Gothic Novel: Dark Exploration of Terror & Human Condition - Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', Apuntes de Literatura inglesa

¡Descarga Gothic Novel: Dark Exploration of Terror & Human Condition - Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura inglesa solo en Docsity! 2. The gothic novel Mary Shelley and Percy B. Shelley: life and works. Analysis of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: 1. Origins of the novel and influences (Bible and Milton) 2. Type of narration 3. Female/Feminist reading: Shelley's biography 4. Other topics: the overreacher, nature, monstruosity, etc. It emerges a post medieval fiction about terror, similar to Romanticism in the term that it origins as a reaction against 18th century, against rationality. Gothic origins on the inspiration of old tales and the graveyard poets (They used topics as the impossibility of immortality, the return of the deads... Setting in graveyards.“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”: poem written by Thomas Gray).It wants to enter in the taboo and explore our dark self (nonsocial).There’s no mystery about terror in the present but in the past there was. It wants to produce a physical response of fear. Emphasis on fantasy and the supernatural. It is not simply fantasy, there’s a combination between real life and fantasy to make it more realistic and possible in reality (blends ordinary life and supernatural). There’s an interest for exotic placesand gothic architecture.Medieval times and exotic settings (Italy, Spain…). Main traits • Sense of mystery and terror (secret passages, old mansions, inexplicable events, deaths, ghosts, dreams…) •Mystery, secret: something unknown which provokes terror. • Supernatural phenomena. • Ancient prophecies, threatening inhabitants, a porter of coming events. Anticipate for shadows. Future tragedy. Supernatural and inexplicable events. • Subversion, transgression • Dark sexual desires (young women persecuted, sexual tension, satisfaction of sexual desires) • Human’s unconscious/ dark side, perverse instincts • Fantasy of liberation (women → dominated by men in family; the state and the church) • Women in distress typical plot. The have to endure terrible events in their lives. • Chaos, the unknown • Gloomy castles, mansions with dungeons. Main Gothic writers (women): Mary Shelley and Ann Radcliffe. It is a fictional release of the writer.In Gothic novels there’s usually a woman in distress who is often trapped by a villain and suffers physical responses: they faint, cry, scream... They are virginal and innocent but usually morally superior to their captors. Sometimes they can even show sexual tension with their captors. unrequited love is usual; it is not explicit but implicit. Happy ending: the girl marries the boy she loves and defeats the captor, as a kind of compensantion for all they had to suffer.The heroines of her novels show how reader and writer feel (oppressed, against the patriarchal order). Young woman becomes morally empowered (they can’t be empowered in real life). There’s also a reader attraction to these stories (sexual attraction to the villain). You dream of a dark dangerous man who rescues you from the ordinary life. Main writers: - Horace Walpole (Castle of otranto) - Ann Radcliffe, the queen of terror (The mysteries of udolpho, The italian) - Matthew Lewis (The monk) - Charles Robert Maturin (Melmoth the wanderer) Ann Radcliffe (queen of terror) got the popularity of founder of the gothic. Typical plot: Young beautiful girls as victims of the figure of the villain. Moral strength of this young woman. They are defiant and prevail over the power of the male villain. They are empowered by their moral superiority. Ann defends terror, it makes you reach the sublimeand expands the self. She also describes wild and dangerous landscapes as places to reach the sublime. The author is inspired by the paintings of Salvatore Rosa. Mary Shelley and Percy B. Shelley Percy was a radical and a non-conformist. He came from an aristocratic family and was sent toOxford university. He became aware of the how opressive the world could be after being beaten by older boys because he was not athletic. Then he starts to fight against injustice and opression. He’ll publish a panflet “necessity of atheism” (not approved by his father and Oxford university), in which he writes about his dislike for social political order. He meets Harriet and they start wandering around Europe. They are against marriage intitution because they consider it tyrannical but they end up marrying each other. The move to London, where Percy meets William Godwin and becomes his disciple. They both support French revolution and protest against British conservatism, also believe in a regenerative future (from unjustice to justice). Mary Godwin had glorious parents (William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, first feminist). Her mother dies after Mary’s childbirth, when she was younger she had an affair with a man and got pregnant.They have an illegitimate daughter Fanny Imlaybut the man abandones her and she wants to suicide. Finally, she marries Godwin and gives birth to Mary. When Mary meets Percy they fall in love, Mary gets pregnant (married man and teenage woman). They both escape to France with Claire (Mary’s sister) Harriet (non exlusive love). Mary’s baby dies and Harriet’s lives. Mary suffers a terrible depression. In 1816 there’s no summer in Geneva so they stay at home while they read and write. The people at home are Mary Godwin (pregnant again), Percy, claire, lord Byron and John Polidory. There’s an affair between Claire and Lord Byron (pregnant). This literary circle get together to tell ghost stories and write them. In 1816, Harriet commits suicide when she discovers she’s pregnant by an affair. Mary becomes a Shelley and Percy is denied his children (accused of inmorality). Only six years of marriage concludes with the death of Percy. Fanny discovers William Godwin is not her father and suicides. Byron sends Claire to a convent where she gives birth to a death baby and Byron abandones her. There’s a dispute between Mary and Percy because the first is angry with Byron and the second supports her.After Percy’s death, Mary becomes succesful and wealthy because of Frankenstein, and she publishes Percy’s Works. She is appreciate by the literary sphere and finally she dies. Her only son marries but he doesn’t continue with the writing legacy. Works of Percy Shelley at first attacked by victorians and later admired by victorians. He writes for the extinguision of tyranny, in his opinión poetry can change the world. The poet wants an improve in society. Poetry is the highest expression of imagination, it can liberate human soul. Poetry tells the truth, defines beauty, it can influence philosophy. Poetry can replace the failure of French revolution. He is influenced by Greek mithology, philosophy, tragedy… Reading of Milton “Paradise lost”. Believes in empirical philosophers.