Introduction to Frankenstein
or
How we got to the Romantic Era
In order to fully understand this era and how to
approach the novel, you need to understand that
Shelley’s world has recently transitioned from a
VERY different era known as…
Neoclassicism
aka
The Age of Reason
The Enlightenment
Definition
Neoclassicism is a literary movement of the 17th
and 18th centuries that stressed the importance of
using ancient Greek and Roman (the Classical
period) literature as a guide for creation and
criticism.
Hence, there is the paradox of the term: “neo,”
meaning “new” and classicism, meaning
“oldness.”
Come get the handout!
Neoclassical Dates
1660-1798
Skip to the Who’s Who part and add these
names: Jonathan Swift (who wrote Gulliver’s
Travels, Daniel Defoe (who wrote Robinson
Crusoe), Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson
(and all our Founding Fathers), Alexander Pope,
Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry
Romantic Era Characteristics
1798 – 1832
Who’s Who: William Wordsworth, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy
Bysshe and Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Jane
Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving
(the guy who wrote Rip Van
Winkle and the stories
about The Headless
Horseman & Ichabod Crane)
Neoclassical vs. Romantic
 Now, go to the chart on the bottom of the
handout, and see if you can make some
educated guesses about which are Neoclassical
characteristics and which are Romantic.
 Use the dates and who’s who, as well as what
you’ve read so far of Frankenstein, and “Kubla
Khan”
 We will go over the answers to these after
we’ve done some of the notes.
The Pendulum of Western
Literature
Literature in the Western world can be
thought of as swinging back and forth
between two artistic ideals: classicism,
which stresses following tradition and the
rules derived thereof, and anti-classicism
(or romanticism), which stresses originality
and breaking tradition.
Aesthetics of Identity vs.
Aesthetics of Opposition
This pendulum swing can also be thought in terms of the
aesthetics of identity versus the aesthetics of opposition.
Aesthetics is the study of beauty; in this case, beauty in
literature
The aesthetics of identity says that we find beauty in the
familiar; we like art that is like what we have seen before.
Thus, classicism is an aesthetics of identity.
The aesthetics of opposition says that we find beauty in
that which is new and different. That is the creed of the
romantic artist.
Types of Novels
 Gothic novel: exploits the
possibilities of mystery and
terror in gloomy landscapes, decaying mansions with
dark dungeons, secret passages, instruments of torture,
ghostly visitations, ghostly music behind which lurks
no one knows what as the central story, the
persecution of a beautiful maiden by an obsessed and
haggard villain. The real originator of English Gothic
novel was Horace Walpole, with his famous Castle of
Otranto (1764).
 Mary Shelley had obviously read this; she came from
a highly educated household and had 2 scholars as
parents.
These novels, which rebel against the increasing
commercialism and rationalism of the era, opened up
to later fiction the dark, irrational side of human
More Types of Novels
Epistolary novel: a type of novel in which
the narrative is carried on through a series
of letters. Samuel Richardson’s Pamela
(1740) and Clarissa Harlowe (1748) are
among the best known epistolary novels.
In the Romantic era, Bram Stoker’s Dracula
is an epistolary novel, which begins with
Jonathan Harker detailing the trip he’s about
to take to Transylvania.
The Transition of an Era: the PreRomantics
The pendulum begins its major swing to the other side…some of this
began around 1750, when Britain was launched on a course of rapid
industrialization w/the development of mills and factories belching
filth into the sky…families start moving to the cities and toil at
machines for 12-14 hours a day…
Writers and intellectuals began to lose faith in the ability of human
reason to solve every problem. The thinkers in this Age had looked to
science to make life better for humanity (see G. Travels, book 3), yet at
what cost comes this “progress”?
William Blake, Thomas Gray, and Robert Burns are the poets who
exemplify the transition from the formal, classical poetic styles of the
early 18th century to the more emotional manner of the romantic era.
Can you think of any other major western world events that are
indicative of changing philosophies?
Neoclassical Traits (go back to handout)
1. Emphasis upon objective reason and forethought;
2.
3.
4.
5.
logic; planning; strategy
Love of classical lit (the Greeks) and literary
forms
Controlled, restrained writing dealing
w/expected, typical, and familiar topics
Objects arranged in a balanced and symmetrical
pattern
Love of city and industry; the elite and educated
Romantic Traits
 Emphasis on subjective emotion and spontaneity
 Love of one’s own national literature and literary
forms
 Wild, exuberant writing dealing w/unexpected,
exotic, and foreign topics
 Objects contrasted with each other and/or arranged
asymmetrically
 Love of the country and nature; the peasant; the
pastoral and rural life in an idealized country setting
Now, let’s check those
charts…
Time to test your knowledge…
Neoclassical or Romantic?
Neoclassical or Romantic?
Neoclassical or Romantic?
Neoclassical or Romantic?
Neoclassical or Romantic?
Neoclassical or Romantic?
Now listen…
Romanticism (1798-1832)
A Movement Across the Arts
Definition
 Romanticism refers to a movement in art, literature, and
music during the 19th century.
 Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I”s
 Imagination
 Intuition
 Idealism
 Inspiration
 Individuality
Imagination
 Imagination was emphasized over “reason.”
 This was a backlash against the rationalism
characterized by the Neoclassical period or “Age of
Reason.”
 Imagination was considered necessary for creating
all art.
 British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it
“intellectual intuition.”
Intuition
 Romantics placed value on
“intuition,” or feeling and
instincts, over reason.
 Emotions were important
in Romantic art.
 British Romantic William
Wordsworth, in his preface
to the Lyrical Ballads,
described poetry as “the
spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings.”
Idealism
 Idealism is the concept that we can make the world a better
place.
 Idealism refers to any theory that emphasizes the spirit, the
mind, or language over matter – thought has a crucial role in
making the world the way it is. It is seeing the world as we
would like it, rather than as it actually is.
 Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, held that the mind
forces the world we perceive to take the shape of space-andtime.
Inspiration
 The Romantic artist,
musician, or writer, is an
“inspired creator” rather
than a “technical master.”
 What this means is “going
with the moment” or
being spontaneous, rather
than “getting it precise.”
Individuality
 Romantics celebrated the individual.
 During this time period, Women’s Rights and
Abolitionism were taking root as major
movements.
Origins
 Romanticism began to
take root as a movement
following the French
Revolution.
 The publication of Lyrical
Ballads by William
Wordsworth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge in 1798
is considered the
beginning of literary
Romanticism.
 “Emotions recollected in
tranquility” is another big
quote from that book’s
preface.
The Arts
 Romanticism was a movement across all the arts:
visual art, music, and literature.
 All of the arts embraced themes prevalent in the
Middle Ages: chivalry, courtly love. Literature and
art from this time depicted these themes. Music
(ballets and operas) illustrated these themes.
 Shakespeare came back into vogue.
Visual Arts: Examples
Romantic Art
Neoclassical Art
Music
 “Classical” musicians
included composers like
Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and Franz Josef
Haydn.
 Romantic musicians
included composers like
Frederic Chopin, Franz
Lizst, Pyotr Il’yich
Tchaikovsky, and Ludwig
von Beethoven
Music: Components
 1730-1820.
 1800-1910.
 Classical music
emphasized internal order
and balance.
 Romantic music
emphasized expression of
feelings.
QW: the Gothic Novel/Movie
 Let’s pretend you are making a
movie/writing a scary short story. List
specific ways you’d make it suspenseful,
creepy, and with an eerie mood.
 Get handout for Gothic Novels.
Mood Piece
 Ever play the game Taboo? Explain how that works!
 In a few minutes, you are going be in small groups (not of
your choosing) and will be picking a mysterious magical
mood card. It will have a word on it that you and your
partners will create a short story (one paragraph) around.
It must evoke that mood/atmosphere, but like the game
Taboo, you can’t say that word or any form of it in your
paragraph.
 After you’ve written your very neat final copy together,
you will read it to the class, and they will try to guess your
mood word. If you’ve done a good job, and every bit of
your story evokes that mood, they should be able to
guess. The final copy is a homework grade!
Frankenstein: The backstory

Mary Shelley (1797 to 1851) was the daughter of Mary Wollenstonecraft
(great feminist writer) and William Godwin (political philosopher) who
were a bit radical in that they were opposed to the principles of marriage,
and kept separate residences, but married for the sake of her upcoming
birth

Unfortunately, the mom died 11 days after Mary’s birth, so Godwin later
takes another wife, who has kids already, and so there’s this combined
household (including her mom’s child w/another man) and, well, it’s
complicated.
Brief Bio for Mary
Shelley
 She was free-thinking,
revolutionary, highly
educated, and from a very
literate household.
 Family has guests like
Coleridge (from whom she
drew inspiration—“Rime”),
Charles Lamb, and soon
Percy Bysshe Shelley. She
was “singularly bold,
somewhat imperious, and
active of mind. Her desire
of knowledge is great and
her perseverance in
everything she undertakes
almost invincible.” These
qualities plus her beauty
endeared her to Shelley.




Mary was almost 17 when Shelley
and his young wife Harriet were
frequent visitors to her family home.
He and Mary fell passionately in love
and eloped, which according to the
principles of free love they all except
Harriet believed in, was sanctified by
a higher law…Shelley thought this
was okay since he no longer loved his
wife whom he found far less
interesting that this beautiful child of
two famous radicals.
“Love should have absolute authority
in matters of conduct.” Yet still dad
wasn’t too happy with this, which is
why they eloped.
Shelley seems to have forgotten that
Harriet herself was 16 when he
married her three years ago. They
had a daughter and Harriet was
currently pregnant.
She drowns herself a few years later.
Mary Shelley
 By the age of 25, she has been
pregnant 4 times: two died in
infancy, one miscarried, one had
survived to adulthood. These events
plus her half-sister’s suicide and
Harriet’s death may account for the
preoccupation with the solemn terrors
of giving birth which form a central
motif of Frankenstein.
 Shelley himself dies at sea with two
companions in 1822 (in a storm; and
his body washed up on shore 11 days
later)
 It was burned on the beach, but the
heart didn’t burn; there were stories
of its being calcified. Shelley’s
friend, Trelawny, snatched it from the
flames and later gave it to Mary.
How the story was born
Frankenstein was written when she, her husband, some other friend,
and Lord Byron are hanging out at the Shelley home on Lake Geneva in
1816. They were looking for a diversion and so came up with the idea
of each trying his/her hand at writing a ghost story. Her idea was
encouraged by her husband to turn it into a full-length work.
The Romantic Hero
• Is a character of extremes
– often at odds with society b/c not interested in
authority or conformity. Scorns and defies it.
– Can be obsessive, brooding, dark, self-centered
– But is also bold, intuitive, idealistic; becomes
consumed with the desire for the “unattainable” &
longs for something MORE.
– Values emotion over rational thought
– Often lives excluded from society and is uneasy
w/those who represent the trappings of civilization
The Romantic Hero
• Is represented in the mythological character
Prometheus. Think about why this novel is
subtitled, “The Modern Prometheus.”
• Heaven-storming hero who is defiant against
Zeus’ rules regarding man, so represents the
ideas that:
– The Individual defies established order
– Each person must create a system by which to live;
individualism over absolutes.
Can you think of any Romantic Heroes in
literature, movies, or tv?