¡Descarga Darkness & Knowledge in Shelley, Byron, & Mary Shelley's 1816 Geneva Summer y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura inglesa solo en Docsity! Crítica práctica de la Literatura Inglesa Geneva, summer of 1816 The works by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley inspired on the summer of 1816: influences and shared themes. “How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?”, this is what Mary Shelley frequently asked herself after her first novel, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, had been published and proved a big success. She then added, “I can scarcely accuse myself of a personal intrusion”. These reflexions, recalled in the Introduction of the 1831 edition of the work mentioned, express the relevance of the influences that she received during the production time of her masterpiece: the summer of 1816. Mary Godwin (later Shelley), her stepsister Claire Clairmont, John Polidori and the poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley met in Geneva that summer of weird climate conditions. The Swiss city, its dark landscapes, the stormy and mysterious weather created a very Gothic setting that propitiated the artists’ literary production. By that time, Mary was only 19 years old and lover of Shelley, whom will marry her later. Byron met both Mary and Shelley that summer for the first time and this experience was the beginning of a long lasting friendship with them. For sure, the affairs with Byron also went beyond simple friendship. The film Rowing in the wind portrays to perfection how was this interconnection amongst them and the liberal conception of love they all had: no rules, apparently no jealousy, no exclusiveness… We could say that their relationship was a love triangle. This reciprocal admiration was not merely affective but also in matters of art and literature. Mary Shelley revealed in his 1831 Introduction: “Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener”. These moments of common and aloud reflections at Geneva were the breeding ground of Mary’s Frankenstein, but that summer Shelley and Byron were also inspired to their poetic creation. The former composed Darkness and the latter wrote the first version of his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. What I aim in this paper is to analyse briefly these three works and to highlight two themes present in all of them (darkness and the exaltation of knowledge), evidencing the common environment in which they were borne and the influences that the authors performed amongst each other. 1 Crítica práctica de la Literatura Inglesa Darkness responds to the aesthetical concept of Gothic literature and “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein will be considered as a major influence in terms of how the Gothic novel evolved […] as a mode of expression” (Dodworth, 6). In Frankenstein, Darkness is expressed as a physical feature: stormy nights and lonely places. But also, we find darkness as the reality that makes possible the monster’s life on earth. When he narrates his lifestyle, he says “I generally rested during the day, and travelled only when I was secured by night from the view of man” (140). Darkness is his refuge; in fact, he takes advantage of the obscure point of view of the blind man in the cottage to try to insert himself in society. Ugliness and apparent wickedness has condemned him to a dark existence: “Who was I, What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? ...” (128). Byron in his poem narrates an apocalyptic dream in which each source of light is being extinguished; he describes a suddenly darkened world that causes people’s madness. As the monster in Frankenstein, no one desires to live in darkness and tend to escape from “her”… Darkness represents fatality and condemnation; light is happiness and hope: “happy were those who dwelt within the eyes of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch” (“Darkness” 16). But again, light is not a mere physical reality. In the three works that we are considering here, light is a symbol that refers to Knowledge. As the happy men in Byron’s poem, the monster also had his source of light that caused great admiration to him. While hidden in his dark hovel, he spent his time looking to the illuminated cottage and acquiring fascinating knowledge: “while I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters, as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight” (119). This is a Platonic interpretation of the concept of wisdom (symbolized by the sun) and these scenes of the monster, enslaved by darkness and captivated by the shades of knowledge and freedom, really reminds us to the myth of the cave. All this considerations are perfectly synthesized in the following verses of Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty: Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came, 2
