Romanticism

Romanticism

Shelley was greatly influenced by the Romantic movement, being married to Percy Shelley, and friends with Wordsworth and Coleridge etc
Romanticism was a move away from the scientific, natural way of writing that preceeded it - rejection of the Scientific Revolution
1. Romantics seeked to "capture and represent the sublime moment and experience" (Fite)
  1. Although Shelley does not use her own experiences in her novel, and not her own narrative voice, but through Frankenstein, searches for the sublime
    1. Frankenstein reflects a Romantic way of seeing, that through collective imagination, a new ideal of humanity can be gained, humans becoming perfect
      1. "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world"
      2. "many happy and excellent natures would owe their beings to me"
      3. "I might, in process of time...renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption"
2. Romantics sought to use the imagination to escape and transform, how the mind interacts with nature to create harmony
In terms of landscape, the comparison between Victor and the monster is stark - Victor living surrounded by rolling hills, very Romantic scenery
1. whereas creature and companion were both born in bleak surroundings, the Orkneys and the lab, estranged from humanity

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	Created by bookluvr over 11 years ago