Mary Shelley

11/14/2018

Weekly Readings: Weeks Ending in 10/21, 10/28, 11/4, and 11/11

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So, it’s been a bit since I’ve updated the weekly readings. I’ve been reading quite a bit, I just have a really big post that needs to go up Sunday, so I’ve been occupied with research for that.

But right now, let’s run some blades.

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10/31/2018

Back to Basics: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

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Happy Halloween, everyone!

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheusis a classic of Science Fiction, Gothic Horror, and Romantic literature (but not romantic literature, of course). It is also very different from the story you probably know. First published in 1818, Frankenstein was always popular, though it took some time for critical opinion to catch up– there was a particularly scathing review of the book in The British Critic that ended by saying “The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.” The review derided the book for the grotesque nature of its “disjointed combinations and unnatural adventures”, and expressing just how horrifying the book is, object to the wicked and immoral actions of its protagonist.

Of course, that’s the entire point, but they seem to have missed that.

Today, we’re going to go over the content, context, and themes of the book, and how they have grown into what we know of the story today.

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02/14/2018

Five Romantic Poems for Valentine’s Day

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When it comes to Romance and Romantic poetry, I’m a bit of an Aestheticist. And so were they for that matter; Percy Shelley and John Keats were basically proto-Aestheticists, the Gothic revival was mostly for the aesthetic, and then of course there’s George “the template for countless Sad Vampire Protagonists” Gordon, Lord Byron who–

Oh, you’re looking for romance. Well, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Little-“r” romance and capital-“R” Romance don’t really have much to do with each other at first glance, but they aren’t incompatible. The Romantics– and by that I mean the British Romantics, I know there were Romantic periods in other countries’ literary canons but that’s for another day– put great importance in big, complicated emotions like horror and awe and wonder. Poems like “Tintern Abbey” and “Ode to the West Wind” are typical of the reverence and contemplation upon the natural world that was emblematic of the era. Many of the Romantics were also Classicists, influenced by the cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome. …Mostly by way of Ovid, but The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is suitably Homeric, and Prometheus Unbound was based on plays by Aeschylus. There was also a touch of mysticism and personal mythology, particularly with William Blake. We’re not going into Blake. This time.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the Romantics, was the writer who defined poetry as “the best words in their best order”. John Keating, as portrayed by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, was the one who said that poetry was invented to woo women. As long as there is literature, in whatever form it decides to take (the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to philosophers, historians, a songwriter, and Winston Churchill), there will be people writing love poetry, no matter what the era is. We can use these poems to examine Romantisism through a romantic lens and see how it compares to the more traditional love poetry that people are used to, because as much as I love Shakespeare, he does not hold the monopoly on love poetry. To quote a contemporary poet, “Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs”.

After all, what’s more Romantic than tying the carcass of a dead bird around your neck to symbolize the burden of your greatest mistake while you watch all your friends die?More →