frankenstein can be read as “Mary’s attempt to fulfill the intellectual inheritance
from Wollstonecraft”20 Perhaps tormented by the notion she was responsible for her
mother’s death, we find an echo for her remorseful and shattered state in the words and
nightmarish dreams of Victor Frankenstein: “I thought that I held the corpse of my dead
mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in
the folds of the flannel.”21 Mary had undoubtedly woven plenty of her own life fabric into
her novel, as she did in many of her other works. Her own persona is vividly present in
several characters: firstly, there is the passive listener Margaret Walton Saville whose
initials share that of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; then, there is Victor, who longed to
create life out of death, something Mary must have secretly imagined – a revival of her
mother and child (at the time of writing Frankenstein Mary had already lost one child),
Victor, who invoked analogies between the labors of the writer and the creator, thus
reflecting Mary’s own insecurities both regarding her ability to write and to give birth
without fatal consequences; and ultimately, and most profoundly so, Mary emerges in the
18
Ty, op. cit., html text
19
Ibid.
20
Karbiener, op. cit., p. xxv
21
6
form of Frankenstein’s Being: the lonely motherless outcast, the guilt-ridden Being,
deprived of the affections so greatly desired. However, in the character of Victor, another
influence surfaces – that of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Passionate, creative, aspiring, egoistic,
lacking commitment to anything but their work, these two great minds are rather
analogous. Percy too, like Victor, was predominantly unaware of his shortcomings as a
devoted husband.
Mary’s attachment to Percy led her through an array of melodramatic occurrences:

she had to struggle with his joy at the birth of his son (1814) by Harriet Shelley, his still
legitimate wife; endure the denunciation by her father; suffer the ménage à trios with her
step-sister Jane (who had in the course of five years changed her name three times, from
Jane to Clara to Clare and finally to Claire) Clairmont, whose affections Shelley did not
exactly shun; and in general submit to Percy’s concept of “free love”, which he applied
primarily to himself but expected it from Mary alike. Mary herself did too believe in the
concept of “free love” (a concept prophesied by her mother), but only in theory; in
practice, she loved Shelley alone, and this remained so even after his death. During 1814
the couple was at times separated since Percy had to flee from his creditors, and their
distraught letters reveal the pain at these separations. 1816 brought more death, with the
suicides of Fanny Godwin and Harriet Shelley.
That same year Claire Clairmont shifted her attention from Percy and on to Lord
Gordon Byron, persuading Mary and Percy to follow her (she was then already pregnant
with Byron’s child) to Switzerland in pursuit of him. In May 1816 the Shelleys (at that
time Mary first referred to herself as Mrs. Shelley) move into Maison Chapuis in Geneva
and soon after Byron, accompanied by his physician Dr. John W. Polidori, rents the next-
door Villa Diodati. Both Mary and Percy immediately become close friends with Byron.
It is well known that the idea for Frankenstein emerged precisely there, at Byron’s Villa
Diodati, as is explained by Mary Shelley herself both in the Preface to the 1818 edition
(anonymously) and later, in the Introduction to the 1831 edition, where she was more
explicit with details. She then gives the account: “We will each write a ghost story, said
Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author
began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley
… commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some
terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-
hole … I busied myself to think of a story, -- a story to rival those which had excited us to
this task.”22 Mary confessed that at first she had struggled with her story; finally, one
night, after a discussion concerning galvanism and Erasmus Darwin, Mary’s imagination
“gifted” her successive images “far beyond the usual bounds of reverie”. She saw “the
pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together … Frightful
must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock
the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.” 23 Next morning, after the poets
went off sailing, she started work on what was to become Chapter 5 of Frankenstein.
Encouraged by Percy, Mary developed the little ghost story into a novel, which she
finished in May of 1817 at Marlow and published anonymously in March 1818 in three
22
Ibid., p. viii
23
Ibid., p. ix
7
volumes by Lackington’s publishing house24 that somewhat specialized in sensational
materials.25
In his essay Frankenstein and Mary Shelley’s Wet Ungenial Summer (2006), Bill
Phillips emphasizes a less known fact, that the “cold and rainy” weather was in fact “the
result of an Indonesian volcano, which affected the atmosphere of the northern
hemisphere for three years, leading to crop failure, riots and starvation.” 26 In his book
The Song of the Earth, (2000), the English ecocritic, Jonathan Bate, asserts that Byron’s
poem Darkness and Keats’s ode To Autumn were inspired by this Indonesian volcano.
Darkness was also written at the Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816 when it “rained in
Switzerland on 130 out of the 183 days from April to September.” 27 The verses in
Darkness were no mere metaphor as the poem opens:
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream,
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day28
Phillips thus claims that rather than representing the horrors of the Industrial Revolution,
Victor Frankenstein’s monster symbolizes the capacity of nature to instigate
environmental crises of biblical proportions.29
When in 1822 Mary nearly bled to death whilst miscarrying, it was Percy who saved
her life. After another unsuccessful pregnancy, Mary became even more withdrawn –
something that had already tormented the couple – and their relationship suffered. She
was aware of Percy’s dissatisfactions as well (and his interest in other women, most
notably Jane Williams, during 1821) but, as Ty notices, had hoped time would heal the
breach between them. This was not to happen as Percy dies a month after her
miscarriage, on 8 July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday. He had drowned
in the Bay of Spezia, caught in a sudden storm while sailing back from Livorno
to Lerici in his boat Don Juan30. He drowned along with Edward Williams, husband of
Jane Williams with whom he had been having an affair. Interestingly, Shelley claimed to
have met his Doppelgänger, foreboding his own death31.
24
Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones
25
Some titles are: Francis Barrett, The Magus; or Celestial Intelligences (1801); Thomas Heywood, The
Life, Prophecies, and Predictions of Merlin Interpreted (1813); Joseph Taylor Apparitions; or, the Mystery
of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted House (1814).
26
Phillips, Bill: Frankenstein and Mary Shelley’s Wet Ungenial Summer; Universidad de Barcelona; 28.2
(December 2006): 59–68; at: www.atlantisjournal.org/Papers/28_2/BPhillips.pdf; p. 59
27
Cited in Philips, op. cit., p. 61
28
Byron, George Gordon: Works; London: John Murray, 1832; also at: http://www.poetry-
archive.com/b/prometheus.html
29
Philips, op. cit., p. 59
30
The name Don Juan was a compliment to Byron.
31
On 15 August, Mary Shelley wrote a letter to Maria Gisborne in which she relayed Percy’s claims to her
that he had met his own Doppelgänger. A week after Mary’s miscarriage, in the early hours of 23 June,
Percy had had a nightmare about the house collapsing in a flood, and “... talking it over the next morning he
told me that he had had many visions lately — he had seen the figure of himself which met him as he
8
[The Funeral of
Shelley by Louis
Edouard
Fournier (1889);
pictured in the centre
are, from left:
Trelawny, Hunt and
Byron. Shelley's
heart was snatched
from the funeral pyre
by Edward Trelawny
(mutual friend of the
Shelleys and Byron);
Mary Shelley kept it
for the rest of her
life, and it was
interred next to her
grave at St. Peter's
Church in Bournemouth. Shelley’s ashes were interred in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome under an
ancient pyramid in the city walls. His grave bears the Latin inscription, Cor Cordium (“Heart of Hearts”),
and, in reference to his death at sea, a few lines of “Ariel’s Song” from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:
“Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.”]
This was by far Mary’s greatest loss. Percy’s untimely death left Mary in a state of
psychological havoc, with feelings of “fierce remorse” and guilt. In the manner of her
father, Mary decided to write Percy’s biography and publish a definitive collection of his
poems. However, this endeavor was impeded by Sir Timothy, Percy’s disproving father,
who disdained any public mention of his revolutionary and atheistic son. Later she
created an idealized portrait of him in her 1826 novel, The Last Man, where Percy is
instilled into the figure of Adrian, Earl of Windsor, a Romantic idealist, full of courage
and self-sacrificing beliefs. Death entered Mary’s life once again, as their mutual friend
Byron soon after died in Greece, on 19 April 1824 32. A journal entry on 14 May 1824
reveals her forlorn condition: “The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being’s
feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before
me—“. The next day she lamented: “At the age of twenty six I am in the condition of an
aged person--all my old friends are gone ... & my heart fails when I think by how few ties
I hold to the world....”33 Mary never remarried after Percy’s death, as she wrote to
Edward John Trelawny on 14 June 1831, in answer to his half-serious proposal: “Mary
Shelley shall be written on my tomb.” 34 She made her peace with Godwin whom she
continued to support emotionally and financially until his death in 1836.
walked on the terrace & said to him — “How long do you mean to be content”; quote taken from
Wikipedia, entry Doppelgänger; at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelgänger#Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
32
Offering his support to the representatives of the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman
Empire Byron had devised an attack on the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of
Corinth and took part of the rebel army under his own command. Unfortunately, before they had a chance
to sail out, he fell ill, and the usual remedy of bleeding weakened him further. After making a partial
recovery, in early April he caught a violent cold which therapeutic bleeding, insisted on by his doctors, had
only aggravated. It is suspected this treatment, carried out with unsterilized medical instrumentation, may
have caused him to develop sepsis. He developed a violent fever, and died on 19 April.
33
Cited in Ty, op. cit., html text
34
Ibid.
9
In 1848 she began to suffer the first symptoms of brain tumor, although the disease
was not diagnosed until December 1850. She struggled with the numbness in her right leg
and impaired speech, which soon progressed into a state of almost complete paralysis,
and she died in London on 1 February 1851, aged 54. The inscription on her tomb reveals
the greatest influences in her life, and it reads: “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Daughter
of Wilm & Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and Widow of the late Percy Shelley”.
[1853 engraving by George J. Stodart, after a monument of Mary and Percy Shelley by Henry Weekes]
10
§ Spark of Life and the Implications of Death

within the Quest for Life
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,

which I should first break through
and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.”
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1831)35
[Theodor Von Holst, Frontispiece to Frankenstein 1831]
If the great Circle of Life is defined by two cruxes standing at opposite ends – the
point of Birth (Life) and the point of Death – what is perceived are two paths, one from
Birth to Death (the path we know) and one from Death to Rebirth (the path we
anticipate). The anticipated path is further expressed in two ways (there are two ways to
arrive at the truth): by means of imagination and by means of science. The Death-to-
Rebirth path is unknown to us – we are in the dark – hence, Prometheus steals the fire in
order to cast light upon the unknown (the new Life), as does Victor.
Shedding light upon the unknown is a pursuit embedded into the very core of each
human being, and perhaps what Mary Shelley does by means of imagination can be
equivalent to Victor’s endeavors in the field of scientific research. They both attempt to
reach out into the depths of human soul and existence. In this effort to attain the Secret of
Life, science and imagination often meet, even overlap, but ultimately, all our attempts
are futile, as only the Creator can extend His vision unto the unifying poles of human
existence.
The Romantics perceived imagination as reaching beyond the senses, able to
intuitively grasp the absolute, but for Victor Frankenstein such intuitive knowledge was
insufficient. “So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein -- more, far
more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way,
explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.” 36
He then sets on to explore the physical boundaries of that which makes us human, the
very boundaries between Life and Death.
In nature, Life is created out of Life; in the case of Victor’s Being, we find Life
created from a sum of dead bodily parts, and so perceived his creation resembles the
distortion of Death rather than the shaping of Life. “…I had selected his features as
beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles
and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
35
36
Ibid., p. 34
11
that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set,
his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”37 This is a reminder that any deviation
from the Creation by God can only result in and cause more deviation.
When examining the notion of the Spark it is almost inevitable to identify it with
Fire. The spark of Life i.e. the Fire of Life is in many respects present in the novel,
invoking the myth of the fire-snatching Prometheus in its full title “Frankenstein, or, the
Modern Prometheus”; it is embedded in the methods Victor applies in his creation,
namely electricity (the physical spark) and alchemy (the alchemist’s flaming furnace
being the very core of all alchemical pursuits, including the purging of the alchemist’s
soul), and ultimately the Spark of Creation Victor so fervently yearns to uncover.
It was not uncommon in philosophical thought to speak of fire as the origin of all
things. Heraclitus identifies the Logos with fire; so the enigmatic saying in his fragment
64, “Thunderbolt steers all things”, makes sense if one interprets thunderbolt to be fire 38.
Simplicius explains the mechanism by which fire becomes all things: “Heraclitus ... made
fire the archê, and out of fire they produce existing things by thickening and thinning, and
resolve them into fire again, on the assumption that fire is the one, underlying physis”.39
Even the Being sees the natural end to his life in fire: “I shall ascend my funeral pile
triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames.”40
However, Victor’s quest ends not in fire but in the unforgiving northern ice,
paralleled through the aspirations of another “overreacher”, the arctic voyager Captain
Robert Walton, reminding us thereby that Death is essentially cold. The “icy climes” of
the polar region, bathed in the “perpetual splendor” of eternal sunshine, echo of
Hyperborea, a mythical land in the far north, home to Boreas, the North Wind.
Hyperborea (beyond the Boreas) was perfect, with the sun shining twenty-four hours a
day.
Never the Muse is absent
from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry
and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.
Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed
in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live.
- Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode (498BC)41
Reaching such sacred lands is never easy; Pindar cautioned:
Never on land or by sea will you find
the marvelous road to the feast of the Hyperborea. 42
37
Ibid., p. 43
38
From Heraclitus, at: http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/Heraclitus.htm; quoted: Clement of
Alexandria: Stromateis: Bks.1-3 (Fathers of the Church); The Catholic University of America Press, 15
Dec 1992, V, 10, 6; From Heraclitus, at: http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/Heraclitus.htm
39
From Heraclitus, at: http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/Heraclitus.htm; quoted: Simplicius: On
Aristotle's Physics 5, (The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle); Ithaca, New York; Cornell University
Press, 1997, 23.23, DK, A5;
40
41
Lattimore, Richmond, trans.: The Odes of Pindar; University of Chicago Press, 1947; at:
http://www.archive.org/stream/odesofpindar035276mbp/odesofpindar035276mbp_djvu.txt
42
Ibid.
12
It is precisely in this bitter arctic surrounding of biting winds and impassable ice that the
Being answers the question of the moral limits of science. Both Walton and Victor find
that in order to achieve their dream (conquering the Arctic in Walton’s and conquering
Life itself in Victor’s case) they must engage in combat with Nature, or in Victor’s case,
in a contest against God – a duel man is simply not meant to win. The consequences of
such a foolish attempt to violate Nature (Life or God) are perilous, and ultimately
disastrous. As the path to the perfect Hyperborea can never be unveiled “neither on land
nor by sea”, so is the path to the absolute truth equally unattainable. There are regions
impassable to science and men, paths that lay hidden, where the Divine Light reveals to
us but a spark.
§ The Prometheus Parallel
And Man in portions can foresee

His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself--and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.
- Lord Byron, Prometheus (1816)43
[Prometheus Bound, Jacob Jordaens, c. 1640]
There are two different myths regarding Prometheus, namely the widely known myth
of Prometheus the fire snatcher, and a later addition – the story of Prometheus
plasticator who was to said to have created and animated mankind out of clay. It is
usually the myth of Prometheus plasticator that is connected to Frankenstein although the
myth itself was fairly unknown at the time and is more likely that the interest in it has
arisen only after the publication of Frankenstein.
According to the original myth of Prometheus 44, he and his brother Epimetheus were
asked by Zeus to create the animals and mankind. After his brother had given all the gifts
away and left none for man, Prometheus decided to trick Zeus into taking the lesser
animals as sacrifices and leaving the best to men. To punish man, Zeus took away fire. So
Prometheus stole fire from Hephaestus’ forge in Olympus to return it to man. As
43
Byron, op. cit.
44
The Prometheus myth first appeared in the late 8th-century BC Greek epic poet Hesiod's Theogony (lines
507-616).
13
punishment, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock in the Caucasus and left an eagle to
torment him forever. Every day, Prometheus was to be visited by the eagle that ate from
his liver. During the night, however, his liver would grow back to its original state. As an
additional punishment for stealing fire, Zeus created Pandora, the first woman and root of
all evil to be released on Earth. The implication regarding the myth of Pandora is the
knowledge that when attempting to reveal to men what is (by God) not meant to be
revealed, the ultimate result is the unleashing of evil into the world.
Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors would retell and further embellish
the Prometheus myth into the 4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the
myth found in, e.g., Sappho, Plato, Aesop and Ovid – was the central role of Prometheus
in the creation of the human race. According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned
humans out of clay.
According to Fortson45 and Williamson46 he derivation of Prometheus’ name from
the Greek pro (before) + manthano (learn), thus equating it with “fore thought”, is
actually a folk etymology. In truth, the name comes from the PIE 47 word that produces
the Vedic pra math, which in fact means “to steal.” This verb produces pramathyu-s,
“thief”, whence Prometheus. The Vedic myth of fire’s theft by Mataricvan is an analog to
the account found in Greek myth.48
This is also something that Aesop said in a fable that may date as early as the
classical period: “The clay which Prometheus used when he fashioned man was not
mixed with water but with tears. Therefore, one should not try to dispense entirely with
tears, since they are inevitable.” 49
Eventually, these two myths were fused together: the fire that Prometheus had stolen
is the fire of life with which he animated his clay models. It is most likely that Shelly
knowingly used this fusion when comparing her hero to the reprimanded Titan.
Additionally, it can be noted that it is essentially irrelevant whether we compare Victor to
the Prometheus who stole from God the fire – the spark of creation, or the Prometheus
who stole from God the authority of creating living beings; in the first case it is the
means, and in the latter, it is the very deed, but the implication, and hence, the
consequence, is unchanged.
The symbolic attached to the myth of Prometheus bore much relevance for the
Romantics. Byron was particularly attached to the play Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus,
and Percy B. Shelley would soon write his own Prometheus Unbound (1820). It is
interesting to note that the term “modern Prometheus” was actually coined by Immanuel
Kant, referring to Benjamin Franklin and his then recent experiments, specifically flying
his kite in a thunderstorm to demonstrate that lightning carries an electrical charge.
Joseph Priestley believed that the kite experiment of 1752 was “the greatest, perhaps, in
45
From Wikipedia; quote: Fortson, Benjamin: Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction;
Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 27.
46
From Wikipedia; quote: Williamson, George S.: The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and
Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche; Chicago, 2004, pp. 214-15.
47
The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-
European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
48
From Wikipedia, entry: Prometheus; at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus
49
Aesop: Fables Aesop; Trans. Laura Gibbs (from Themistius, Orations 32; Greek fable c6th B.C.);
Oxford University Press, 2002; Fable 516, p. 238
14
the whole compass of philosophy since the time of Sir Isaac Newton”. 50 In 1751, prior to
the kite experiment, Franklin described to Collinson how he almost electrocuted himself
while conducting experiments on turkeys.51
However, Prometheus carried a dualistic symbolism. On one hand, due to the
“creating” aspect, Prometheus epitomized the creating artist in the 18 th century. But, as
Wolf52 points out, there was also a deeper imagery, one that implied an almost “devilish”
undertone. Prometheus, who brought fire to man, has thereby seduced the human race to
the vice of eating meat (fire brought cooking which brought hunting and killing). Support
for this claim may be reflected in Chapter 17 of the novel, where the “monster” speaks to
his creator: “My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my
appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment.”53 Prometheus’ gift to man
compared with the two great utopian promises of the 18th century: the Industrial
Revolution and the French Revolution, containing both great promise and potentially
unknown horrors.
Victor Frankenstein can indeed be seen as the modern Prometheus. Instead of being
the created, Victor strives to take God’s place and become the Creator. This striving is
also supported by the parallel drawn between his name and the apparent allusion to
Milton’s Paradise Lost, where God is also called “the victor”. Moreover, Milton’s Satan
likewise strives to be more powerful than God and is tormented by the fact he is a
creation rather than creator. Victor unleashes forbidden knowledge upon humanity, and
pays the price of a tormented existence. While Prometheus is tormented by the eagle sent
by Zeus, Victor is tormented by the very Being he has created, suffering the ultimate
punishment: death of those he had loved.
§ Frankenstein ‘Creation Myth’, or, The Real

Mad Scientist
“Not thus, after all, would life be given.”
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein54
Mary Shelley herself took a keen interest in the science of her day, engaging with
contemporary debates about the aims and rewards of scientific research; she also touches
on Darwin’s evolution theory, Arctic travel and search for the magnet, “the wondrous
power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations”55
Additionally, she reports in her Journals that she was reading Introduction to Davy’s
50
Benjamin Franklin in London, The Royal Society, www.royalsociety.org
51
Ibid., html text
52
Wolf, Leonard: Introduction and Notes to Mary Shelley: Annotated Frankenstein; Clarkson N. Potter,
Inc, NY, 1977, p. 20
53
54
Ibid., p. x
55
Ibid., p. 4
15
Chemistry during October and November 181656. According to Marilyn Butler57, William
Lawrence, a professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, a leading theorist on
anatomy and physiology, and a friend of the couple, “probably ensured that both Shelleys
wrote more accurately and less speculatively on scientific matters than they otherwise
might”. In a similar vein Anne K. Mellor claims that: “The works of three of the most
famous scientists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century – Humphry Davy,
Erasmus Darwin, and Luigi Galvani – together with the teachings of two of their most
ardent disciples, Adam Walker and Percy Shelley, were crucial to Mary Shelley’s
understanding of science and the scientific enterprise.” 58
In the Introduction to the 1831 edition, Shelley describes the particular conversation
which gave her the idea for the story. First, there was mention of an experiment thought
to have been conducted by Erasmus Darwin59 – “who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a
glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion.”60
From this, they speculated that “perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism
had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be
manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.”61 In the Preface to the
1818 edition, Shelley (anonymously) says: “The event on which this fiction is founded
has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as
not of impossible occurrence.”62
We know then that the 18th century was prolific in more than just fictional horror.
Mark Stinson, the author of the article “The Real Dr Frankenstein” duly inquires into
who were these mysterious galvanists who had “given token of such things”. 63 The
answers could perhaps be found in the work of Luigi Galvani, his nephew Giovanni
Aldini, Andrew Ure and most notably Johann Konrad Dippel, due to his connection to
Castle Frankenstein.
Luigi Galvani
Luigi Galvani (1737-98) conducted experiments at the University of Bologna during
the 1780s and 1790s, and his claim was to have demonstrated the existence of a nervous
fluid akin to artificial and natural electricity.64 The most widely known were a series of
four experiments conducted on frogs, or more precisely detached frog legs, that he had
56
Shelley, Mary: The Journals of Mary Shelley 1814-1844, Vol. I: 1814-1822 & Vol. II: 1822-1844; Eds.
Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert; Oxford: Oxford UP; 1987; Vol. I, pp. 142-44
57
Cited in Phillips, op. cit., p. 64
58
Ibid.
59
Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), was an English physician, natural philosopher, physiologist, abolitionist,
inventor, poet and co-founder of The Lunar Society of Birmingham, an informal association of gentleman
natural philosophers, entrepreneurs, and engineers which contributed greatly to the industrial revolution in
England. Presumably the members were amused to refer to each other as Lunatics.
60
Shelley, op. cit., p. x
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid., p. 1
63
Stinson, Mark: The Real Dr Frankenstein; Parapsychology Plus, American Paranormal Investigations,
Sacramento CA; May 28, 2007; at: http://www.ap-
investigations.com/Parapsychology_DrFrankenstein.html
16
caused to convulse in a lifelike manner by means of applying conductors to them. He

discovered that different metals stimulated different levels of convulsion and, as a result
of these and other experiments, propounded a theory of animal electricity.65 He
distinguished this kind of electricity from “artificial electricity” generated by friction
(static electricity) and from “natural electricity” such as lightning. He thought of “animal
electricity” as a fluid secreted by the brain, and proposed that flow of this fluid through
the nerves activated the muscles.66
It is after Galvani that galvanism got its name and ironically, people still speak of
being galvanized into action.
[Luigi Galvani’s Laboratory, De Viribus electricitatus c.1791] [18th century portrait of Luigi Galvani]
Giovanni Aldini
64
Elliott, Paul: “More Subtle than the Electric Aura”: Georgian Medical Electricity, the Spirit of Animation
and the Development of Erasmus Darwin's Psychophysiology; Medical History Journal; April 2008; 52(2):
195–220; at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2329858; ch. V
65
Ibid.
66
Stinson, op.cit.. html text
17
Giovanni Aldini (1762-1834) was the nephew of Luigi Galvani. His uncle
essentially discovered the concept of galvanism and Aldini took his experiments even
further. He was among the first to treat mentally ill patients with shocks to the brain,
reporting complete electrical cures for a number of mental illnesses. In 1803, during a
visit to London, Aldini conducted galvanic experimental demonstrations with oxen heads
which induced widely reported fantastic convulsions. Natural philosophers and tutors
produced similar effects using animals at public lectures around Britain. 67 Aldini’s most
famous experiment was performed in 1803, on the body of a hanged man named George
Forster. The body of the murderer George Forster was pulled from the gallows of
Newgate Prison in London and taken to the Royal College of Surgeons, as anatomical
dissection had formed part of Forster’s death sentence. Before a large medical and
general audience, Aldini took a pair of conducting rods linked to a powerful battery, and
touched the rods to various parts of the body in turn. The Newgate Calendar, a monthly
bulletin of executions, produced by the keeper of Newgate Prison in London, gives the
following description of the events that took place: “M. Aldini, who is the nephew of the
discoverer of this most interesting science, showed the eminent and superior powers of
galvanism to be far beyond any other stimulant in nature. On the first application of the
process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining
muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part
of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in
motion. Mr Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons’ Company, who was officially present
during this experiment, was so alarmed that he died of fright soon after his return home.
Some of the uninformed bystanders thought that the wretched man was on the eve of
being restored to life.”68
Andrew Ure
In 1818, Andrew Ure (1778-1857) followed Aldini in conducting galvanic
experiments upon the body of an executed murderer at Glasgow, inducing wild
contortions and facial expressions, some of which drove members of the audience from
the room.69 Although Ure’s well-known experiment came several months after the
publication of Frankenstein, it is in spirit quite akin to it. Ure conducted experiments
upon the corpse of Matthew Clydesdale at the Glasgow University Anatomy theatre on
November 4, 1818. When he was brought to trial on the 3rd of October, Clydesdale was
found guilty and sentenced to be hung and (like Foster) anatomized - that is, after
execution his body was to be handed over to the anatomists for their use. Ure claimed
that by stimulating the phrenic nerve, life could be restored in cases where death occurred
by suffocation, drowning or hanging. “The Anatomy theatre was crowded … anatomists
performing their dark operations on a corpse, in full view of the public. The anatomists
were Dr. Andrew Ure, senior lecturer at the then recently founded Anderson’s Institution
67
Elliott, op.cit., ch. VI
68
Newgate Calendar: George Foster, Executed at Newgate, 18th of January, 1803, for the Murder of his
Wife and Child, by drowning them in the Paddington Canal; with a Curious Account of Galvanic
Experiments on his Body; at: http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng464.htm
69
Elliott, op.cit., ch. VI
18
in John Street, and Professor James Jeffray, professor of Anatomy, Botany and
Midwifery at Glasgow University.”70
As such effects could be obtained from tissues without metal, they were claimed to
demonstrate that the galvanic fluid was physiologically essential. Although they were
controversial, for Aldini and Ure these results demonstrated the potential of galvanic
medicine and offered the chance of “raising this wonderful agent to its expected rank,
among the ministers of health and life to man”.71
[“Dr. Ure galvanizing the body of the murderer Clydesdale” ; from Louis Figuier, Les merveilles de
la Science (Paris, 1867), p. 653.]

Johann Konrad Dippel
Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734) was a German Pietist, theologian, alchemist

and physician, born at Castle Frankenstein near Darmstadt, whence he got the addendum
Franckensteinensis and later at his university (he studied theology, philosophy and
alchemy at the University of Giessen) the addendum Franckensteina-Strataemontanus.
Although he quickly gained a reputation for brilliance, many peculiarities surrounded his
studies and life in general, e.g. being imprisoned for heresy, killing an opponent in a duel,
practicing palmistry or lecturing on alchemy prior to actually giving it some serious
study. Aynsley and Campbell note: “That Dippel was no ordinary student is evident from
his choice of a title for M.A. thesis, De Nihilo (1693).”72 About 1700, Dippel became
interested in the oil obtained by the destructive distillation of animal parts (a concoction
of bones, blood, and other bodily fluids distilled in iron tubes and other alchemical
70
Stevenson, David A.: The Galvanisation of Matthew Clydesdale; 1998; available at
http://level2.phys.strath.ac.uk/ScienceOnStreets/galv05play.html#ref3
71
Elliott, op. cit., ch. VI
72
Aynsley, E. E.,& Campbell, W. A.: Johann Konrad Dippel, 1673–1734; Medical History Journal, 1962,
p. 281; at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1034731
19
equipment), which later became known as known as Dippel’s Oil (also known as Bone
Oil), a supposed equivalent to the alchemists’ dream of the elixir vitae. However, the
only result he achieved through the use of this oil was obtaining a blue dye from it
(“Berliner Blau”, also called “Preussisch Blau” i.e. “Prussian blue”). He announced that
he had discovered the legendary Philosopher’s Stone in 1701, but had to flee the area
because he never actually produced any gold. In 1704 he moved to Berlin, where he had
set up a laboratory for gold-making. At one point he offered to strike a deal with the
Landgrave of Hesse, promising him an Arcanum chymicum (a supposed formula for
prolonging life) in return for the ownership of his birthplace, Castle Frankenstein, and its
associated title, Lord of Frankenstein. Dippel claimed to have taken some of the
Arcanum chymicum himself, certain of living until 1801, when he would die aged 128.
Aynsley and Campbell refer to this foresight as “a last flamboyant gesture of fantasy in
the face of reality”.73 Partington sarcastically concludes: “One suspects that he mixed too
much mercury with too little lamb’s blood, for he died a year after his claim.”74
He is said to have been interested in creating artificial life and alleged to
practice grave-robbing. There are claims that during his stay at Castle Frankenstein he
was working with nitroglycerin, which led to the destruction of a tower. Yet this seems to
be a contemporary myth, since nitroglycerin hadn’t been discovered in Dippel’s time.
And although the history of Castle Frankenstein during Dippel’s lifetime is well
documented, the destruction of a tower - though surely a remarkable event - is nowhere
mentioned.75
His connection to the Castle Frankenstein gave rise to the
theory that he was a model for Shelley’s novel, though that idea
remains controversial. Little is known certainly of Dippel, and it
is difficult to discern where fact ends and legend begins. The
scarcity of material about his actual life leaves much room for
doubt, and many of the traits attributed to him may well postdate
Shelley’s novel. Still, in light of the work of Galvani, Aldini and
Ure, it is not inconceivable to picture Dippel occupied by the
gruesome cadaver experimentation. And so the question
remains: was the character of Victor created after Dippel, or was
Dippel’s actual persona embellished so to resemble Victor?
[Johann Konrad Dippel 1673-1734]
Castle Frankenstein
Radu Florescu, a Romanian academic who holds the position of Emeritus Professor
of History at Boston College, first introduced the claim that Mary Shelley, who was
73
Ibid., p. 284
74
Partington, Stephen Derwent: “Radu Florescu, In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring the Myths behind
Mary Shelley's Monster”; Romanticism On the Net 7, August 1997; at:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/florescu.html
75
Hite, Kenneth: Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast; “Frankenstein Family Album”; Austin,
Tex.: SJ Games, 2000; pp. 65-66
20
passing by the Castle Frankenstein76 while being on a boat on the river Rhine in early
September of 1814, heard about Dippel and the castle, visited it and based the character
of Victor Frankenstein upon Dippel. Florescu himself admits that his claim was primarily
based upon local folklore, as he mentions in his Acknowledgments section: “To the
former Mayor of Nieder-Beerbach … I owed my initial inspiration, based upon his
educated hunch, substantiated by local folklore, that Mary Shelley visited Castle
Frankenstein and became acquainted with the story of the Alchemist Dippel”. 77
According to the journals of both Mary Shelley and her step-sister Claire Clairmont, the
Shelleys and Claire visited Gernsheim on the Rhine on September 2nd, and Florescu tells
us that from the whole town of Gernsheim one can clearly see the imposing Castle
Frankenstein on its hill. Although Mary and Claire never once mention the castle,
Florescu thinks it inconceivable that Mary didn’t visit it, or at least, hear of it, along with
the story of Dippel. Florescu asserts that Shelley, then an impressionable teenager,
learned of Dippel’s “macabre work” during her stay at the castle. It was as a result of this
visit, he proposed, that two years later, already spurred by gruesome tales, Shelley had a
nightmare about Frankenstein which became the inspiration for her famous book. 78
Florescu’s thesis was not received very well among historians at first, and many Shelly
critics and devotees were enraged at this claim, and Leonard Wolf even calls Florescu’s
thesis a “conspiracy theory”. Yet, a reissue of his book in the 1990s was followed by
several books and TV-shows based upon it. Most notable is the book Burg Frankenstein
– Mythos, Wahrheit, Legende by the German historian Walter Scheele, because it
featured several new pieces of evidence that emphasized the connection between
Frankenstein Castle, Johann Konrad Dippel and Shelley’s novel. At first Scheele recalls
Florescu’s contention that Shelley falsified her own journals, calling this “to be a proven
fact”.79 Scheele claimed that he had found “the true” journals but that they were in
possession of a Swiss banking family that did not wish this mysterious journal to be
published.80 He even cited from the alleged journal where the author invokes a gloomy
“November mist” setting, which is somewhat dubious since according to Mary Shelly
and Claire Clairmont, they were visiting this area on September 2nd and September 3rd,
1814. Ten days later Shelley was recorded to be back in England. Moreover, Scheele
mentions a correspondence between Jacob Grimm and Mary Jane Clairmont, stepmother
of Mary Shelley, a believed translator of Grimm’s work. Therein Grimm supposedly tells
about a legend surrounding Frankenstein Castle, which strikingly resembles Mary
Shelley’s famous novel.81 But, except for Scheele no one ever saw this letter and there is
no record of Clairmont actually being Grimm’s translator or even a hint for a contact
between them. There are however several publications in the 1800s documenting the
legends and myths surrounding Frankenstein Castle, especially the ones about the Knight
76
Burg Frankenstein is a hilltop castle about 5 km south of Darmstadt in Germany.
77
Florescu, Radu: In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring the Myths Behind Mary Shelley's Monster;
Parkwest Pubns, 1997.
78
Partington, op. cit., html text
79
Jörg, Heléne: Frankenstein Castle, Shelley and the Construction of a Myth; July 25th, 2008; at:
http://www.renegadenation.de/darmstadt/frankensteinengl.html; based upon the article by Walter Scheele:
“Burg Frankenstein, Shelley und die Konstruktion eines Mythos”; pub. Feb. 2nd, 2008.
80
Ibid., html text
81
Ibid., html text
21
George and the Dragon (a version of the story of St. George), the only Frankenstein
legend the Grimm brothers tell us about.
Although Dippel was very famous in Shelley’s day (there were countless
publications about him, however, most of them in German), there is no actual historical
evidence to support the claim that Johann Konrad Dippel was the inspiration for Victor
Frankenstein or that the educated (and, apparently, very well-informed) Shelly was aware
of his work. Yet, it is somewhat odd that the name Frankenstein simply appeared in her
mind as a consequence of her “waking dream” when she “saw -- with shut eyes, but acute
mental vision, -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts…” 82 The suggestion of her
“waking dream” reminds us of Coleridge’s widely popular “dream vision” of Kubla
Khan (1816), another controversial notion.
It is perhaps most plausible to believe that Shelley had

heard a story, perhaps of Dippel, perhaps of the Castle (or
both), something that she might even have forgotten, and
that her subconscious mind subsequently produced this
name in her reverie. Shelley never denied that the novel was
indeed spurred by the actual scientific experimentation of
the time, and her fears and ethical dilemmas regarding such
pursuits were expressed quite visibly, as they dictate the
tenor of the entire novel. The inner workings of the author’s
imagination are perhaps another question the answer to
which is simply not meant to be given.
[1940’s postcard rendering of Castle Frankenstein]
§ The Urge for Creation

Prometheus, Icarus, Pygmalion’s Galatea, Paracelsus and alchemical homunculi,
Faust, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Doppelgänger, Golem, Frankenstein, Robot, AI, super-
computers, and genetic engineering: the idea of artificially creating life (artificially
referring to any creation outside of God’s) permeated human thought and effort as far
back as written records exist. The means by which man has attempted such a folly have
varied as philosophical and scientific advancements progressed. In the ancient times,
there was a belief that putrefied flesh was a vessel for the birth of new life. For example,
in his Metamorphoses Ovid specifies rather closely the different sorts of animals that are
spawned from the putrefaction of various sorts of matter - bees from dead cattle,
scorpions from crab-shells.83 This idea was wildly supported by the alchemists, leading to
Paracelsus’ “recipe” for the creation of homunculus (“little man”) in 1537. In the
82
Shelley, op.cit., p. x
83
Cited in Syverson, Valerie: ‘Artificial Life' explained in historical perspective;
http://www.helium.com/items/163789-artificial-life-explained-in-historical-perspective
22
meantime, support for artificial creation can be found in the Hassidic tale of the golem,
that especially took root in the Middle Ages. The difference in the methods one used to
produce life is pointed out by Gary Lachman in his article Homunculi, Golems, and
Artificial Life (2006): “Prior to the rise of science and the mechanical vision of human
life and the universe, the idea of creating human simulacra had a strong organic
foundation. The homunculus was something one grew … The golem, too, although not
quite as organic as the homunculus, was nevertheless not pieced together bit by bit, as
Mary Shelley’s monster would be; it was fashioned, molded from clay or soil and then
miraculously brought to life.”84 Frankenstein’s Being leaned on the alchemical pursuit
(still very prevalent in the 18th century) but also mirrored the influence of the Industrial
Revolution and experiments with electricity. As science reached new frontiers, entered
the robot, and later, artificial intelligence, and the attempts at cloning and genetic
engineering that still occupy our thought. In literature, these motifs usually served as a
warning against such hubris, but have apparently been unheeded.
Golem
In Jewish mystical tradition the idea of creating an artificial man from clay or soil
goes back to Talmudic times.85 The legend of the golem can be found in literary works as
early as the Middle Ages and it progressed on across Christian scholars in the
Renaissance to German literature during the Romantic period surviving up to date in
modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. The word golem is usually rendered to mean the
“unformed”, or “amorphous substance”. The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to
an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm 139:16 uses the word ‫גלמי‬, meaning “my
unshaped dorm”. The name appears to derive from the word gelem (‫)גלם‬, which means
“raw material”.86 This “raw material” is the matter which God shaped into the form of
Adam, before breathing the breath of life into his nostrils. It is the hyle of the ancients,
the chaotic, inchoate state of matter before it is given form by the Creator .87 This
undoubtedly resembles the alchemical prima materia, implicated in the creation of a
homunculus. Making a golem involves reciting combinations of letters derived from
Sefer Yetzirah, or Book of Creation, which describes the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as
the key to all creation.88
84
Lachman, Gary: Homunculi, Golems, and Artificial Life; Theosophical Society in America, 2006; at:
http://www.theosophical.org/publications/questmagazine/janfeb06/Lachman/index.php
85
Gross, John: About the Arts; The Golem - As Medieval Hero, Frankenstein - Monster and Proto-
Computer; Sunday, New York Times, December 4, 1988; at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/04/arts/about-arts-golem-medieval-hero-frankenstein-monster-proto-
computer.html
86
Wikipedia, entry: Golem; at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem
87
Lachman, op. cit., html text
88
Looby, Robert: From the clay of the Kabala to the steel of Metropolis. The Golem Myth; December
2004; http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als/_the_golem_myth_film_literature.html
23
Having a golem servant was seen as the ultimate symbol of enlightenment, and there
are many tales of golems connected to prominent rabbis throughout the Middle Ages. The
Kabbalah teaches that only the virtuous can create in this way.89 “For the medieval
masters, the power to fashion a golem was a sign of spiritual perfection; they were
concerned with the act of creation itself, rather than its consequences.”90 As the golem
story evolved, golem became the symbol for the creation performed by the overambitious
and overreaching mystics, who would inevitably be punished for their blasphemy.
The most celebrated of all golem legends, that of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague.
Nifla'ot Maharal im ha-Golem (“The Miraculous Deeds of Rabbi Loew with the Golem”;
1909), which was published by Judith Rosenberg as an early manuscript but actually was
not written until after the blood libels of the 1890s. A historical figure, roughly
contemporary with Shakespeare, Rabbi Loew was said to have created a golem in order
to protect the Jews of Prague when they were threatened with violence and expulsion. His
success was followed by the archetypal story of the creator loosing control over his
creation, and as the golem went on a rampage, it had to be destroyed. Once again, the
“playing God” argument is invoked, and the message is simple. As Gross points out, it is
“a story with a double-edged moral. On the one hand the golem is the longed-for
champion of a defenseless people, triumphant testimony to the power of faith. On the
other hand he is a reminder that creation is God’s prerogative, not man’s, and that trying
to emulate God is a presumptuous and dangerous business.” 91 Gershom Scholem points
out that, in keeping with kabbalistic tradition, the golem always lacks some essential
human quality. In some versions it lacks the power to speak, emphasizing that the
magical power of words is reserved for God alone. In others it lacks intelligence or some
other positive human quality. Benjamin Lazier, commenting on Scholem, issues a similar
warning: “The legend has therefore served as a cautionary tale about the perils of the
creative impulse. For to create a golem is in some sense to compete with God’s own
creation of man. ‘In such an act,’ as Scholem well knew, ‘the creative power of man
enters into a relationship, whether of emulation or antagonism, with the creative power of
God.’”92
Homunculus
The term homunculus (Latin for “little man,” sometimes spelled “homonculus”) was

first used by the alchemist Theophrastus Aureolus Philippus Bombastus von Hohenheim,
better known by his assumed name Paracelsus, in Book 1 (Concerning the Generation of
Natural Things) of his 1537 treatise De natura rerum. This now-famous recipe for the
creation of homunculus reveals that this creature “becomes thencefold a true living
infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller.” 93
89
Ibid.
90
Gross, op. cit., html text
91
Ibid.
92
Lazier, Benjamin: God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the World Wars;
Princeton University Press, 2009; p. 192; Citation from Gershom Scholem: Tagebücher
93
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (translation): Paracelsus: Essential Readings; North Atlantic Books, 1999,;
tr. from Paracelsus: De natura rerum (1537); Book 1: Concerning the Generation of Natural Things, 14.2.,
24
Paracelsus believed such a creature would be small and transparent of body, but pure and
incorrupt in all its parts, and thus possessed of preternatural intelligence and an insight
into the workings of Nature that amounted almost to a second sight, ‘know[ing] all secret
and hidden matters’.”94 Apparently, the only “setback” to this creature would be its lack
of soul, due to its creation out of male semen, as Paracelsus believed only beings
produced through the union of male and female seed could posses one. This is similar to
the concept of golem, which always lacked some human feature. Paracelsus’ provides
explicit instructions for the little man’s creation: “Let the semen of a man putrefy by
itself in a sealed cucurbite with the highest putrefaction of venter equinus [a horse’s
womb] for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can
easily be seen. At this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but,
nevertheless, transparent and without a body … after this, it [is to] be every day
nourished and fed cautiously with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks
in the perpetual and equal heat of venter equines … Now, this is one of the greatest
secrets which God has revealed to mortal and fallible man. It is a miracle and a marvel of
God, an arcanum above all arcana, and deserves to be kept secret until the last of times,
when there shall be nothing hidden, but all things shall be manifest.”95
The reactions of the public to Paracelusus’ treatise were instantaneous. As Syverson
points out: “When the homunculus of Paracelsus became a major part of scientific
discourse, thinkers were alarmed by the lack of restraints upon a creature with no soul.
Athanasius Kircher in Mundus subterraneus denounced Paracelsus’ method as impious,
Henry More in his Enthusiasmus triumphatus called it ‘one of the latest sanctuaries for
the Atheist and the very prop of ancien Paganism’, Joanes Bickerus in Hermes redivivus
made incoherent claims about magnetic force attracting sorcery, and advocated prayer
instead.”96 The counter argument to these claims was that such a creature, having no
mother and father, would be exempt from the concept of original sin. This notion was
later also ascribed to Frankenstein’s Being. The idea was that a creature with no original
sin would perhaps be more virtuous that the typical sinful man. There is support for this
claim in Frankenstein, as the Being did in fact display benign and virtuous qualities at
first, later to be corrupted by his creator’s and the world’s reaction to him.
Paracelsus did little to alleviate the public’s concerns regarding the notions of
artificial creation and playing God. He in fact claimed that there was an inherent
difference in natural death caused by God, and mortification caused by man. “It is indeed
true whatever perishes by its own natural death, or whatever mortifies by Nature
according to its own predestination, God alone can resuscitate, or that it must be done by
His divine command. So whatever Nature consumes man cannot restore. But whatever
man destroys man can restore, and break again when restored. Beyond this man by his
condition has no power, and if anyone strove to do more he would be arrogating to
himself the power of God…”97 He further explains that there lay a difference in a man’s
p. 175
94
Syverson, op. cit., html text
95
Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 175
96
Syverson, op. cit., html text
97
Goodrick-Clarke, op. cit., p. 183
25
natural death, say by old age, and mortification impinged by other humans, in instances
such as a man being slaughtered in battle. In the latter case, resuscitation was possible
and did not interfere with the Divine Will. Such claims were rendered dubious as one
must wonder: is mortification “caused by men” anything other than the Will of God?
A variant method for creating a homunculus cited by other alchemists involved the
use of the mandrake (Mandragora officinarum), or more precisely its root, which can
grow into remarkably anthropomorphic forms. Moreover, there is mention of a third
method, cited by Dr. David Christianus at the University of Giessen during the 18th
century, involved an egg laid by a black hen, human semen and virgin parchment.
Interestingly, as Professor Florescu notes, during Dippel’s studies at the University of
Giessen, he was in fact a student of Professor Christianus.
[Paracelsus ~1493-1541] [Roots of mandragora officinarum]
The alchemical connection also occurs in Goethe’s rendition of Faust, Part 2 which
has the sorcerer’s former student, Wagner, create a homunculus, who then carries out
extended conversations with Mephistopheles.
Robots and Transhumanism
In the short stories that make up I, Robot, Asimov depicts robots growing in
sophistication and approaching ever nearer to humans in their consciousness. But the
robot never attains humanity, just as man never attains godhead.98 Indeed, a straight line
can be spied in these examples, since all artificially created life forms fail to attain true
humanity, and specifically, usually lack soul.
Out of robotics stemmed the modern day concept of Transhumanism 99, symbolized
as H+, which strives to the idea of “human enhancement” and is basically a scientific
98
Looby, op. cit., html text
99
Wikipedia, entry: Transhumanism; at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
26
upgrade of the alchemical pursuit of elixir vitae, the fountain of youth, and other means
of postponing ageing and death. In this, Transhumanism relies on biotechnology and
other cutting-edge emerging technologies. Transhumanists claim that Darwin’s
evolutionary theory made it plausible to believe the current version of humanity is not the
endpoint of evolution but rather a possibly quite early phase. There have been attempts to
classify Friedrich Nietzsche as a transhumanist predecessor due to his notion of the
“übermensch” – super human, although this is rather absurd, since his emphasis was on
self-actualization rather than technological transformation. There is a series of arguments
meant to contradict such “transhumanistic” violation against Nature, the first of which
was by no accident dubbed Hubris: playing God argument. Next, there ensues the
Dehumanisation: Frankenstein argument. Shelley’s novel is most often alluded to by
critics who suggest that biotechnologies could create objectified and socially-unmoored
people and subhumans. Such critics propose strict measures in order to timely amputate
what they render as dehumanizing possibilities, by altogether banning human genetic
engineering on an international level. A completely different perspective is taken by the
advocates of “personhood theory” who object to the “anthropomorphobia”. This concept
was first introduced by Isaac Asimov, calling it the “Frankenstein complex”. Initially it
was used to describe the fear of robots, predicting that the phobia against androids will be
widespread, but now refers to the entire area of genetically mutated creatures as well as
artificial intelligence. Personhood theory supporters argue that, provided they are self-
aware, human clones, human-animal mutants and enhanced animal organisms would all
be unique persons deserving of respect, dignity, rights and citizenship. Apparently, to
them, the ethical issue in question is not the creation of monsters but the way they will be
treated in society.100 Again, this reminds us of Frankenstein’s predicament and his failure
to love the Being of his making.
[Patricia Piccinini’s The

Young Family, 2002-3;
an attempt to address
the reality of such
possible
“parahumans” in a
compassionate way.
Transhumanists call for
the recognition of self-
aware parahumans
as persons.]
[Vladimir Demikhov (1916-1998), a pioneer in organ transplantation,

became most notoriously known for creating a cruel monstrosity in
1954. He surgically attached the head, shoulders, and front legs of a
puppy onto a mature dog. People were astonished, if not repulsed, to
see the animals lap up milk from bowls.]
100
See Glenn, Linda MacDonald: Biotechnology at the margins of personhood: an evolving legal
paradigm; Journal of Evolution and Technology, issue 13 (Oct.), 2003;
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/406/
27
§ The Method of Creation: from Alchemy to
Galvanism and Natural Philosophy
The method of the Being’s creation is never explicitly articulated. Victor
Frankenstein explains to Robert Walton the dangers of disclosing such a finding and no
further record is mentioned. There are however some hints, and as Victor recounts his life
to Walton, the reader can clearly see the inspirational course that has guided Victor to his
terrifying discovery.
When young Victor chances upon a work by the alchemist Cornelius Agrippa he
immediately becomes absorbed in it. “When I returned home my first care was to procure
the whole works of this author [Cornelius Agrippa], and afterwards of Paracelsus and
Albertus Magnus … Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest
diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter
soon obtained my undivided attention.”101 In the midst of his alchemical pursuits, Victor’s
next great wonder comes in the form of electricity, or more precisely a storm. He recalls
his boyhood memory: “on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and
beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the
dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted
stump. … . Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity.
On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited
by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the
subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me.” 102
Victor suffers a “miraculous change of inclination” and the “lords of his imagination”
quickly become overthrown. Several years later, his studies take him to the University of
Ingolstadt, where “the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction” leads him into the
exploration of natural philosophy and chemistry (the modern alchemy) and the scientific
claim natural philosophers had over “new and almost unlimited powers” and the
command over the “thunders of heaven”. In the 1818 version, the emphasis was on Victor
Frankenstein’s free will. However, in the 1831 version Shelley introduced the concept of
what Victor perceived to be the “evil influence”, once again reminiscent of Milton and
the idea that Satan had his say in the Fall of Man. Victor’s soul soon became engulfed in
the grandeur of notions such as pioneering new ways and penetrating the deepest secrets
of creation. He read and studied relentlessly, like an artist consumed and spurred only by
his work, developing a particular interest in the science of physiognomy. Quickly he
discerned that “to examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.” 103 As
he became acquainted with the science of anatomy, he realized that in order to delve into
the secrets of life and death, he must primarily understand the very progress of decay (in
this concept, he did not venture that far from the alchemists, bearing in mind Paracelsus
and his ideas regarding putrefaction), a painful pursuit that confined him to the murk of
vaults and charnel-houses. “I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I
101
Shelley, op. cit., pp. 26-27
102
Ibid., pp. 28-29
103
Ibid., p. 37
28
beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm
inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analysing all the
minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life,
until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me -- a light so brilliant
and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the
prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had
directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to
discover so astonishing a secret.” 104 At last, “on a dreary night in November” Victor’s
toils are proven “successful”.
Most movie renderings105 of the story attribute his success to the force of lightning,
which is most probably spurred by a scene in Chapter 7 when Victor encounters his
Being: “I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm increased
every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head. It was echoed
from Salêve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes,
illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant
everything seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the storm recovered itself from the
preceding flash.”106 The storm here is a setting from which the Being will emerge,
“discovered” by lightning: “A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its
shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous
than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy dæmon,
to whom I had given life.” 107 This connection between the lightning and the Being’s
appearance is especially emphasized by Philips who then concludes: “In a way, the film
versions of Frankenstein are right: the weather, with its frequent electrical storms, which
kept all indoors at the Villa Diodati in June 1816, led directly to the monster’s genesis.”108
104
Ibid., p. 38
105
The most famous adaptation of the story, 1931’s Frankenstein (produced by Universal Pictures &
directed by James Whale) which starred Boris Karloff as the Being focuses on electricity, although the first
film version from 1910 (Edison Studios; written & directed by J. Searle Dawley) featuring Augustus
Phillips as Frankenstein and Charles Ogle as the Being has Frankenstein chemically create his Being in a
vat.
106
107
Ibid.
108
Philips, op. cit., p. 63
29
[Boris Karloff in Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein] [Elsa Lanchestein in 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein,
the first sequel to Frankenstein]
§ The Creation of a Monstrosity

The theme of creation is highlighted by the many references to John Milton’s
Paradise Lost (1667). Shelley evokes Milton as her muse on the title page of
Frankenstein, where verses from Book X are quoted as an epigraph:
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?—
Paradise Lost
Milton was tremendously important for the Romantic poets, for his political stance as
well as the model of his writing. As far as Coleridge was concerned, he sat, with
Shakespeare, on “one of the two glory-smitten summits of the poetic mountain.” 109
“Milton!” William Wordsworth exclaims in his poem London, 1802, “thou shoulds’t be
living at this hour: / England hath need of thee” 110. However, the Romantics interpreted
Milton’s account of the biblical story of Genesis as a celebration of Satan – the rebellious
and Romantic “hero” who defies the power of God, but not as an embodiment of evil, but
as a victim of the tyrannical power of the establishment. This was clearly confirmed by
Percy Shelley who in his 1821 A Defense of Poetry asserts: “Nothing can exceed the
energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise Lost. It is a
mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the popular personification
of evil… Milton’s Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one who
perseveres in some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity
and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most
horrible revenge upon his enemy.” 111 Noticing that Books I and II of Paradise Lost are
rather more absorbing than Book III, William Blake ventured an even more provoking
thought in a note to his Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “The reason Milton wrote in fetters
when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was
a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” 112 Interestingly, it is the “voice
of the devil” in Blake’s work that argues this. However, the narrator of Paradise Lost
issues something of a warring against such interpretation of Satan, and tries to control the
readers’ response to his beguiling nature, as we read in Book I: “So spake th’ apostate
angel, though in pain, / Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep / despair;” 113. This is
especially emphasized by Professor Ian Johnston in his lectures on Milton, who furthers
to explain the “fettered” interpretation of God: “After all, any portrayal of God in a
human form, with an appearance and a speaking voice, is going to invite a evaluative
response. That is quite true, and that is probably the reason why the ancient Israelites
109
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: Biographia Literaria; 2004; at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6081, ch. 15
110
Wordsworth, William: Complete Poetical Works; Introduction by Morley, John; London: Macmillan and
Co., 1888.at: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww219.html
111
Shelley, Percy Bysshe: A Defense of Poetry, Part I; at: http://www.uni-
due.de/lyriktheorie/texte/1821_shelley.html
112
Blake, William: Marriage of Heaven and Hell; at: http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html
113
Luxon, Thomas H., Ed.: The Milton Reading Room; at: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton; Paradise
Lost, Book I:125-7
30
prohibited any depiction of God and made even his name unpronounceable. They insisted
that God is an eternally powerful mystery and must be accepted as such. For the same
reason, Dante gives no direct description of the Almighty, focusing instead on the
narrator’s reaction to approaching the presence of God. Both of these methods convey the
might and majesty of God without inviting us to judge Him. So if the character of God
becomes a problem in Paradise Lost, that happens because Milton treats him in a certain
way, first, by making him a character, and, second, by presenting him the way he
does.”114
In Frankenstein, Milton’s poem is one of the books the Being reads. Moreover, he
adopts language from the De Laceys’ reading of Paradise Lost, the syntax and diction of
which then become present in his own speech. He proclaims: “It moved every feeling of
wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was
capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to
my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence;
but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from
the hands of God a perfect creature, happy, and prosperous, guarded by, the especial care
of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a
superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan
as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my
protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.” 115 It is impossible for the wretched
Being to be anything but imperfect since his creator is in fact an imperfect one.
As Ty argues, the Being is caught between the states of innocence and evil. She
further explains Victor’s condition: “Victor Frankenstein, too, is at once God, as he is the
monster’s creator, but also like Adam, an innocent child, and like Satan, the rebellious
overreacher and vengeful fiend.”116 Satan’s desire to rebel against his creator stems from
his unwillingness to accept the fact he is a created being, and that he is not self-sufficient;
Satan tries to justify his rebellion by denying that the ultimate authority of God derives
from His being the author of Creation (according to Milton, God does not Create out of
nothing, but out of Himself), and thus Satan claims his self-creation, declaring the angels
“self-begot, self-rais’d”117, while he admits to himself this is not the case, and that God
“deservd [sic.] no such return from me, whom he created what I was.” 118 In view of this
defiance against God’s Creation and the inability to accept his own imperfect nature,
Satan essentially bears more resemblance to Victor than to the Being. Victor’s awareness
of this parallel is evident as he states: “All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and
like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.”119
Many scholars have argued that Victor’s “hell” derives not from the act of playing
God by creating another being, but from his lack of responsibility towards the Life he has
created, thus instigating the Being’s transformation from innocent to fiendish. Harold
Bloom asserts that “Frankenstein’s tragedy stems ... from his own moral error, his failure
114
Johnston, Ian: Lecture on Milton's Paradise Lost; [The text of lectures delivered, in part, in English 200
at Malaspina University-College in November 1998]; at:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Eng200/milton.html
115
116
117
Luxon, op. cit., V:860
118
Ibid., IV:41-2
119
31
to love. He abhorred his creature,
became terrified of it, and fled his
responsibilities”120
[Gustave Doré,
Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost; 1866]
The Being is rightfully

confused, he is deprived of mother
and father, deprived of his past and
deprived of any chances for having
a future, and for no fault of his
own. As Philip Allingham
explains, the Being “is not a fully
formed individual, but an
‘abortion’, a defilement of the
human form … The creature’s appearance immediately makes manifest his creator’s
violation of social norms, for the monster’s ugliness exemplifies his impurity”. 121 The fact
that the Being remains nameless is another testimony to Victor’s attempt to distance
himself from his creation. He is referred to as a “monster”, “fiend”, “dæmon”, “wretch”
and “it”. When Victor converses with him in Chapter 10, he addresses him as “Devil”,
“Vile insect”, “Abhorred monster”, “wretched devil” and “abhorred devil”. The word
“fiend” is used 24 times in the novel. The misconception that the Being’s name is
Frankenstein mainly arose from the screen renderings of the book. This is not entirely
erroneous, as the logic behind it is that in the absence of a proper name he would thus be
dubbed after his “father” and creator. Ty also acknowledges that many critics point out
that this name matter is due to the fact that the creature and his maker are doubles of one
another, or Doppelgängers. She indicates that “the conception of the divided self--the
idea that the civilized man or woman contains within a monstrous, destructive force--
emerges as the creature echoes both Frankenstein’s and narrator Robert Walton’s
loneliness: all three wish for a friend or companion. Frankenstein and his monster
alternately pursue and flee from one another. Like fragments of a mind in conflict with
itself, they represent polar opposites which are not reconciled, and which destroy each
other at the end.”122 Victor does, however, at some point realize that the responsibility for
the Being is his: “For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his
creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his
wickedness”123 but in effect fails to act accordingly.
The Being voices his plight: “Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so
hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and
alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even
120
Bloom, Harold: An excerpt from a study of Frankenstein: or, The New Prometheus; Partisan Review,
Vol. XXXII, No. 4, Fall, 1965, pp. 611-18. Reproduced in Literature Resource Center
121
Allingham, Philip V.: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” (1818) — A Summary of Modern Criticism;
Victorian Web; at: http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/mshelley/pva229.html
122
123
32
from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and
encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.”124 His need is essentially so human, that
the poignancy of his tragedy is even more so weighed upon the reader. Victor too feels
the same need for a companion, as he tells Walton: “I have longed for a friend; I have
sought one who would sympathize with and love me. Behold, on these desert seas I have
found such a one, but I fear I have gained him only to know his value and lose him.”125
The Being reaches the only logical conclusion – in order for another being not to
shun him, such a being must be “hideous” in the same way he is. He demands that Victor
help him, although his threat is more of a plea: “I demand a creature of another sex, but
as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall
content me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account
we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be
harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me
feel gratitude toward you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some
existing thing; do not deny me my request!” 126 Victor initially agrees but eventually his
“conscience” gets the better of him, as he grows terrified by the (Miltonian) prospect that
this female creature will be “ten thousand times more malignant” than her companion,
and that the two might produce “a race of devils”. Regretful, he exclaims: “Had I right,
for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? … I shuddered to
think future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy
its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.”127
Breaking his promise to the Being, Frankenstein disposes of the body parts he had
gathered to produce the female. Outraged and deprived of the notion that he will ever find
a companion, the Being declares “I will be with you on your wedding night!” 128
Abandoned anew, full of rage and utterly alone, the Being starts to take his revenge. Yet,
he does not stop his search for himself. When upon recollecting his reading of the
Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, the Being pronounces: “My person was hideous and
my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come?
What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to
solve them.”129 It is evident that this “artificially” created Being is troubled by the same
questions philosophers have been pondering upon for generations, the very same
questions each human individual broods over; and similarly, he is left with no answer. In
the 20th century, these reflections have been articulated in the form of existentialist
philosophy.
§ Conclusion: Sin, Redemption and Farewell

Notions of sin, redemption, life, death, imagination, loneliness and the importance and
value of the redemptive narrative itself – all resonate of the focal points in Samuel Taylor
Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1797-1798). A passage from the poem is
124
Ibid., p.112
125
Ibid., pp. 191-92
126
Ibid., p. 127
127
Ibid., pp. 146-47
128
Ibid., p. 149
129
Ibid., p. 111
33
quoted by Victor in Chapter 5 when, stricken by “fear and dread”, he anticipates the re-
appearance of the Being:
Like one who, on a lonely road,
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.130
An important imprint on Mary during her childhood time is undeniably the event of 1806
(when Mary was scarcely 9 years old) when she and Jane (she was still Jane at the time)
Clairmont hid under the parlor sofa to hear Coleridge recite The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. A parallel between the Mariner’s voyage and those of the protagonists of
Frankenstein is established at the very beginning of the novel when Walton accounts for
his travels: “I am going to unexplored regions, to “the land of mist and snow,” but I shall
kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to
you as worn and woeful as the “Ancient Mariner.” You will smile at my allusion, but I
will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm
for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of
modern poets.131
“Alone––alone––all––all––alone
Upon the wide, wide sea––
And God will not take pity on
My soul in agony!”132
These lines comprise one of Mary’s late journal entries; and as they speak of the state of
her inner self, they also voice the sufferings of many of her characters, most notably the
Being. Shelley’s “Mariner”, Robert Walton, mourns his isolated state and desperately
longs for a friend. Even more so, Victor not only shares Walton’s longing for a
sympathetic soul, but is reminiscent of the Mariner in suffering the loss of his dear ones:
for the Mariner these are his crew members, and for Victor his closest friend and his
bride. Additionally, his “lonely road” is also that of a ground breaking scientist, one who
has followed the footsteps of his predecessors up to a point, but who must solitarily
engage in the culmination of his voyage. But it is the Being who suffers the utmost pain
and misery of isolated existence. Near the end of the novel, he expounds his life to
Walton: “Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form,
would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was
nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me
beneath the meanest animal … the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that
enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” 133 His
misery is so severe that he receives no consolation and companionship, not even from
other fiends.
130
Ibid., p. 45 (quote from “The Rime of the Ancient Marinere”, VI:443-448)
131
Ibid., p. 9
132
Shelley, Journals, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 573
133
34
A subtext to the entire story, another theme resurfaces – that of sin. Like the Mariner,
Victor commits an intolerable crime against Life, and recoils from the Being whom he is
supposed to provide for with guidance and affection. Walton, in another parallel to the
Mariner, endangers not only his own life by pursuing his ideas of glory but also the lives
of his crew. Yet, although he feels some compassion for the wretched Being, Walton
does not hesitate to convict him for his “catalogue of sins”, yet laying no such claim over
Victor’s misdeeds. The Being requests: “Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all
humankind sinned against me?”134 Walton essentially fails to achieve an actual insight
into the Being’s soul and the path it was enforced to undertake, from essentially sinless to
remorsefully malignant. In view of the fate of Coleridge’s Mariner, it is important to
distinguish between Victor’s sin, witnessed in the lack of true empathy for any living
thing (aside from himself) and the failure to grasp another’s suffering, and that of the
Being – although his act of retribution is hateful and fatal, he never ceases to feel
empathy for the beings who have abhorred and violated him. The abhorrence he feels for
himself is unmatched, aware that his “heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and
sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the
violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine”.135
It seems that Coleridge principally adopts the Christian view of redemption. His
Mariner is given a “lifeline”, and his salvation consists of two key deeds. Chiefly, it is the
realization that even the most loathsome of creatures should not be robbed of love; deep
love for Creation stirs in his heart and whilst marveling at the beauty of things, he
unconsciously blesses the creatures that threaten him:
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware :
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.136
He achieves love for even the most intolerable creatures, products of the utmost
inhospitable offerings of Nature, the slimy sea serpents that encircled his ship, and thus
the curse of his life-in-death slowly subsides. Once his conscience has been woken up,
his duties shift towards the second stage of his salvation – he feels the burning urge to tell
his story to others and thus exceed the belief he had attained for himself, by conveying it
to others and educating by example.
The importance of the redemptive tale-telling in Frankenstein cannot be
overstressed. All three major characters are driven by this urge. The Being recounts his
miseries to anyone who would listen – at first to De Lacey, then to Victor, and finally to
Walton. He concludes that the ultimate resolve to his suffering can be found only in
death. With this, he bids his last farewell: “I shall die. … I shall no longer see the sun or
stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in
this condition must I find my happiness. … Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest
134
Ibid., p. 200
135
Ibid., p. 198
136
Coleridge, op. cit., IV:279-284
35
remorse, where can I find rest but in death? … Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last
of humankind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein!”137
[Death Rolling Dice;

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
1878 Gustave Doré Engraving]
With Victor, the redemptive tale-telling serves the clearest of purposes, and although
he initially invites his listener to share in the grandeur of his dreams, his final farewell
has all the seeming of a cautionary moral: “The forms of the beloved dead flit before me,
and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid
ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in
science and discoveries.”138 Consequently, Walton’s concern for his crew wins over his
ambition to seek the unexplored “region of beauty and light”. Although a mariner,
Walton’s purpose in the novel is that of Coleridge’s Wedding Guest, who ultimately turns
away “A sadder and a wiser man”.139 The ultimate tale-teller is Walton, who duly notes
all of these strange occurrences in his letters to his sister Margaret. As the reader
encounters the last sentence, “He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the
ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in
darkness and distance”140, the reader is left with an uneasy feeling of abrupt closure.
There is no account of what happens to the Being after he leaves Walton’s ship; there is
no account of Walton’s return and reunion with his sister or her perspective on the matter.
The reader is left with nothing but a blank page and an open mind. This perhaps serves to
accentuate that after redemption, there can be no judgment.
A specific bond of identity appears to be established through the tale-telling: the
listener recognizes the speaker’s experience as one that could have been his own, and in
that the listener perhaps recognizes himself as the speaker’s double i.e. Doppelgänger.
Creator and creation, listener and speaker, benevolence and malice, sin and redemption,
life and death, imagination and science – all of these profoundly intertwined opposites
serve to emphasize that creation and destruction are the inevitable counterparts of human
137
138
Ibid., p. 196
139
Coleridge, op. cit., VII:621
140
36
existence, but that the full scope of knowledge in understanding these poles, rests solely
in the hands of the all-loving, all-creating Supreme Being.
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou wedding-guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best,

All things both great and small:
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.141
§ List of References
 Aesop: Fables Aesop; Trans. Laura Gibbs; Oxford University Press, 2002
 Allingham, Philip V.: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (1818) — A Summary of
Modern Criticism; Victorian Web; at:
http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/mshelley/pva229.html
 Aynsley, E. E. & Campbell, W. A.: Johann Konrad Dippel, 1673–1734; PubMed
Central (PMC3 - NLM DTD), US; at: http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?
artid=1034731
141
Coleridge, op. cit., VII:607-614
37
 Benjamin Franklin in London, The Royal Society; at: www.royalsociety.org
 Bible, King James; Genesis, from The Holy Bible, King James version; Electronic
Text Center, University of Virginia Library; at:
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/KjvGene.html
 Blake, William: Marriage of Heaven and Hell; at:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html
 Bloom, Harold: An excerpt from a study of Frankenstein: or, The New Prometheus;
Partisan Review, Vol. XXXII, No. 4, Fall, 1965, pp. 611-18.
 Byron, George Gordon: Works; London: John Murray, 1832, at: http://www.poetry-
archive.com/b/prometheus.html
 Clement of Alexandria: Stromateis: Bks.1-3 (Fathers of the Church); The Catholic
University of America Press, 15 Dec 1992
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: Biographia Literaria; 2004; at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6081, ch15
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; revised version,
including addition of his marginal glosses, published in 1817; Electronic Text Center,
University of Virginia Library, 1994; at:
http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html
 Compact Oxford English Dictionary; online database; at:
http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk
 Elliott, Paul: “More Subtle than the Electric Aura”: Georgian Medical Electricity,
the Spirit of Animation and the Development of Erasmus Darwin’s Psychophysiology;
Medical History Journal; April 2008; 52(2): 195–220; at:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2329858
 Finger, Stanley: Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain
Function; Oxford University Press, USA, 2001.
 Finger, S., and Law, M. B.: Karl August Weinhold and his "science" in the era of
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Experiments on electricity and the restoration of life;
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; 53, 161-180; 1998.
 Florescu, Radu: In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring the Myths Behind Mary
Shelley's Monster; Parkwest Pubns, 1997.
 Fortson, Benjamin: Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction;
Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
 Galvanic Reanimation; at: www.corrosion-doctors.org
 Glenn, Linda MacDonald: Biotechnology at the margins of personhood: an
evolving legal paradigm; Journal of Evolution and Technology, issue 13 (Oct.), 2003;
at: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/406/
 Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (translation): Paracelsus: Essential Readings; North
Atlantic Books, 1999.
 Gross, John: About the Arts; The Golem - As Medieval Hero, Frankenstein - Monster
and Proto-Computer; Sunday, New York Times, December 4, 1988.
 Heraclitus, online article, at: http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/Heraclitus.htm
 Hite, Kenneth: Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast; “Frankenstein
Family Album”; Austin, Tex.: SJ Games, 2000.
38
 In search of the real Frankenstein [videorecording] / produced by Wild Dream

Films for the History Channel; produced & directed by Stuart Clarke; Burlington,
VT: A&E Television Networks; [New York, NY]: Distributed by New Video, c2008.
 Jörg, Heléne: Frankenstein Castle, Shelley and the Construction of a Myth; July 25th,
2008; at: http://www.renegadenation.de/darmstadt/frankensteinengl.html; based upon the
German article by Walter Scheele: “Burg Frankenstein, Shelley und die Konstruktion
eines Mythos”; pub. Feb. 2nd, 2008.
 Johnston, Ian: Lecture on Milton's Paradise Lost; [The text of lectures delivered, in
part, in English 200 at Malaspina University-College in November 1998]; at:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Eng200/milton.html
 Karbiener, Karen: Introduction and Notes to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”; Barnes
and Noble Classics, NY, 2003.
 Kochan, Mary: Sympathy for the Devil; March 27th, 2009; at:
http://catholicexchange.com/2009/03/27/115601/
 Lachman, Gary: Homunculi, Golems, and Artificial Life; Theosophical Society in
America; at:
http://www.theosophical.org/publications/questmagazine/janfeb06/Lachman/index.php
 Lattimore, Richmond, translation: The Odes of Pindar; University of Chicago
Press, 1947; at:
http://www.archive.org/stream/odesofpindar035276mbp/odesofpindar035276mbp_djvu.t
xt
 Lazier, Benjamin: God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between
the World Wars; Princeton University Press, 2009
 Looby, Robert: From the clay of the Kabala to the steel of Metropolis. The Golem
Myth; December 2004; at:
http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als/_the_golem_myth_film_literature.html
 Luxon, Thomas H., Ed.: The Milton Reading Room; at:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton
 Newgate Prison Archive; entry: GEORGE FOSTER, Executed at Newgate, 18th of
January, 1803, for the Murder of his Wife and Child, by drowning them in the
Paddington Canal; with a Curious Account of Galvanic Experiments on his Body; at:
http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng464.htm
 Newman, William R.: Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect
Nature; University of Chicago Press; 2004
 Partington, Stephen Derwent: Radu Florescu, In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring
the Myths behind Mary Shelley's Monster ; 1997; at:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/florescu.html
 Pilkington, Mark: Sparks of Life; The Guardian, Thursday 7 October 2004; at:
www.guardian.co.uk
 Phillips, Bill: Frankenstein and Mary Shelleys Wet Ungenial Summer; Universidad de
Barcelona; 28.2 (December 2006): 59–68; at:
www.atlantisjournal.org/Papers/28_2/BPhillips.pdf
 Simplicius: On Aristotle's Physics 5, (The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle);
Ithaca, New York; Cornell University Press, 1997.
39
 Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein; Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library,
1994; From the printed version: Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein; Henry Colburn and
Richard Bentley; London, 1831; with the 1818 Preface.
 Shelley, Mary: The Journals of Mary Shelley 1814-1844, Vol. I: 1814-1822 & Vol. II:
1822-1844; Eds. Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert; Oxford: Oxford UP; 1987.
 Shelley, Mary & Percy Bysshe: History of a Six Weeks’ Tour Through a Part of
France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, With Letters Descriptive of A Sail Round
the Lake of Geneva, and of The Glaciers of Chamouni; London: Published by T.
Hookham, Jun. Old Bond Street; And C. and J. Ollier, Welbeck Street; 1817.
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe: A Defense of Poetry, Part I; at: http://www.uni-
due.de/lyriktheorie/texte/1821_shelley.html
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe: On Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus; Thomas
Medwin; Athenaeum for 10 November 1832.
 Stinson, Mark: The Real Dr Frankenstein; Parapsychology Plus, American
Paranormal Investigations, Sacramento CA; May 28, 2007; at: http://www.ap-
investigations.com/Parapsychology_DrFrankenstein.html
 Stevenson, David A.: The Galvanisation of Matthew Clydesdale; 1998; at:
http://level2.phys.strath.ac.uk/ScienceOnStreets/galv05play.html#ref3
 Syverson, Valerie: ‘Artificial Life’ explained in historical perspective; at:
http://www.helium.com/items/163789-artificial-life-explained-in-historical-perspective
 The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Chronology; Romantic Circles; at:
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/mschronology/chronology.html
 Ty, Eleanor: “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley” [biographical essay]; Dictionary of
Literary Biography 116: British Romantic Novelists, 1789-1832; Ed. Bradford Mudge;
Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman; 1992, 311-325; at:
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/shelleybio.html
 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; various entries; at: www.wikipedia.org
 Williamson, George S.: The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic
Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche; Chicago, 2004.
 Wolf, Leonard: Introduction and Notes to Mary Shelley: Annotated Frankenstein;
Clarkson N. Potter, Inc, NY, 1977.
 Wordsworth, William: Complete Poetical Works; Introduction by Morley, John;
London: Macmillan and Co., 1888.at: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww219.html
40

Quest For Life: Imagination and Science in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Quest For Life: Imagination and Science in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Univerzitet u Beogradu

Filološki fakultet – Katedra za anglistiku

QUEST FOR LIFE: IMAGINATION AND

Diplomski master rad

Mentor: Dr Zoran Paunović

Student: Marija Gičić Puslojić

Beograd, 16. 09. 2009.

§ Mary Shelley’s Personal Investment.............................................................................4

§ Frankenstein ‘Creation Myth’, or, The Real Mad Scientist.....................................15

§ The Urge for Creation..................................................................................................22

§ The Method of Creation: from Alchemy to Galvanism and Natural Philosophy...28

§ The Creation of a Monstrosity.....................................................................................30

§ Conclusion: Sin, Redemption and Farewell...............................................................34

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1831)1

[William Blake “And God created Adam”, 1975]

§ Mary Shelley’s Personal Investment

[Mary Shelley 1797-1851] [William Godwin 1756-1836] [Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797]

Mary’s attachment to Percy led her through an array of melodramatic occurrences:

§ Spark of Life and the Implications of Death

“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1831)35

[Theodor Von Holst, Frontispiece to Frankenstein 1831]

§ The Prometheus Parallel

And Man in portions can foresee

- Lord Byron, Prometheus (1816)43

[Prometheus Bound, Jacob Jordaens, c. 1640]

§ Frankenstein ‘Creation Myth’, or, The Real

- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein54

caused to convulse in a lifelike manner by means of applying conductors to them. He

Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734) was a German Pietist, theologian, alchemist

[Johann Konrad Dippel 1673-1734]

It is perhaps most plausible to believe that Shelley had

[1940’s postcard rendering of Castle Frankenstein]

§ The Urge for Creation

The term homunculus (Latin for “little man,” sometimes spelled “homonculus”) was

[Paracelsus ~1493-1541] [Roots of mandragora officinarum]

Robots and Transhumanism

[Patricia Piccinini’s The

[Vladimir Demikhov (1916-1998), a pioneer in organ transplantation,

§ The Creation of a Monstrosity

The Being is rightfully

§ Conclusion: Sin, Redemption and Farewell

[Death Rolling Dice;

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

He prayeth best who loveth best,

 In search of the real Frankenstein [videorecording] / produced by Wild Dream

You might also like