Appunti su "Frankenstein" (prof Dellarosa), Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Appunti su "Frankenstein" (prof Dellarosa) e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! 1 APPUNTI DI LETTERATURA INGLESE 3, DELLAROSA Presentation of the course (pp) How to Read your Syllabus: Dublin Descriptors The Dublin Descriptors are the cycle descriptors (or “level descriptors”) presented in 2003 and adopted in 2005 as the Qualifications Framework of the European Higher Education Area. They offer generic statements of typical expectations of achievements and abilities associated with awards that represent the end of each of a Bologna cycle or level. The descriptors are phrased in terms of competence levels, not learning outcomes, and they enable to distinguish in a broad and general manner between the different cycles. A level descriptor includes the following five components:  knowledge and understanding;  applying knowledge and understanding;  making judgements;  communication;  lifelong learning skills. What the Bologna Process is and why it is needed What we will deal with 2 As conferences, academic studies and university courses worldwide celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of “Frankenstein”’s publication with different initiatives, this module joins the community by exploring the enduring significance of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a seminal text in English literary culture. Shelley’s fascinating novel, alongside its various cross-medial adaptations over time, has had a deep and lasting impact owing to its extraordinary richness and complexity, as it raises crucial questions regarding education, science, ethics and politics, which are still conspicuous at the present time. The module will engage in literary and theatre studies, race and colonial discourses, as well as human rights and refugee studies, as a testimony to the astonishing range of possible critical perspectives that the Frankenstein macrotext invites, and will include a special theatre seminar and focus on film adaptations and recent related TV series. A linguistic introduction to narrative An approach to narratology (pp + app) The definitions we will give are taken from “The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms” (Oxford: OUP, 2004) by Chris Baldick. He is also the author of “In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-century Writing”, a monographic study on “Frankenstein”. Narratology. This term is used since 1969 to denote the branch of literary study devoted to the analysis of NARRATIVES, and more specifically of forms of narration and varieties of NARRATOR. In short, narratology studies how fictional texts work. Narratology as a modern theory is associated chiefly with European (French) STRUCTURALISM, but it started with Russian FORMALISM. Older studies of narrative forms and devices, as far back as Aristotle's “Poetics” (4th century BCE), can also be regarded as narratological works. Modern narratology may be dated from Vladimir Propp's “Morphology of the Folktale” (1928), with its theory of narrative FUNCTIONS. Anachrony. This term is used in modern NARRATOLOGY to denote a discrepancy between the order in which events of the STORY occur and the order in which they are presented to us in the PLOT. Anachronies take two basic forms: 'flashback' or *ANALEPSIS, and 'flashforward' or *PROLEPSIS. In medias res. This Latin phrase meaning 'into the middle of things' is applied to the common technique of storytelling by which the NARRATOR begins the story at some exciting point in the middle of the action, thereby gaining the reader's interest before explaining preceding events by ANALEPSES ('flashbacks') at some later stage. It was conventional to begin EPIC poems in medias res, as Milton does in Paradise Lost. The technique is also common in plays and in prose 5 Hypo (meta)-diegesis. This is a lower level (below diegesis and extra-diegesis) constituted by an EMBEDDED tale-within-the-tale. Story. In the everyday sense, it indicates any NARRATIVE or tale recounting a series of events. In modern NARRATOLOGY, however, the term refers more specifically to the full sequence of (imagined) events as we assume (imagine) them to have occurred (taken place) in their 'natural' order, likely (probabile) duration, and frequency. Thus the story is the abstractly conceived (hypothetical) 'raw material' (sequence) of events which we reconstruct from the actual arrangement of a narrative or dramatic PLOT (intreccio), from this finished product (the plot). The story includes events preceding and otherwise omitted from the perceived action, and its sequence will differ from that of the plot if the action begins IN MEDIAS RES or otherwise involves an ANACHRONY. As an abstraction, the story can be translated into other languages and media (e.g. film) more successfully than the style of the NARRATION could be. Plot. It is the pattern of events and situations in a narrative or dramatic work, as selected and arranged both to emphasize relationships usually of cause and effect-between incidents and to elicit a particular kind of interest in the reader or audience, such as surprise or suspense. In short, a plot is a particular selection and (re-)ordering of events (the selected version of events) as presented to the reader or audience in a certain order and duration. Although in a loose sense the term commonly refers to that sequence of chief events which can be summarized from a story or play, modern criticism often makes a stricter distinction between the plot of a work and its STORY. The critical discussion of plots originates in Aristotle's “Poetics” (4th century BCE), in which his term 'mythos' corresponds roughly with our 'plot'. Aristotle saw plot as more than just the arrangement of incidents: he assigned to plot the most important function in a drama, as a governing principle of development and coherence to which other elements (including character) must be subordinated. He insisted that a plot should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that its events should form a coherent whole. Plots vary in form from the fully integrated or 'tightly knit' to the loosely EPISODIC. In general, though, most plots will trace some process of change in which characters are caught up in a developing conflict that is finally resolved. The modern distinction between plot and story derived from RUSSIAN FORMALISM and its opposed terms SJUZET (= plot) and FABULA (= story). A story is a series of events recorded in their chronological order (chronologically arranged). 6 A plot does not respect the chronological sequence: the same set of events presented in the story are deliberately arranged (summarized, anticipated, postponed...) in the novel. Indeed, the plot is based on a gap between the events and how they are ordered in the novel (it is the level of architecture of events in the form we find in the novel). Excerpt from “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (pp) “Tradition is a matter of [wide] significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense […] and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.” This excerpt was written in 1919 by the modernist poet T.S. Eliot. He meditates on the writer’s relationship with his work of art and with the body of tradition. By “tradition” we mean that all works of literature interact with each other forming a coherent work (tradition). The balance of this tradition can change if a work of art changes! According to T.S. Eliot you can only access tradition by means of your “historical sense” which “involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence”. This means that every work of art has a link with past and present time. Historical background (also in Italian) The historical context is between the lines of a text by means of the rhetorical structure. The Romantic period Some key-words Betty T. Bennett is a scholar who has suggested some key-words in relation to Romanticism. Among these 1. changes: Romanticism was an era of revolutions in all history and cultural production 2. nationalism: the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was a republican uprising against British rule of Ireland; 3. empire and slavery; 7 4. warfare: between 1793 and 1815, there was a war between Britain and France. After this war (1816), France came to light. Writers felt part of the context around them. Jane Austen, for example, was aware of what was happening in the world (elaborated events of the historical context) as well as Mary Shelly who absorbed the atmosphere of the period (→ evidence of the readings she was doing in this period). Indeed, the unusual circumstance of two parents whose works voiced and influenced the reformist politics of an age of political, social, and technological revolution developed in MWS from childhood a keen awareness of the socio- political issues of her era. Her introduction to the 1831 edition of “Frankenstein” provides a picture of her precocity and her early awareness of her parents’ literary significance: It is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity, I should very early in life have thought of writing. As a child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime, during the hours given me for recreation, was to ‘write stories’. To this heritage, Mary Godwin’s stepmother, with whom she had a difficult and strained relationship, none the less provided another untraditional role model as an occasional author and as proprietor of the family publishing firm, M. J. Godwin & Co. In addition, the Godwins’many friends and acquaintances included a spectrum of important authors, scientists, and political reformers of the day, who brought to the home a world of ideas and a level of discourse that few girls (or boys, for that matter) would have experienced. Some, like S. T. Coleridge and Charles and Mary Lamb, strongly influenced Mary Shelley’s works; 5. revolutions: ✓ the American (precursor of French revolution) and the French revolutions (1765-1783,1789- 1799), the first one leading to the “Declaration of Independence”. Romanticism is often associated with these two historical events. The events of the French revolution impacted on the cultural atmosphere and political debate of that time. Following “French terror”, there was “British terror” with gag laws (leggi bavaglio) which limited the freedom of opinion. Other “restricting” reforms (another key word) would lead to reactions. For example, at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, the “Peterloo Massacre” occured: cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation, to ask for their rights (democracy as a key-word). Following this protest (another key-word) Shelley, who was in Italy, wrote “The Masque of Anarchy”. This was a political poem against what had happened in Manchester; ✓ the Carribean revolution. It was a successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign nation of Haiti. It began on 22 August 1791 and ended in 1804 with the former colony's independence. It was the only slave uprising that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery, and ruled by non-whites and former captives. Revolution: the language of monstrosity (pp + app) 10 This treaty proposes that the pursuit of knowledge should be the primary aim of the individual; and that there should be no limits on freedom of thought and expression of the individual. Freedom had to be guaranteed, but this was taken from granted in that period. Godwin states his belief that crime and moral failings derive from poor thinking and reasoning – thus they can be corrected and should not be punished. Godwin believes these measures would ultimately have a fundamental impact both on the individual and on society at large, and that eventually the institutions of government would become redundant. However, the idea that an individual should not be submitted (sottoposto) to State power was a utopian vision. Godwin states that the promise as a concept is morally unsustainable, so marriage is inevitably an unrealisable goal, and thus an injustice. In the 1790s, Godwin’s treaty had become the incendiary text most identified with British radicalism – its combination of commitment to austere justice, passionate denunciation of economic inequality and idealist faith in the withering away of unjust institutions through rational enlightenment, permeated public debates in the revolutionary decades and made Godwin’s name notorious. Godwin’s philosophy of perfectibility envisioned (immaginava) doing away not only with the state but with SEXUAL REPRODUCTION, perhaps even all sexuality and mortality, as he described in the famous section on “Of Health, and the Prolongation of Human Life”: “The men . . . who exist when the earth shall refuse itself to a more extended population, will cease to propagate (riprodursi), for they will no longer have any motive, either of error or duty, to induce them. In addition to this they will perhaps be immortal. The whole will be a race of men, and not of children. Generation will not succeed generation, nor will truth have in a certain degree to recommence her career at the end of every thirty years. There will be no war, no crimes, no administration of justice as it is called, and no government.” In this excerpt, Godwin is devising (concepisce) a new (non-human) world (a future society) where human reason will develop to such an extent that it will be sufficient to itself. So, men will be immortal without the need of reproduction (they also will able to do without State). This is not “conventional” because human beings are the result of a sexual intercourse. For this reason, we can consider Godwin’s project as a utopia: he is bringing to the extreme the idea that men’s rationality is sufficient to itself. Godwin was the target of the antirevolutionary party. All these political attacks made much of (diedero troppo importanza a) the idea of the “monster revolution”. In his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (essay of 1790), Burke offers a set of images that has shaped the reception of “Frankenstein”’s political value. He denounces armed insurrection as a pernicious monster, set free by experimenters and reformers. He pointedly warns that military democracy is “a species of political monster, which has always ended by devouring 11 those who have produced it.” Here he is hinting at (allude a) the French revolutionary process which will devour those who have produced it. Indeed, it was a common idea of the time that a creation could turn to be DESTRUCTIVE. For Burke, even resurrected monsters and the prophetic dead are animated by external forces, “radical and intrinsic” evil. He uses a Gothic symbolism of transmigrating spirits to suggest the new, unexpected shapes rebellion can assume once it begins its rampages. As history moves forward he suggests, the spirit of evil invades new bodies and works in new ways. Now, during the French Revolution, “vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates, and, far from losing its principle of life by the change of its appearance it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigour of a juvenile activity. It walks abroad; it continues its ravages; whilst you are gibbeting the carcass, or demolishing the tomb.” In his lurid “Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism” (1797), Abbé Barruel sets out to expose the secret conspiracies he sees lurking behind the French Revolution. He uncovers a vast, proliferating cabal, which originates with the Illuminati (*) in Ingolstadt (where Victor Frankenstein studied), and descends downward through the Freemasons, the philosophes, the Jacobins, and finally reaches the revolutionary crowds in the streets. He depicts the Jacobins and the revolutionary crowds as a monster incarnate (personificazione di un mostro). This monster is an offspring (il prodotto) of the Illuminati, whose reforming philosophies have brought it into being. Here Barruel is reinforcing the idea of revolution as a monster and he is locating the origins of revolution in the secret society of Ingolstadt (the Illuminati). At the end of his third volume, Barruel looks forward to his fourth with an ominous warning to the reader: “Meanwhile, before Satan shall exultingly enjoy this triumphant spectacle [of complete anarchy] which the Illuminizing Code is preparing, let us examine how . . . it engendered that 12 disastrous monster called Jacobin, raging uncontrolled, and almost unopposed, in these days of horror and devastation.” The engendering of the “Jacobin monster” suggested in this POWERFUL QUOTATION can be compared to that of “the monster” in the secret theatre (sala operatoria) of Victor’s room. This underlines that there is a connection between the writings on the revolution and the waking of Frankenstein. The international conspiracy theory here takes the form of a sexual or parenting metaphor. The secret code of the Illuminati has “engendered” a “monster called Jacobin”, who now rages out of control across Europe. Barruel makes extensive use of the parent-child metaphor. He writes: “the French Revolution has been a true child of its parent Sect; its crimes have been its filial duty; those black deeds and atrocious acts the natural consequences of the principles and systems that gave it birth.” The symbolic projection of external causes and external agents could hardly be more extreme. Without the parent philosophical sect, there would be no childlike monster arising to terrorize Europe. Without the secret conspiracy of the Illuminati at Ingolstadt, there purportedly would have been no French Revolution, either. For Barruel reforming philosophies lead directly and inevitably to the production of rebellious monsters. (*)The Order of the Illuminati, a secret society whose name means “Enlightened Ones”, was founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830), a former Jesuit and professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt. Specific knowledge about the society is scarce. The Order of the Illuminati was established with some unspecified ties to the Masonic lodges of Germany; as a secret society within a secret society, the Illuminati have produced at least as many myths as verifiable facts. The sympathies and beliefs of Weishaupt himself, for instance, have been claimed by countless groups -- atheists, Cabalists, rationalists, democrats, socialists, anarchists. Some trace the Illuminati back to the Knights Templar, to Gnostic cults, to ancient Egypt, and even to Atlantis. In the 1790s, some credited (or blamed) the society with manipulating the American and French Revolutions. It is not strictly necessary to disentangle fact from fiction, since the influence of the Order was greater in legend than in fact. But several things can be stated about the Illuminati with some degree of certainty. The two central figures in the organization were Weishaupt and Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwid Baron Von Knigge. The members of the Illuminati are known to have favored free-thinking and radical politics, and were often alleged to have ties with Jacobins (Weishaupt and the Illuminati are discussed in Abbé Barruel’s “History of Jacobinism”, which Mary Shelley is known to have read in October 1814). The Order promoted a belief in deism and a doctrine of spiritual perfection: the society was in fact first known as the Order of Perfectibilists. At their height, the Illuminati claimed over two thousand members, not only in Germany but in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Italy, including Goethe, Herder, and many other prominent nobles and reformers. But the Bavarian government cracked 15 To understand this passage, we should remember that: 1. poems in 1798 were conceived as experiment in form (→ new way of producing poetry); 2. the idea of the sublime spread with a treatise written by Burke who was an intellectual, but also an antirevolutionary (conservative). In his “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, he suggested that the sublime produces an overwhelming sense of awe or other high emotion (fear...) through being vast or grand; 3. Robert Browning was a Victorian poet; 4. the slogan “make it new” underlines that Pound’s idea of poetry as an experiment. Another matter which has to do with time is the difference between ➢ event. It is something which happens in a precise moment like the “Storming (presa) of the Bastille”; ➢ process. It is a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes which precedes the event (i.e. the Industrial revolution). The literary genres During Romanticism, different literary genres spread. We should remember: 1. the gothic poetry; 2. the gothic novel. It started with Horace Walpole’s “Castle of Otranto”; 3. the gothic drama; So, the word “gothic” has a variety of possible meanings and configurations. The most important poets The marbel “Big Six” refers to 1. William Blake, the author of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 2. William Wordsworth, famous for The Prelude 3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner 16 4. George Gordon, Lord Byron, the writer of Don Juan 5. Percy Bysshe Shelley, known for Ozymandias 6. John Keats, rememered for Ode on a Grecian Urn They are the six figures who contributed to the Romantic movement of late 18th-19th century England. Critics divided them into two groups: ☺ the first generation: it includes Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge. They all died old; ☺ the second generation: it includes Byron, Shelley, Keats and Hunt. They all left England, visited Italy, and died prematurely. We should remember Hunt also because he insulted the king. For this reaso, he went to prison and there he created an intellectual community. However, there is still debate on whether the first generation includes old poets ant the second one includes the younger authors. Another key figure of Romanticism is Joanna Baillie. According to Byron, she was the most important dramatist. Her works include “Plays on the Passions” (three volumes, 1798-1812) and “Fugitive Verses” (1840). British Theatrical Culture, 1760s-1830s The Georgian era is a period of British history, which includes the reigns of the Kings of the House of Hanover: George I, George II, George III, and George IV (succeeded), thus covering the period from 1714 to 1830, and including the sub-period of the Regency (lived by Jane Austen), defined by the Regency of George IV as Prince of Wales during the illness of his father George III (1811-20). Often, the short reign of King William IV (1830 to 1837) is also included. Thus, the Georgian theatre dates back to the 1760s-1830s. Between the late 18th century and the early 19th century, Romantic dramatic production changed. The term “play” was used to refer to 1. the dramatic text; 2. the theatrical spectacle: it was very rich. With the reopening of theatre, the age of theatregoers began. The development of theatres was accompanied by an intense print culture. Indeed, theatres bought the publications of the texts to be performed. As public events (communal experiences), theatres could influence the public opinion. Spectacles usually began at 6.30 p.m. and lasted until midnight. This shows that theatre was becoming an entertainment industry (important in the lives of 18th-19th people). The use of lighting during spectacles could provoke fires because theatres usually had a wooden structure. Censorship The Licensing Act or Theatrical Licensing Act of 21 June 1737 controlled the production of plays. It was a landmark act of censorship of the British stage and one of the most determining factors in the development of Georgian drama and theatre. The Act established that the Lord Chamberlain 17 had the power to APPROVE any play before it was staged (if a play was fine or not for stage representation). The Licensing Act of 1737 tightened censorship of drama, placing it under the control of the Lord Chamberlain. The Licensing Act of 1737 instituted a system of censorship in Great Britain demanding that all plays be reviewed by the Lord Chamberlain before they could be licensed for public performance. The initial reading of a submitted play was left to an Examiner of Plays; the Lord Chamberlain himself only became involved if the Examiner detected some objectionable content requiring review and opinion. The Licensing Act of 1737 tightened censorship of drama, placing it under the control of the Lord Chamberlain. were censored Only patent theatres – known as legitimate (or licensed) theatre – were able to perform drama, including spoken drama (tragedies and comedies). Non-patent theatres could not access legitimate drama, but they had other theatrical forms. For example, they performed melodrama, pantomime, ballet, and other forms of mainly visual spectacle. As these involved music or musical interludes (transgressed the boundaries of sexuality, politics...), they could not be classed as plays (included in precise genres) and were regarded as illegitimate theatre. Later, a series of royal patents were granted to cities outside London. These became known as “Theatres Royal”. Many still operate and were built in a restrained neo-classical style. In 1835, a law abolished (ended) the distinction (partition) between legitimate (way in which institutions worked) and illegitimate theatre (way in which British theatrical culture was organized). Legitimate theatre (Adapted from: J. Moody, “Illegitimate Theatre in London, 1770-1840”) In 1662 King Charles II granted patents to his courtier playwrights Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, which permitted the performance of ‘tragedies, comedies, plays, operas, music, scenes and all other entertainments of the stage’. The King’s gift of patents, together with the permission to build ‘two theatres with all convenient rooms and other necessities thereunto appertaining’ brought about the rise of permanent London theatrical institutions, later identified with Drury Lane (1663) and Covent Garden (1732). Hence, Drury Lane and Covent Garden were the first patent (or licensed) theatres: differently from the illegitimate theatre, they had the royal license to perform all spectacles. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a theatre in the West End area of London, officially situated on Catherine Street, but backing onto Drury Lane just to the east of Covent Garden. A cockpit in that location was converted into a theatre during the reign of James I (after the reopening of theatres). After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a splendid new theatre was built to designs by Christopher Wren. Having been razed by fire on January 25, 1672, it was succeeded by a bigger 20 horses could do. Astley’s was renowned for its equestrian (hippo) dramas, which it continued to produce until its destruction in 1895. The huge size of the stage space meant that it could produce (the stage was a fit space to produce) huge military extravaganzas (typical of Romanticism) with hundreds of soldiers, horses and cannons. When Lord Sanger and his brother took over the Amphitheatre, in 1871, they moved the style of performance towards a more zoological style. One production featured not only several hundred humans in the cast but fifty-two horses, fifteen elephants, two lions on leads, kangaroos, pelicans, reindeer, chamois and many more animals. Built in 1806 opposite Adam Street by merchant John Scott as the Sans Pareil to showcase his daughter's theatrical talents, the theatre was given a new facade and redecorated in 1814. It reopened on 18 October 1819 as the Adelphi, named after the imposing complex of West London streets built by the brothers Robert (1728-92) and James (1730-94) Adam from 1768. The name "Adelphoi" in Greek simply means "the brothers." Among the celebrated actors who appeared on its stage was the comedian Charles Matthews (1776-1835). His work was so admired by young Charles Dickens (Victorian novelist with a relation to theatre): at the writer’s time, Adelphi had already become famous. It had more "tone" than the other minor theatres because its patrons in the main were the salaried clerks of barristers and solicitors. Theatrical genres “Romantic theater was an exciting dramatic laboratory in which playwrights experimented with a wealth of new forms and technologies.” Forms and technologies were almost the same for legitimate and illegitimate theatre (the partition between these two kinds of theatre was fluid). ‘Legitimate’ (‘spoken’) drama: tragedy, comedy of manners. ‘Illegitimate’ (‘mixed’) drama: (1) comic pantomime, (2) melodrama, (3) ‘burletta’, (4) harlequinade, (5) ‘extravaganza’, (6) nautical drama, (7) hippodrama. These theatrical genres proliferated in the 18th century. They accompanied the development of ‘illegitimate’ theatre. (1) The pantomime can refer to an ancient dramatic performance featuring a solo dancer and a narrative chorus; any of various dramatic or dancing performances in which a story is told by expressive bodily or facial movements of the performers; a British theatrical entertainment of the Christmas season based on a nursery tale and featuring topical songs, tableaux, and dances; a conveyance of a story by bodily or facial movements especially in drama or dance / the art or genre of conveying a story by bodily movements only (a spectacle which involves all the body, but in a silent form). A 'pantomime' in Ancient Greece was originally a group who 'imitates all' (panto- - all, mimos - imitator) accompanied by sung narrative and instrumental music, often played on the flute. The 21 word later came to be applied to the performance itself. The pantomime was a popular form of entertainment (genre) in ancient Greece and, later, Rome. British Pantomime or "Panto" as it is known in the UK, has its origins in the traditions of the Italian "Commedia dell’ Arte”, a type of travelling street entertainment which came from Italy in the 16th century. Commedia was a very physical type of theatre that used dance, music, tumbling, acrobatics and buffoonery. Commedia dell'arte troupes had a repertoire of stories that they performed in fairgrounds and market places. Often the touring troupes were made up of family members who would inherit their characters, costumes, masks and stories from their parents or grandparents. Commedia spread across Europe from Italy to France: by the middle of the 17th century itinerant actors (of “Commedia dell’Arte”) brought the pantomime in Britain (indeed, theatrical forms from different places were readapted). The Commedia dell’Arte characters first began to appear in English plays around 1660. And such was the success of Commedia in England that intense rivalry soon sprang up between the theatres producing it. Within two days of a new performance opening at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1716, a show with an almost identical title opened at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. The tradition of pantomimes in Britain is a long one (the pantomime has a long history), being first introduced as an adaptation of the ‘commedia dell’arte’ performed in continental Europe. At first they were largely visual pieces but gradually became comedic and musical with the development of the slapstick harlequinade. The harlequinade revolves around five central characters, Harlequin, his love Columbine, her father Pantaloon, Clown and Pierrot, a servant. In “Harlequin and Mother Goose; or, The Golden Egg”, by Thomas Dibdin and Charles Farley (Covent Garden, 26 Dec., 1806) Colin is in love with Collinette, who, at the order of her guardian, is about to marry the hideous Squire. On their wedding day the Squire orders that Mother Goose, a local woman, be dunked for witchcraft. Colin defends Mother Goose from the Squire and in return she grants him a goose which lays a solid gold egg. With this the characters transform into their harlequinade equivalents, Colin becomes Harlequin, Collinette; Columbine and Squire the Clown. The plot becomes a quest for the two young lovers to marry. The most famous heroes of the comic pantomime were Harlequin and Grimaldi, both of Italian origins. Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) was the most celebrated of (the greatest) English clowns. Grimaldi's performances made the Clown character the central character in British harlequinades (he was the hero of countless harlequinades). As a pantomime clown Grimaldi’ s greatest success was “Harlequin and Mother Goose; or the Golden Egg” at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1806 and often revived). When he died, he was buried in a little park (“Grimaldi park”) close to the British Library where people put fresh flowers every day. 22 The Holy Trinity Church (North-East London) celebrates Grimaldi Memorial Service on 1st February. In this occasion, clowns from all over the world gather and have a “service” in honour of Grimaldi and other dead clowns. Grimaldi Memorabilia is a small museum in honour of Grimaldi. (2) “Melodrama” is different from Italian “melodramma”: its equivalent in English is “opera” (genre entirely sung) Melodrama became popular from the 1780s to 1790s (towards the end of the 19th century) and lasted until the early 20th century. The first drama in Britain to be labelled a melodrama was “A Tale of Mystery in 1802” by Thomas Holcroft. Thanks to him, melodrama arrived in Britain from France. Melodrama is a mixed form of drama: it is a “spoken play” consisting of short scenes (words) interspersed with musical accompaniment. Because of these musical interludes melodrama was not considered a 'play' and thus evaded the monopoly of the patent theatres stipulated in the Licensing Act. These songs made melodrama illegitimate. They served as narrative links. Melodrama is highly rethorical. It is characterized by simple morality, good and evil characters (clearly discernible) and overblown acting style. Characters in melodrama were stereotypical (frozen in precise positions)- there was always a villain, a wronged maiden and a hero. These preconceived roles lead to consider that “melodrama” was a reactionary form. The villain was always punished because these plays offered a pre-established morality (reestablishment of social order). The villain could be a Black man: at this time the Emancipation act was enforced (historical phenomena shaped a wider pattern). The emotions of the actors were played out in the music and accompanied by dramatic tableaux. For example, “The Negro of Wapping” (1838) is a melodramatic tableau related to slavery (recently abolished). Of course, “The Negro” is the villain, characterized by rotating eyes 25 The wonderful excitement of theatregoing in early nineteenth-century London: the hyperbolic typography of playbills hurriedly posted on walls or jostling for space in shop windows [Moody, Illegitimate Theatre in London, 1] Parry was a painter and a musician. Here he represents a poster man who is putting a poster on a wall. This wall is already covered with layers of posters which convey the theatrical richness of the time. In the background (sullo sfondo), we can see Saint Paul Cathedral. On the left, a chimneysweeper (spazzacamini) is stealing the an kerchief of a man who is talking to a policeman: this is a Dickens like image. Children were usually chosen as chimneysweepers because they were little. They often died in doing their job. 26 Here, we perceive the sadness of the chimneysweeper. This detail conveys the world of human life. A woman is reviving the fire. This detail conveys the world of human life. 27 On the wall, there is a poster regarding the representation of “The Last Days of Pompeii” at Astley’s amphitheatre. “The Last Days of Pompeii” is an adaptation of Bulwer’s novel about Pompeii. In England, this town was known because of archaeological discoveries. Moreover, the English ambassador in Naples was a pioneering geologist. 30 Shelley [née Godwin], Mary Wollstonecraft (1797–1851) wanted to be called “MWS” (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley). She was born at 29 The Polygon, Somers Town, London, on 30 August 1797. She was the daughter of two intellectuals. Her father was the radical philosopher William Godwin (1756–1836) who wrote a famous work on politics (“An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness”). Her mother, instead, was Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), a key figure in the revolutionary debate on women’s rights (author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”). Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever eleven days after Mary Godwin was born, and William Godwin undertook to raise their daughter as well as Fanny Godwin (1794–1816), Wollstonecraft’s ILLEGITIMATE (→ Wollstonecraft was not married) daughter with Gilbert Imlay (1754–1828). Mary Jane Vial Clairmont (1768–1841), whom Godwin married in 1801, brought her two illegitimate children to the family: Charles Gaulis Clairmont (1795–1850) and Clara Mary Jane (Claire) Clairmont (1798–1879). At that time, this was not “normal” in terms of social acceptability (today it is). M.J.V.C. and William Godwin had a son together: the birth of William Godwin jun. (1803–1832) brought to five the siblings who 31 were partially, or by law, related. Presided over by John Opie’s portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft that hung in Godwin’s study, this unconventional family, in which political idealism and financial distress were part of daily life, brought Mary Godwin an early apprenticeship in the largely unorthodox path she followed throughout her life. MWS’s education as a child included attendance at a dame-school and a spell of seven months in 1811 at Miss Caroline Petman's school for the daughters of dissenters at Ramsgate, where she had been sent for sea-bathing to treat an infected arm. Unquestionably, however, she received her most important education at home. William Godwin set a high intellectual standard for the household, encouraging the children's aptitudes and imaginations, and instilling in Mary Godwin confidence in her own power and responsibility to effect change as an activist in a society in transition. Under his tutelage, she achieved a solid foundation in history (ancient and modern), mythology, literature, and the Bible; visiting instructors provided art and French lessons. She also studied Latin, an uncommon subject for girls, and attended adult theatre and lectures with her father and family. Mary Godwin adopted her father's deism, which she blended with a poetic pantheism. She also adopted his daily discipline of spending each morning in writing and study, and throughout the course of her life she continued to study widely and in depth. She was fluent in Italian and French, acquired Latin and Greek, and some Spanish. In 1811 William Godwin described his daughter as “singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great and her perseverance in everything she undertakes, almost invincible.” He also commented that she was 'very pretty'. Mary Godwin's contribution of a summary sketch for “Monsieur Nongtongpaw”, a comic poem published by M. J. Godwin & Co. in 1809 and often reprinted, demonstrates her precocious intellect, as does Aaron Burr's report of her 1812 “lecture”, 'The influence of governments on the character of a people', orated by her brother (Burr, 1.307). Her father's opinion regarding her appearance was confirmed by most observers, who often noted her hazel eyes, light auburn hair, high forehead, and exceptionally fair complexion. R. Easton's posthumous miniature portrait (Bodleian) captures her younger appearance; R. Rothwell's 1840 portrait (National Portrait Gallery), her more mature. In June 1812 Mary Godwin was sent to the home of William Baxter, one of Godwin's political admirers, again to treat her infected arm. On 10 November 1812 she and Christina Baxter arrived at the Godwins for a seven-month sojourn in London, and on the next day, Mary Godwin met Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) and his wife, Harriet. She had had two children out of marriage: Charles and Ianthe. In March 1814 Mary Godwin's stay with the Baxters in Dundee ended, and she returned home. In the interval, P. B. Shelley's intellectual pursuits as well as his commitment to provide Godwin with desperately needed financial assistance, had gained him the interest and admiration of the entire Godwin household. In early May, Mary Godwin encountered P. B. Shelley once again, and the pair, often meeting at Wollstonecraft's graveside in St Pancras churchyard, fell in love. Mary 32 Shelley later described that period of her life as 'careless, fearless youth' (Journals of Mary Shelley, 2.443) and P. B. Shelley praised her for 'The irresi[s]tible wildness & sublimity of her feelings' (Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1.402). They found in each other ideal mates: she, almost seventeen, Godwin's and Wollstonecraft's 'Child of love and light' (P. B. Shelley, Revolt of Islam, I.i.9), eager to study and write; he, five years older, already a published poet, and her parents' ardent disciple. William Godwin failed in his attempts to convince both his daughter and P. B. Shelley to end the relationship, no doubt in part because of the very arguments against legal marriage advanced in his own and in Wollstonecraft's works. At 5 a.m. on the morning of 28 July, Mary Godwin, accompanied by her stepsister Claire Clairmont, met with P. B. Shelley at a waiting coach, and, with very little money, eloped (fuggirono insieme) to the continent. This marked the beginning of the couple’s extraordinary life together, which Mary Godwin described as 'very political as well as poetical' (Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1.29), a hectic and passionate amalgam of love, study (→ relation based on intellectualism), creativity, social defiance, and financial skirmishes, which periodically caused her considerable distress. But she recognized her own affinity with that lifestyle, musing that 'The soul only enjoys' serenity 'in passing' but it 'constrains' the imagination 'too much, so that it always comes back to the state it finds more suitable, a state of agitation' (Journals of Mary Shelley, 2.514). While on their unconventional walking tour through war-torn Europe during the lull between Napoleon's first and final defeat, Mary Godwin and P. B. Shelley kept a daily journal, which soon became principally hers, and which she continued to keep until 1844. Mary Shelley's revision of the elopement journal, along with four 1816 letters and P. B. Shelley's poem 'Mont Blanc', was published anonymously as History of a Six Weeks' Tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany (1817). It formed a narrative of the Romantic feelings and observations about nature, social mores, and politics. The elopement journey was the first of their many travels and collaborations, in which they encouraged and inspired each other's writing, at times worked on the same projects, and pursued their iconoclastic lifestyle. Mary Godwin was already pregnant when the elopers, penniless, returned to England in September 1814 and met with almost universal disapproval from family and friends. It was only later, after the loss of P. B. Shelley's protection and wealth, that she was painfully brought to the full realization of the effects of the severe and enduring societal censure placed on her as a result of what she termed 'the outset of my life' (Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 3.92). The death of his grandfather in 1815 brought P. B. Shelley an annual income of £1000, which ended the couple's acute financial difficulties. From August 1815 until April 1816 P. B. Shelley and Mary Godwin made their home at Bishopgate, in Windsor Great Park, which later served as a setting for her third novel, “The Last Man” (1826). In January 1816 Mary Godwin gave birth to their son William, all the more rejoiced in, as the couple’s first daughter (Clara), born in London on 22 February 1815, had died twelve days later. After their stay in Geneva, the Shelleys returned to England in 1816. They first took lodgings in Bath to prevent William and Mary Jane Godwin from learning that Claire Clairmont was 35 Last Man”, which had been published as “by the author of 'Frankenstein'”. Despite his power over her, Mary Shelley over the years found a number of ways to circumvent his restriction just as she persistently negotiated for additional funds as Percy Florence's educational needs increased. Over the next two decades Mary Shelley published several dozen reviews, short-stories, and poems, as well as some of P. B. Shelley's works, in prominent London journals and the then popular annuals. 36 Although Mary Shelley at times found wanted comfort and companionship in male and female friendships, she never formed another relationship that approached the one she had shared with P. B. Shelley. She rejected offers of marriage from Payne and Edward John Trelawny, expressed interest in Washington Irving, and appears to have formed an intimacy with Aubrey Beauclerk, a Liberal MP, which ended in disappointment. As she wrote, 'I have always felt certain that I should never again change my name—& that is a comfort, it a pretty & a dear one' (Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 2.204). Always pressed for funds, Mary Shelley moved frequently, residing mainly in the area of greater London, but from 1833 until 1836 at Harrow on the Hill, in order for Percy Florence Shelley to attend Harrow School. Later, she would see that he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, as well, fulfilling P. B. Shelley's and her own educational aspirations for their son. Despite her own financial restrictions, she habitually aided her father, her widowed stepmother, and many others in her circle. 37 Focus on the novel Presentation of “Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus” “Frankenstein” is a gothic (horror) fiction which has stepped outside the boundaries of the novel. For example, it is related to contemporary science. Some years ago, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) press published the “Frankenstein book”, an edition of “Frankenstein” for scientists. (pp)” It appeals to both novice and expert readers alike (= speaks directly to us) and is a work that remains highly relevant to contemporary issues. Thus it is perhaps no surprise that (according to the Open Syllabus project) Frankenstein is the most frequently taught work of literature in college English courses […]. It is certainly one of the most read British novels in the world. 40 Notwithstanding (nonostante) these numerous popular interpretations and adaptations of “Frankenstein”, the novel and Mary Shelley's other texts are increasingly the focus of scholarly interest and literary investigation. As a result, large numbers of readers have come to appreciate the complexities of the original novel that Mary Shelley referred to as her 'defence of Polypheme' (Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1.91). Mary Shelley's international significance was demonstrated in 1997, as bicentennial conferences and exhibits in Australia, the United States, and Europe celebrating her birth explored the meaning of her works and her philosophy. All these recent initiatives (+ essays + interpretations of the novel) show that “Frankenstein” is a text which speaks to anybody across time and space. FOCUS ON “FRANKENSTEII N”’’ S CROSS MEDII AL ADAPTATII ONS Significantly, from the beginning (fin da subito), the novel had a reception in terms of exploitation of spectacular qualities. “Frankenstein”’s adaptations represent a world of art. They spread during the Victorian and the Romantic age (→ tendency to experimentation). Each adaptation is a new layer which is added to the adaptation of the text (“Frankenstein”). Each layer works on the previous one and distances the readers from the novel. (pp) Pre-Karloffian dramatizations played an important role in disseminating popular conceptions -- and misconceptions -- of Mary Shelley's novel, from the incipient gothic melodramas such as Peake's “Presumption”, Henry M. Milner's “The Demon of Switzerland” (1823) and “The Man and the Monster” (1826), and Merle and Antony's “Le Monstre et le magician” (1826) to their burlesque counterparts – “Humgumption; or, Dr. Frankenstein and the Hobgoblin of Hoxton”, “Presumption and the Blue Demon”, and “Frankin-Steam; or, The Modern Promise to Pay” -- through political burlesque in the form of William and Robert Brough's “Frankenstein; or, The Model Man” (1849), the musical comedy of Richard Butler and Henry Chance Newton's “Frankenstein; or, The Vampires Victim” (1887), the farce of Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard's “The Last Laugh” (1915), and finally Peggy Webling's drawing room (domestic) melodrama “Frankenstein: An Adventure in the Macabre” (1927). [Steven Earl Forry, “Dramatizations of Frankenstein, 1821-1986: A Comprehensive List”] This list shows that various genres were experimented by the author in adapting “Frankenstein”. “Frankenstein”’s stage adaptations make use of music, lighting as well as atmospheric and landscape details (typical of gothic novels) in order to achieve highly (estremamente) spectacular levels. Indeed, the star system (equal to current cinema) developed over these years. “Presumption” is the first theatrical adaptation/dramatic rendering/dramatization of “Frankenstein”. In it, (plot) Peake portrays the story of Frankenstein as creates a mute blue-skinned Creature, known 41 as the Hobgoblin. Neither Clerval nor Fritz try to stop Frankenstein in the midst of his work, even though they show concern for his welfare. The creation of the Creature happens off stage, during which the audience hears Victor Frankenstein cry 'it lives!', and then run on stage as his creation breaks out of the laboratory and reveals itself to the audience. Frankenstein draws a sword and points it at the Creature, who promptly snatches it and breaks it in two. Throwing Victor Frankenstein to the floor, the Creature runs up the staircase and exits the building through a window. In the end Frankenstein destroys the Creature by firing upon it with a pistol, but he triggers an avalanche which kills both of them. “Presumption” is a short (gothic) melodrama (→ illegitimate theatre): it consists of 3 acts. This play (theatrical text) is characterized by comic touches and it has a spectacular allure (it makes you want to know the end of the story). It is a reshuffle (riorganizzazione) of the novel which implies different changes: 1. the creature cannot speak. This silence preserves the creature’s complex nature/emotional element. As a PANTOMIMIC FIGURE, it conveys its natural kindness/emotional world/feelings/sense perceptions through gestures (action) combined with music. The creature’s dramatic values reside in its movements (described in stage directions): action is what matters for a mute character (we can imagine the action which will take place). Shortly, “Presumption” rests on the POWER OF THE VISUAL [Music. The Demon discovered at door entrance in smoke, which evaporates – the red flame continues visible. The Demon advances forward, breaks through the balustrade or railing of gallery immediately facing the door of laboratory, jumps on the table beneath, and from thence leaps on the stage, stands in attitude before Frankenstein, who had started up in terror; they gaze for a moment at each other. FRANK. The demon corpse to which I have given life! Music. – The Demon looks at Frankenstein most intently, approaches him with gestures of conciliation. Frankenstein retreats, the Demon pursuing him. Its unearthly ugliness renders it too horrible for human eyes! [The Demon approaches him.] Fiend! do not dare approach me – avaunt, or dread the fierce vengeance of my arm wrecked on your miserable head – Music. – Frankenstein takes the sword from the nail, points with it at the Demon, who snatches the sword, snaps it in two and throws it on stage. The Demon then seizes Frankenstein – loud thunder heard – throws him violently on the floor, ascends the staircase, opens the large window, and disappears through the casement. Frankenstein remains motionless on the ground. – Thunder and lightning until the drop falls.] doing without the creature’s rhetoric (language). Instead, in the novel, the creature is endowed with articulate sounds [volume 1, book 4: “(the creature) muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out.”; volume 2, book 2: “All men hate the wretched; 42 how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us”]. This ironical reverse is due to the need of adapting the original elements; 2. some characters are added. The major ones are: Fritz (servant of Frankenstein); Madame Ninon (wife to Fritz), Hammerpan (a tinker); a guide; gipsies (Tanskin...), Peasants, Choristers, and Dancers; 3. some relationships (connections) between the characters are new/some characters survive in a new shape/some characters are recombined (only the connection between Safie and Felix is preserved): Elizabeth is Victor’s sister (not cousin) and she is connected to the De Laceys’ family; Clerval is still Victor’s friend, but he is going to marry (the boyfriend of) Elizabeth (complex issue); Victor is in love with Agatha (he has never met in the novel because she lived in a world he could not access). Peake extracts/evokes(riprende) the LOVE INTEREST of the novel’s because it is a complex issue which also works in theatrical spectacles (was an asset of melodrama). Although he increases the number of love stories (multiplication of couples was common in comedies), Peake essentialises (simplifies) the development of the plot (→ easier dramatic development). Indeed, the plot does not involve the psychological complexity (psychic workings) of the novel (we can expect Victor reflecting but not brooding over his presumption of going beyond human limits); 4. in the novel, the episode of the creature saving the little girl (after the tragic episode of the De Laceys) was an added element which concluded the daemon’s dejection (scoramento). Instead, in the play, the original episode is transformed into a major event (act 2, scene 5) involving a central character. Indeed, the creature saves Agatha although she was horrified by its appearance (this gesture proves the creature’s natural kindness); 5. Peake does not use embedded narratives because they would have determined a flat succession of voices (the embedded narratives would not have worked). He revolutionizes the structure of the novel also because he mixes “Frankenstein”’s narrative levels/brings together the characters of “Frankenstein”’s different narrative levels/reshapes the narrative parts (levels) into a new form (in his play, it is important that “Frankenstein”’s levels of narration are independent - though connected - to each other). In “Frankenstein”, Safie lives through (exists only in) the creature’s voice/narrative/recollection: she inhabits its world and not that of Victor (Victor has never met Safie and the De Laceys, but he learnt about them from the creature’s story). Instead, in “Presumption”, Safie jumps out from (the level of) the creature’s story to Victor’s story/Safie is embedded in Victor’s account. This implies that the creature’s recollection and Victor’s account are connected; 45 (Theatre Royal, English Opera House, Strand Monday, July 28th, 1823 Presumption! Or, the Fate of Frankenstein. With new scenes, dresses and decorations) 46 (LAST NIGHT OF THE COMPANY’S PERFORMING THIS SEASON … THIS EVENING, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4TH, 1823) This playbill tells us that “Presumption” was performed from July until October 1823. Dick’s Standard Plays, c. 1865 This playbill refers to a later edition of Peake’s drama included in a booklet (produced in series). Of this playbill there is only a (Victorian) print version (the manuscript version is kept in California). Modern editions of “Presumption” are based on this print text. Sketch (schizzo) by Richard Wynn Keene of the actor O. Smith as the Monster in the first revival of “Presumption!” or the Fate of Frankenstein, at the English Opera House, Lyceum, in summer 1828. Courtesy of Jennie Bissett. 47 This representation of the creature in the playbill is evoked (ripresa) in a similar way in film adaptations. Mary Shelley went to see the première of “Presumption”. On September 9th, 1823 (two months after the première), she wrote a letter to Leigh Hunt in which she comments on the play. Although the story was altered, Mary Shelley enjoyed Peake’s drama. In this letter, she testifies the positive aspects of the drama: o she particularly appreciated the fact that the creature was indicated with a blank space. The fact that the creature is ethically “unnameable” shows that it cannot have an identity; o she was also fascinated by the sequence of gestures that correspond to feelings/theatricality/follow dramatizations). Instead, she did not like that the story handled materials and characters in an arbitrary way. Wallack is the actor who interprets Victor: he goes to the laboratory while Fritz (the servant) escapes. The creature’s thirst for recognition (human contact) is preserved. Also other intellectual commented on “Presumption”. This is a review by the “Morning Post” dated 30 July 1823: “Whatever may be thought of Frankenstein as a novel . . . there can be but one opinion of it as a drama. The representation of this piece upon the stage is of astonishing, of enchaining, interest . . . . T.P. COOKE well pourtrays [sic] what indeed it is a proof of his extraordinary genius so well to portray – an unhappy being without the pale of nature – a monster – a nondescript – a horror to 50 “Frankenstein; or, The Vampires Victim” is a late 19th century adaptation of “Frankenstein”. It is a musical burlesque of the Mary Shelley novel and the Adelphi Theatre drama “Frankenstein, or, The Model Man”, based on the novel. The play is by Richard Henry (a pseudonym of Richard Butler and Henry Chance Newton) while the music (greatly used) is by Meyer Lutz. “Frankenstein; or, The Vampires Victim” was first performed at the Gaiety Theatre on the 24th December 1887. The most in influential dramatic adaptation other than Peake’s is the 1927 adaptation by British novelist Peggy Webling, called “Frankenstein: An Adventure in the Macabre” (another layer added to the adaptation of “Frankenstein”). It was the first version of the story to call the monster and the creator “Frankenstein” (conflate the name of the monster and of Victor). This “conflation” underlines that the creature is Victor’s double and viceversa. Victor Frankenstein and Henry Clerval in the novel have now [in Webling’s play] become Henry Frankenstein and Victor Moritz, suggesting a doubling between the two male companions. Perhaps we should also see sexual ambiguity in Justine Moritz’s (woman accused of William’s murder) surname being applied to the Clerval of the novel. “Frankenstein”’s film adaptations are part of the history of cinema. “Frankenstein” is a fascinating document which has been recently restored. In it, (plot) young doctor Frankenstein goes to college and two years later he discovers the “Mystery of Life.” He writes a letter to his fiancée to inform her that he will create the world’s first Perfect Human Being. But he creates a monster instead. When he sees his creation, Frankenstein is horrified and retreats to his bedroom: the creature has big bushy hair; it is very tall with big feet and a large forehead. Frankenstein returns to his fiancé, and the monster follows his steps, being jealous of Frankenstein’s perfect love. On the night of Frankenstein’s wedding, his fiancée spots the monster in the living 51 room and faints. The creature goes into Frankenstein bedroom, looks itself in the mirror and apparently “smothered by love”, disappears. “Frankenstein” is the FIRST FILM (motion picture) ADAPTATION of Mary Shelley's novel (taken from a novel). “Frankenstein” was made by Edison Studios (American film production organization, owned by companies controlled by the entrepreneur Thomas Edison) while it was written and directed by J. Searle Dawley. It is “a liberal adaptation of Mrs. Shelley’s famous story”. In the “Edison Kinetogram”, “Frankenstein” is described as the most horrific (terrificante) story (for the experiments on dead bodies...). However, it was conceived in a condition of happiness at Villa Diodati. “Frankenstein” is healed as an extraordinary world which stands alone in the history of literature. The unbilled cast of “Frankenstein” included Augustus Phillips as Dr. Frankenstein, Mary Fuller as the doctor's fiancée and Charles Ogle as the Monster. Ogle is different from Karloff: the creature he interprets is ghastly (terrificante) like a ghost. “Frankenstein” is a 1910 silent (because 1910 is the dawning of film industry) and short film. In order to adapt the novel into a 13 minute film, the novel’s complexity was distilled. Though silent and short, the Edison film offers a clear interpretation of the story (an interesting way of reading the novel), presenting the monster as Frankenstein’s double or outwardly manifested evil side, mixing imagery from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde into the story. Ironically given Edison’s involvement in the film, no electricity is used to create the monster; rather, he is created through what appears to be some sort of alchemy. Frankenstein tosses ingredients into a giant bubbling caldron (with a puff of smoke appearing theatrically each time), closes and bars a set of wooden doors, and peeks into the window and gesticulates manically as a skeleton emerges from the vat and begins to be covered in flesh (takes shape progressively). A title card reads “Instead of a perfect human being the evil in Frankenstein’s mind creates a monster,” suggesting that the monster is a psychological manifestation (Rebecca Baumann, “Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life, and Resurrection of Mary Shelley’s Monster”). The printed story synopsis of the film provides insight into how the character was imagined: “The Monster, who is following his creator with the devotion of a dog, is insanely jealous of anyone else” (Svehla 21). So, rather than demanding a mate, the monster (whose pantomime actions are rather doglike) just wants to be with his master. Much is made of clever shots with (game of) 52 mirrors— a rather heavyhanded but effective signal of the monster’s doubling with his maker. The creature disappears, but his reflection (riflesso) is left in the mirror. Then, the creature’s image leaves place to Victor’s image (this underlines that it is a product of Victor’s mind). Once the monster is banished into the mirror, Frankenstein lives a peaceful life with his bride. This happy ending (part of a tradition) is absent both in “Frankenstein” and in “Presumption”. In the film, the creature is silent, but it manages to be understood by Victor. As in “Presumption”, the monster is blue, a colour associated with height. In the film there is also closer relation of the creature with Elizabeth. Edison’s film, which also takes cues from Peake’s “Presumption”, is an interesting bridge between Mary Shelley and the version of the story that would overtake hers in the popular imagination: “Frankenstein”, released by Universal Pictures in 1931. “Frankenstein” is a foundational film for the genre of horror movies. Although many people were involved in creating this iconic film, three stand out as especially shaping the Frankenstein legacy: director James Whale, makeup artist Jack Pierce, and the film’s star, Boris Karloff. James Whale (1889–1957) was born in England and served in the British Army during World War I. His first theatrical performances were in a German prison camp during the last years of the war: the impact of World War I on the massive upsurge (aumento) in horror films in the 1930s cannot be underestimated (Whale’s experience as a prisoner of war could explain his choice of dark and light imagery in the film). He moved to Hollywood in 1928 and began directing theatre, then film. He was a reluctant recruit to the Frankenstein project, which was already well underway […] Whale was gay, and openly so, a rare (unacettable) thing in a Hollywood straightjacketed (censored) by the 1930 Motion Picture Production Code (miscegenation and sexuality were under the restrictions of this code). His undeniable and eternal contribution to the story of “Frankenstein” is a profound understanding of what it means to be persecuted and despised for merely existing, a feeling that he channeled into the representation of the monster as a sympathetic and misunderstood creature who just wants to be loved by his creator and find a mate who is like him (starting point for “Bride of Frankenstein”). Pierce and Whale worked together to develop the Frankenstein monster’s look (though Pierce always tried to take full credit). Early sketches show a wide range of possibilities, from robot to Neanderthal […]. The final product is unique and brilliantly conceived: the sloping forehead and stitches (punti) reflect the need for the monster’s brain to be inserted. What are usually called “bolts” (bulloni) on the neck are actually electrodes, used to bring the monster to life. Pierce and Whale used wax to make the monster’s eyes go down. The heavy-lidded eyes suggest not only an intelligence that is not fully formed but a wariness and pathos as well. The skin has a corpse-like 55 “Young Frankenstein” is a 1974 film, written and directed by Mel Brooks. This is an important film in the history of cinema. It is a comic version (adaptation) of the novel, considered by many the most successful parody of all-time. It represents another layer for the astute reader to appreciate. In it, (plot) Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is a lecturing physician at an American medical school and engaged to Elizabeth, a socialite. He becomes exasperated when anyone brings up the subject of his grandfather Victor Frankenstein, the infamous mad scientist, and insists that his surname is pronounced "Fronkonsteen". When a solicitor informs him that he has inherited his family's estate in Transylvania after the death of his great-grandfather, the Baron Beaufort von Frankenstein, Frederick travels to Europe to inspect the property. At the Transylvania train station, he is met by a hunchbacked, bug-eyed servant named Igor, and a young assistant, Inga. Upon arrival at the estate, Frederick meets Frau Blucher, the housekeeper. After discovering the secret entrance to his grandfather's laboratory and reading his private journals, Frederick decides to resume his grandfather's experiments in re-animating the dead. He and Igor steal the corpse of a recently executed criminal, and Frederick sets to work experimenting on the large corpse. Igor is sent to steal the brain of a deceased revered historian, Hans Delbrück; startled by his own reflection, he drops and ruins Delbrück's brain. Taking a second brain labeled "Abnormal", Igor returns with it, and Frederick unknowingly transplants it into the corpse. Soon, Frederick is ready to re-animate his creature, who is eventually brought to life by electrical charges during a lightning storm. The creature takes its first steps, but, frightened by the sight of Igor lighting a match, he attacks Frederick and nearly strangles him before he is sedated. Meanwhile, unaware of the creature's existence, the townspeople gather to discuss their unease at Frederick continuing his grandfather's work. Inspector Kemp, a one-eyed police official with a prosthetic arm, whose German accent is so thick that even his own countrymen cannot understand him,proposes to visit the doctor, whereupon he demands assurance that Frankenstein will not create another monster. On returning to the lab, Frederick discovers Blucher setting the creature free. She reveals the monster's love of violin music and her own romantic relationship with Frederick's grandfather. However, the creature is enraged by sparks from a thrown switch and escapes the castle. While roaming the countryside, the monster has encounters with a young girl and a blind hermit, references to 1931's Frankenstein. Frederick recaptures the monster and locks the two of them in a room, where he calms the monster's homicidal tendencies with flattery and fully acknowledges his own heritage, shouting out, "My name is Frankenstein!". At a theater full of illustrious guests, Frederick shows "The Creature", dressed in top hat and tails, following simple commands. The demonstration continues with Frederick and the monster performing the musical number "Puttin' On the Ritz". However, the routine ends suddenly when a stage light explodes and frightens the monster, who becomes enraged and charges into the audience, where he is captured and chained by police. Back in the laboratory, Inga attempts to comfort Frederick and they wind up sleeping together on the suspended reanimation table. 56 The monster escapes when Frederick's fiancée Elizabeth arrives unexpectedly for a visit, and takes Elizabeth captive as he flees. Elizabeth falls in love with the creature due to his "enormous schwanzstucker". The townspeople hunt for the monster; to get the creature back, Frederick plays the violin to lure his creation back to the castle and recaptures him. Just as the Kemp-led mob storms the laboratory, Frankenstein transfers some of his stabilizing brain to the creature who, as a result, is able to reason with and placate the mob. Elizabeth—with her hair styled after that of the female creature from the Bride of Frankenstein—marries the now erudite and sophisticated monster, while Inga, in bed with Frederick, asks what her new husband got in return during the transfer procedure. Frederick growls wordlessly and embraces Inga who, as Elizabeth did when abducted by the monster, sings the refrain "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" (ora suo marito è ben dotato come il mostro). The film is based “on the CHARACTERS (and quotations) of the novel” and on the previous film tradition. For example, it has a fascinating relation with Whale’s adaption: like Whales, Brooks dedicates a scene to the “search” of the creature’s brain (Fritz takes an “abnormal brain” from the university and Fronkensteen uses it in the making of the creature). However, there are some novelties: • the monster is childlike, violin loving, high voiced, and quite endearing; • Fritz is called Igor; • Mr Delacey is called Harold. The film stars Marty Feldman as Igor, Peter Boyle as the monster and Gene Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein (or “Fronkensteen”), the descendent of Victor. Gene Wilder collaborated with Mel Brooks in the writing of the scripts. The film is shot in black and white and uses props (attrezzature sceniche) designed by Kenneth Strickfaden, the set designer for the 1931 “Frankenstein”. Indeed, the setting of the laboratory is the same of Whale’s film. “Young Frankenstein” is such a popular film that many people only know the story of “Frankenstein” through its comedic parody. What makes it such a brilliant and lovable film is that it doesn’t really take much to push the Universal films into the territory of comedy—they danced the line of horror and dark humor from the very beginning. 57 One word seems to describe the way in which many reviews talk about director Mel Brooks’s (Melvin Kaminsky) movie “Young Frankenstein”: oxymoronic. Gordon Gow’s very first sentence in his review is: “The distinctive thing about the Mel Brooks’ brand of parody is its occasional habit of being deliberately undisciplined”. In describing Brooks’s work ethic, critic Wayne Warga writes: “Brooks at work is intense, serious and determined —in startling contrast to the inspired silliness of his films”. Seventeen years later, similar comments are made in the New Yorker: “Filled with highcamp slapstick and gut-busting sick jokes and sex plays, [Young Frankenstein] also boasts a kind of sludgepile elegance”. In the early Universal films Frankenstein, the privileged aristocrat, ultimately reaffirms the prevailing social order by reestablishing a tender bond with Elizabeth; Brooks’s Frankenstein identifies more with his monster than with the symbolic representatives of the traditional social order. Indeed, there is a human (tender) relation between creator and creation (underlined in a funny way). Though short, “Frankenstein” is a complex novel which requires our sense of intelligence to understand it. Indeed, it is a profound meditation on modern problems of Western society (goes deep in debates of Shelley’s times) such as ✓ education: for that of the monster’s (and Victor’s) see “detailed study of selected passages” (volume 2); ✓ science (some references in “detailed study of selected passages”). It is a product of Enlightenment; ✓ ethics; ✓ politics. Mary Shelley’s first novel voices (dà voce a) the concept of private politics as a mirror image of public politics, a tenet that would pervade all of her major works. She used the trappings of the gothic novel to illustrate the destructiveness not of science, but of power protected by wealth and position. In the public mind, the nameless Creature has often been given 60 The novel is experimental and it can be seen as a “force field” with a concentration of energy which addresses us in a variety of ways. The plot and the main characters Victor Frankenstein, a medical student (he becomes a doctor in later adaptations), is in love with his stepsister Elizabeth. In 1793, Victor goes to study to the university of Ingolstadt where he attends courses in science, chemistry and biology. These courses increase exponentially Victor's passion for science. He falls into the hands of Waldeman, a chemistry professor, who excites in him ambition and the desire to achieve fame and distinction in the field of natural philosophy. Thus he starts spending day and night in his laboratory. He develops a consuming interest in the life principle that is the force which imparts life to a human being. Finally, he undertakes to create a human being out of pieces of the dead (→gothic element of the book) as an EXPERIMENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. To reach his goal, Victor starts haunting cemeteries and charnel houses. After several years, his work is completed: one night, the yellow eyes of the “monster” open and stare at Victor. However, this being turns to be a danger and he becomes responsible of several murders. In this frame, Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” (preliminary agreement between the writer and the reader whereby the latter suspends his critical faculties in order to believe something surreal) on the part of the reader (he/she has to believe that a man can construct life out of sexual reproduction) goes together with psychological credibility (out of Victor’s action a world of horror and devastation has developed). Victor. He recounts his entire experience to Walton. This is the same situation of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” where the “Ancient Mariner” (= Victor) tells his story to an unwilling listener on his way to a wedding (= Walton). Victor is a Romantic hero in his aspiration to awareness (conoscenza). He will be a father figure for the “creature”, however misleading and unwilling (per quanto fuorviante e riluttante). At the end, the creator will be (metaphorically) destroyed by the “creature”. This shows a common idea of that time, i.e. that a creation can turn to be DESTRUCTIVE. Victor’s creation. The creature is the product of his maker’s efforts so it is indebted to (in debito con) him. Victor’s creation has no name: it is called the “monster”, the “creature”, or the “daemon”. This namelessness defines the impossibility for the creature (being) to be recognized as a human being. The “monster” is an unsexed identity (a living thing), but it shares language and other features that make it close to humans (→ it is not fully human). The radical potential (politics) of the novel is constructed by having the creature speak. Victor’s experiment is extraordinary from our perspective, but not from his. He despises (rejects) the creature that soon asks for recognition, forcing him to listen to its tale. The “monster” can stand for different things, all of which are acceptable. 61 Despite its devilish feature/murders/darkest sins, the creature has a Christ-like quality (→ it is a complex creation): like Jesus (the last of men), it is spurned (respinto) by mankind and it embodies human sufferings (→ symbolic values). This can be seen in many moments of the novel as well as in “Bride of Frankenstein” (in this film the creature is nailed to a kind of cross). The readers are SYMPATHETIC to the creature and to its desire of being recognized as part of (understood by) mankind. After all, love and fellowship are the most natural feelings of human beings. Captain Robert Walton. He is the voice of the empire: he embodies Western civilization. As an English ship captain, he is on an arctic expedition in search of the Northeast Passage to the Pacific Ocean (object of various explorations at that time). However, he won’t be successful. Walton’s enterprise of exploring unknown areas (going beyond the physical boundaries of the known world) is directed at (rivolta a) making a discovery of use for mankind. This is consonant with the 18th century idea of EXPANDING the control of the world. Indeed, in that period, a series of explorations led to the discoveries of lands (James Cook found traces of a new continent) and governments wanted to expand the commercial contacts between different areas of the world. Walton’s quest for knowledge in the North Pole parallels Victor’s search for education and enlightenment at Ingolstadt. As both strive for (cercano a tutti i costi) scientific glory ad devote selective attention to scientific evidence, we can consider Walton as Victor’s “double”. Walton’s thirst for understanding the world developed during his childhood when he made attempts to find his way. In the same way, Victor’s quest developed early, but it would be the basis for his failure. Also Victor’s creature accesses knowledge although its humanity is not recognized. Mrs Saville. She is Robert’s sister. Her complete name is Margaret Walton Saville so she has the same initials of MWS. She is called Margaret in the middle of Letter 1, Volume 1. She never appears in the story, but she is the addressee of Walton’s letters: we can think of her as an “implied reader”. She read the story by instalments in the diegetic level. Justine Moritz. She is a servant to the Frankenstein family and particular friend of Elizabeth. Justine became a favourite of both Victor and his mother, and from them received an education. She is accused of the murder of William (I:6:31) and is convicted on (condannata per) circumstantial evidence (I:7:12). Although thought innocent by the entire Frankenstein family, she is executed for the crime committed by the creature. The de Laceys. This family is made up of M. De Lacey (the father), Agatha (daughter of M. de Lacey), Felix (son of M. de Lacey) and Safie. The creature gets in contact with them when, rejected by the others and aware of not being able to see humans, he hides himself in a “hovel” near the de Laceys’s house. From this place, he sees the life of the family with whom the monster experiences 62 language, education and human relations (→ powerful part in the novel). However, after a year, this relationship ends tragically. Felix. This is a male given name that stems from Latin (fēlix, felicis) and means happy or lucky. Felix is the son of the blind M. De Lacey and brother of Agatha. He has a humanistic approach to life. Agatha. This a feminine given name derived from the Ancient Greek word ἀγαθός (agathos), meaning good. Agatha is the daughter of M. De Lacey and the sister of Felix. Like her brother, she has a humanistic approach to life. Safie. She is daughter of a Turkish (Arabian) merchant, adopted by the De Lacey family. She is Felix’s (Arabian) fiancée. Her name is close to “Sophie” which means knowledge. Indeed, she embodies the wisdom that pertains to her gender. The production of the novel The sequence “conception (A) – writing (B) – publishing (C)” of “Frankenstein” implies a laborious process which is true as far as the novel is conceived. (A) In the introduction to the 1831 revised edition of “Frankenstein”, she recounts the story, itself part of literary history, of that stormy night in 1818 (June) in which a ghost-writing contest led to her novel (from a “waking dream” she created an instant myth that captured the public imagination). So, “Frankenstein” was conceived when MWS, who was only 19, had already had an eventful life. The introduction to the second edition of “Frankenstein” also offers a reflection “a posteriori” (when MWS writes, she is adult) regarding MWS’ life, her psychological status and the literary (creative) process she underwent in Switzerland. Let’s have a look at it: 1. The Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting "Frankenstein" for one of their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some account of the origin of the story. I am the more willing to comply, because I shall thus give a general answer to the question, so frequently asked me—"How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" It is true that I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print; but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can scarcely accuse myself of a personal intrusion. 65 their four-month-old son and Claire Clairmont to Geneva (Victor comes from this city), Switzerland, with the hopes of remedying P. B. Shelley’s poor health. In Cologny, their friend Lord Byron had rented a house known as “The Villa Diodati”. Mary and Percy chose Geneva rather than Italy because Claire Clairmont, who had earlier initiated an affair with Lord Byron, was already pregnant and anxious to see him, in hope of a permanent liaison. For the Shelley–Byron colony of writers and would-be writers, the summer was a period of mutual inspiration and productivity. 6. But it proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house. Some volumes of ghost stories, translated from the German into French, fell into our hands (The work Mary Shelley cites is “Fantasmagoriana", anonymously published by Jean Baptiste Benoît Eyriès. The following year, in turn, this text was translated into English as “Tales of the Dead. Principally Translated from the French”. This text was a French translation of the first two volumes of the five-volume German “Gespensterbuch”). There was the History of the Inconstant Lover, who, when he thought to clasp the bride to whom he had pledged his vows, found himself in the arms of the pale ghost of her whom he had deserted. There was the tale of the sinful founder of his race, whose miserable doom it was to bestow the kiss of death on all the younger sons of his fated house, just when they reached the age of promise. His gigantic, shadowy form, clothed like the ghost in Hamlet, in complete armour, but with the beaver up, was seen at midnight, by the moon's fitful beams, to advance slowly along the gloomy avenue. The shape was lost beneath the shadow of the castle walls; but soon a gate swung back, a step was heard, the door of the chamber opened, and he advanced to the couch of the blooming youths, cradled in healthy sleep. Eternal sorrow sat upon his face as he bent down and kissed the forehead of the boys, who from that hour withered like flowers snapt upon the stalk. I have not seen these stories since then; but their incidents are as fresh in my mind as if I had read them yesterday. 66 In this paragraph, MWS underlines the terrible weather conditions (nature had been upset by something mysterious). They were due to the eruption of Mount Tamboro (a volcano) in Indonesia (April 1815) which had sent clouds of volcanic ash billowing into the upper atmosphere. As a result, a climate change occurred: the sun was obscured, levels of rainfall increased and temperatures fell. The summer of the following year was thus dismal and damp (triste e umida), with low temperatures and torrential rain causing disastrous crop failures throughout North America, Europe and Asia. For many living on the other side of the world to the eruption, the reason for the disturbances in the weather would have been a mystery, but one that lent a sinister and perhaps even a supernatural quality to the need to light candles at midday as darkness descended, and the sight of birds settling down to roost at noon. The discovery by scientists of large dark spots on the sun in the same year added to the growing sense of unease and impending doom, as reflected in Lord Byron’s apocalyptic poem Darkness, written in Geneva in July 1816. ‘The year without a summer’, as 1816 became known, provided the perfect backdrop to the telling of bleak, macabre and doom-laden Gothic tales. This newspaper article refers to the weather in the ‘year without a summer’, 1816. 7. "We will each write a ghost story," said Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley, more apt to embody ideas and sentiments in the radiance of brilliant imagery, commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori (*) had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole—what to see I forget—something very shocking and wrong of course; but when she 67 was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and was obliged to despatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted. The illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished the uncongenial task. The bad weather (summer) and the reading of ghost stories provided the “genial” conditions for a contest to create a ghost story as dreadful (spaventosa) as “Fantasmagoriana” (the story they were reading). Certainly, the combination of these two circumstances helped the writers’ imagination towards the creation of something terrible. (*) John William Polidori (7 September 1795-24 August 1821) was an English writer and physician, credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. He was a young man of Italian origins. Indeed, he was the son of Gaetano Polidori, a Tuscan man of letters and at one point secretary to the dramatist Vittorio Alfieri, who had emigrated to England where he married a Miss Pierce and settled in London as a teacher of Italian. John was educated at Ampleforth, Yorkshire -- a Roman Catholic school -- and subsequently matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, writing a dissertation […] on the highly romantic subject of sleep-walking and receiving his medical degree at the remarkably young age of 19. The next year, still not yet legally an adult, he accompanied Lord Byron on his excursion to Geneva (he was his travelling companion). That Byron quickly tired of his protege's immaturity is well known, but Polidori was, indeed, quite young and inexperienced to be in such company. Polidori left Switzerland for Italy in September 1816, where he travelled for nearly a year, returning to England the following spring, at which point he sought to practice medicine in Norwich. But he was unhappy in his profession and thought, instead, of turning to law. In the meantime […], he began a short, but productive literary career. His first work was an extension of his interest in psychology, “An essay on the source of positive pleasure” (1818). The following year came a volume of poems – “Ximenes, the wreath: and other poems” -- the novel “Ernestus Berchtold”, and the short story, “The Vampyre”, which, unfortunately, was passed off as the production of Lord Byron when it was published in the “New Monthly Magazine”. When he found the work being published under a separate imprint, Polidori went to some lengths to claim the work as his own, but the scandal of imposture dogged him thereafter. His final work, “Sketches Illustrative of the Manners and Costumes of France, Switzerland, and Italy”, was published in 1821 under the pseudonym of Richard Bridgens. That August, purportedly as the result of contracting a gambling debt he could not honor, he committed suicide by drinking prussic acid. He was 25 years old. 8. I busied myself to think of a story, —a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to 70 his laboratory (he was in a particular emotional state). The result (frutto) of his efforts is described with certain vagueness (kneeling beside the thing he had put together). This “something” will materialize thanks to electric generators (technology) which could bring life to the dead. MWS also renders the first movement of the creature which is in-between the state of life and man. Then, she presents the monster as the product of “guilty” knowledge which goes beyond the limits. The creation of this fake double will provide a narrative in “Frankenstein”. When MWS states “his success would terrify the artist”, she can refer both to:  Victor, as the creator of the artefact (the creature);  herself, as the writer engaged in this scary creative process (writer’s creative process VS the novel as a product). Indeed, in “Frankenstein” different levels of interpretation are possible. Then, MWS suggests that Victor is already disillusioned at this stage: he wanted to create a new race, not an “hideous” product. For this reason, he would like somebody to break his creation, but he would end up undoing it by himself (avrebbe finito per distruggerla da solo). In the end, there is a MIRROR IMAGE, an exchange of glances (scambio di sguardi) between Victor and his creature. Its “speculative eyes” underline his intelligence so the creature’s tragedy is the clash between its physical (outer) appearance and its inner life. The contrast between normality and otherness (alterity) characterises all the novel. 12. I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my ghost story, my tiresome unlucky ghost story! O! if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night! In this paragraph, there is a shift from vision to distance from experience. Indeed, MWS takes distance from the creature’s vision by repossessing (riappropriandosi) the SETTING around her. Her BEDCHAMBER is similar to Victor’s bedroom (→mirroring process) which, like hers, is barely illuminated “by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters”. The novelist is deliberately conflating her experiences with those of her fictional protagonist. 13. Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. "I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my 71 midnight pillow." On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words, It was on a dreary night of November, making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream. In this paragraph, MWS reminds herself that she has to write a story. Actually, her story is already ready to be transcribed. Its first words will be It was on a dreary night of November: they introduce the moment when Victor carries out his experiment and the creature is brought to life. We found these words in Book 1, Chapter 4. 14. At first I thought but of a few pages of a short tale; but Shelley urged me to develope the idea at greater length. I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it was presented. From this declaration I must except the preface. As far as I can recollect, it was entirely written by him. In this paragraph, MWS states that her husband wanted her to develop the “tale” into something more important. Indeed, Percy gave his contribution to the preface of “Frankenstein”’s first edition. 15. And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart. Its several pages speak of many a walk, many a drive, and many a conversation, when I was not alone; and my companion was one who, in this world, I shall never see more. But this is for myself; my readers (→ private meditation) have nothing to do with these associations. In this paragraph, MWS addresses her “hideous progeny”. As Victor has an “hideous progeny” (the being who was endowed with life in the novel) too, there is a mirroring process. This shows that the novel is a self-reflective meditation on the power of story-telling. The “offspring (frutto) of happy days” refers to the fact that, when she was writing, only a tragedy had happened (the death of her baby girl) so she was relatively happy (her husband had not drowned yet). 16. I will add but one word as to the alterations I have made (in the 1831 edition). They are principally those of style. I have changed no portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or circumstances. I have mended the language where it was so bald as to interfere with the interest of the narrative; and these changes occur almost exclusively in the beginning of the first volume. Throughout they are entirely confined to such parts as are mere adjuncts to the story, leaving the core and substance of it untouched (compared to the 1818 edition). 72 (signature →) M.W.S. London, October 15, 1831. (<-- the writing’s date) The atmosphere in which MWS wrote “Frankenstein” is also highlighted in Percy Shelley’s and Lord Byron’s works. “Frankenstein” opens with a preface, signed by Mary Shelley but commonly supposed to have been written by her husband. It outlines the circumstances in which the story was written: during a summer vacation in the Swiss Alps, unseasonably rainy weather and nights spent reading German ghost stories inspired the author and her literary companions to engage in a ghost story writing contest, of which “Frankenstein” is the only completed product. The “Preface” also reveals Shelley’s aim in writing the novel: to present a flattering depiction of “domestic affection” and “universal virtue”. So, it suggests the kind of narrative the reader might expect. “Mont Blanc” is an ode by Percy Shelley. It was composed between 22 July and 29 August 1816 during Shelley's journey to the Chamonix Valley, and intended to reflect the scenery through which he travelled. The poem resembles works of the earlier Romantics, specifically Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” which was a major influence on Shelley during his writing of this piece. Both poems “question the significance of the interchange between nature and the human mind” (Abrams 1740). Shelley, however, offers a view different from Wordsworth’s. In the first stanza, the poet infers “the everlasting universe of things” from observing nature. Human thought in comparison is feeble. The second stanza focuses on the mountain itself, with its crags, trees, and ice, but together something huge and sublime; it is too big even for thought to capture it. The feeling that he cannot comprehend it all continues; as he works to take it all in, the serene mountain awaits, unmoved. He realizes that nature is too strong for merely human things. The wise see nature’s reality. In the fourth stanza, he expands past the mountain to more of the natural world, which persists long past any human life; we do not have access to that raw immortality. Nature’s power, or the mountain’s, is like an unstoppable glacier. In the last stanza, he turns his eyes back to the mountain’s features, finally concluding that the spirit of nature is in the mountain, which finally teaches him that knowing such things fills his mind with a welcome, silent solitude. “Mutability” is a poem by Percy Shelley. It appeared in the 1816 collection Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude: And Other Poems. Half of the poem is quoted in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, 75 “Frankenstein” which rapidly permeated all levels of society, and became the material of theatrical productions, newspapers, political cartoons, parliamentary debate, translations, and countless inexpensive and/or pirated reprints. Since that time, her own accomplishments were subsumed (riassunte) under P. B. Shelley’s, even to the extent of wrongly crediting “Frankenstein” in large measure to him rather than to the actual author. Critics continued to ignore Mary Shelley’s vision, which depicted the limitations of conventional values through her metaphoric use of public and domestic abuse of power, advocating instead an egalitarian, humane system based on reason and universal love. Her own family abetted the depoliticization and domestication of Mary Shelley’s works, which was not an unusual development within the context of Victorian conventional presumptions of women’s ambitions, intellect, and concerns. Whatever her frustrations and occasional ambivalence in her struggle as a single, independent, intellectual woman, however, she had always held to the belief that it was her 'fate' to be a writer (Journals of Mary Shelley, 2.431–2, Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 3.105). Mary Shelley’s unusual childhood prepared her for that destiny; her adult life fostered her aspiration with each major work to achieve more 'in the staircase I am climbing' (Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1.361). Reassessment (rivalutazione) of her works in the mid-to later twentieth century initially often depicted her as a victim of conventional expectations for women. Readers, however, spurred by the women's movement, began to recognize her as a Romantic whose inherent independence of vision and political dissonance required further reconsideration. The impetus for this change in perspective originated in renewed interest in “Frankenstein”, as the ethical dilemmas posed by technological and medical advances increasingly resonated with the novel's prescient examination of power and responsibility. As a result, in the closing quarter of the twentieth century, new editions of Mary Shelley’s novels, short stories, letters, and journals were published that provided a wide opportunity to read her works unfiltered by nineteenth- century mores. In this period, upwards of 500 books and scholarly articles as well as countless review articles appeared that discuss Mary Shelley and her works. The unusual attention given the discovery of her lost children’s story “Maurice” and its 1998 publication represent another marker of the recognition of Mary Shelley’s increased stature. Re-evaluation of Mary Shelley’s literary achievements is currently very much in process, and her overall significance is yet to be recognized. More than 245 editions of Frankenstein have been published, including translations in Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Swedish. If she had created only Frankenstein, her significance in literary history would be secure; but a full understanding of the import of all of her major works may change our understanding of literary history as well. The book’s architecture (pp+app) 76 The powerful narrative architecture offers a key for understanding MWS’s creative effort: “Frankenstein”’s structure is a veritable metaphorical building. It is so intricate that one can easily get lost. It is a novel told through the medium of letters written by one or more of the characters. In the early 18th century, DANIEL DEFOE produced first person novels such as “Robinson Crusoe” (1719) and “Moll Flanders” (1722) which told the life and adventure of the character (→ “I was born”). In the epistolary novel, we find a particular use of the first person narrative by means of letters (the first example is Samuel Richardson's “Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded”, published in 1740). Letters are an important device to render (report) the characters’ thoughts, emotions and experiences with immediacy. Indeed, letters are so realistic that they seem to be written at the moment of reading. According to Criscillia Benford, “Frankenstein” is an epistolary novel with a structure that is often likened to Russian nesting dolls (or Chinese boxes). Indeed, there are different narrative layers which (= there is more than one narrative which)  correspond to (= is recounted by) different narrators, each one providing the frame for the voice of the following character;  create an interconnected network (= a symmetric interplay) of voices (voices are connected to each other) which progressively pile up. These voices are brought together by subtle CONNECTORS. These JUNCTIONS could be difficulty recognizable because the narrative levels are connected in a clever way. However, if we understand when a story (i.e. that of Walton) ends and the other (i.e. that of Victor) begins (the change from one tale to another), we can make sense of “Frankenstein”’s architecture;  imply a complex set of political meanings: the narrative structure is the basis for the construction of the novel’s levels of meanings. The nesting doll metaphor predisposes readers to regard “Frankenstein”’s primary narrators as doppelgangers (alter ego) and its extended, first-person narratives as CONCENTRIC circles (frames embedded one in another). 77 The largest doll is the narrative of Captain Robert Walton (3, volume 1-3), a friendless and ardent arctic explorer who writes letters to his sister to give her update of his enterprise. Dismayed (sconcertato) to find awful desolation where he had hoped to find “a region of beauty and delight” and bored to distraction (estremamente annoiato) while waiting for the ice to break so that his ship can continue its voyage, Walton appears to have much to learn from the twinned tales of broken dreams (sogni infranti) and unfulfilled desires told to him (raccontatigli) by his unexpected visitors—and the time to record them. So, Walton is the recipient of (destinatario) the story telling which comes from Victor and the creature (his letters include two worlds). In the final part of the novel, Walton tells her sister the final steps of Victor and the creature’s tragedy by taking up his role of overall narrator whose writing encloses (incornicia) the entire novel (frame voice). In this way, readers can better understand that Walton is a ‘high’ narrator who provides the EXTERNAL NARRATIVE FRAME. This frame is nearer to the present rather than the internal one (the core narrative is the most distant in time) because Walton’s narrative includes the telling of a(nother) story which chronologically came earlier. → Inside of Walton’s narrative rests the narrative of Victor Frankenstein (4, volume 1-3), a Faustian striver (determinato) who secludes himself (si isola) to pursue the scientific research that will prove his undoing (fallimento). Victor chooses Walton as the recipient of his narrative (“Listen to my tale”, volume 1). In it, he reconstructs his life as well as his fascination with medical writing (Paracelsus...) and ancient theories (they interested him in relation to life). → Inside of Frankenstein’s doll rests the narrative of Frankenstein’s lonely and tenacious creature (5, volume 2). This doll represents the core (hearth) of the novel. The creature chooses Victor as the recipient of his narrative (“Listen to my tale”, volume 2) which is partly based on the de Laceys. He tells (racconta) in first person as if he belonged to the text itself. Along with Victor’s story, the creature’s narrative represents the hypo-diegetic level of “Frankenstein”. → Inside of the creature’s story rests the smallest doll in the set, the narrative of the de Laceys (6, volume 2). This is very final core (the innermost frame of the embedded narratives), or better the core within the core (the story within a story which is within another story). 80 parts animated” [Introduction 9] it communicates life with a variety of voices. These voices may threaten destruction of all formal relations, but only if we refuse to listen for them. In conclusion, with her first novel, MWS transfers the explicit form of correspondence into the inner dynamic of the novel itself. Further information regarding “Frankenstein” “Frankenstein” is a circular novel because it starts and ends with Walton’s words. In it, we sometimes find descriptions like Victor’s meditation on the power of nature. “Frankenstein” is an international novel because it takes place in Germany, Ireland (part 3), Scotland and England (from where Walton comes). Influences of “Frankenstein” As the daughter of Britain’s leading radical writers of the 1790s – William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft – Mary Shelley inherited a radical political legacy difficult to sustain, and one that overshadowed (influenced) her writing throughout her career. By dedicating the anonymously published Frankenstein to “William Godwin, author of Political Justice [and] Caleb Williams”, Shelley situated the novel deliberately in this radical legacy of Godwinian radical idealism and his novel of persecution and paranoia (she reshapes his father’s utopian society into the nightmare of Frankenstein). By taking to the (il)logical extreme GODWIN’S FAITH IN THE POTENTIAL FOR HUMAN IMMORTALITY THROUGH REASON (and not sexual reproduction), Shelley uses Victor’s obsession with creation without sexual reproduction (Frankenstein is a human being created out of pieces of the dead) to recast Godwin’s utopian vision as a dystopian “usurpation of the female” (→ readings of feminist critics). If life is created from absence of life (no women), you have a male dominated society (where women are not needed). In “Frankenstein”, women appear but most of them are passive. Had MWS simply thus caricatured Godwin and his utopian project, “Frankenstein” would have been a forgettable anti-Jacobin screed, one of many. But instead, Shelley ingeniously imbricated (sovrappose) the novel’s inflammatory politics in a series of concentric narratives, so that narrative authority is notoriously difficult to assign, making for a nuanced and ambivalent political vision. Also the historical vision is projected (proiettata) into the creative level: “Frankenstein” is an imaginative construction of history, but it is moved towards the private level of the scientist’s work. Galvanism contributed to the making of “Frankenstein”’s scientific background. Indeed, this scientific basis fed MWS’S imagination on the possibility of instilling life into dead matter (bringing a corpse back to life). 81 In the 1790s, Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) - professor of medicine at the University of Bologna - produced a twitching movement in the muscles of a dead frog with a spark from an electrostatic generator. As his research progressed, he was able to produce the same effect on a dog and expressed an interest in experimenting on a human. This is a rare first edition of notes by Galvani, detailing his experiments: Aloysii Galvani ... “De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius. Cum Joannis Aldini dissertatione et notis. Accesserunt epistolæ ad animalis electricitatis theoriam pertinentes” (1792). Earlier experiments in the 1760s had determined that muscular activity in the bodies of frogs could be caused externally. Galvani’s experiments in the 1780s led from the chance touching (casuale tocco) of a scalpel to the (bisturi sui) lumbar nerves of a frog at the same time a spark was caused by electrical apparatus. The combination produced convulsive contractions of the frog’s muscles. There may have been a completion of an electrical circuit or perhaps contact between the scalpel and another metal (the hook holding the frog’s body in position) generated enough electricity to stimulate the muscles (to bring the spark). Galvani considered the possibility that the muscles retained some kind of innate electricity, a fluid within the nerves, which he described as ‘animal electricity’. His electrical experiments became known as galvanism which owes its name (deve il suo nome) to Luigi Galvani, the inventor of the electric cell. Generally, galvanism indicates a medical treatment – derived from Galvani’s experiments – in which nerves are stimulated by the application of an electrical charge. Specifically, it refers to the application of an electrical charge to dead tissue, which was usually demonstrated by making the legs of dead frogs move as if with life. Galvani's nephew, Giovanni Aldini (1762-1834), conducted experiments in London recounted in John Aldini, “An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism, with a series of curious and interesting experiments . . . [and an] Appendix, containing the author's Experiments on the body of a Malefactor executed at Newgate” (London: Cuthell & Martin and John Murray, 1803). In the first canto of “Don Juan”, written later in the year in which “Frankenstein” was published (1818), Byron […] comments on various scientific advances: “And galvanism has set some corpses grinning. . .” 82 According to Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Barruel’s “Memoirs” was a favourite work of Percy Shelley’s during his days at Oxford University (then expelled for refusing to deny authorship of a pamphlet called “The Necessity of Atheism”). Hogg says that Shelley read all four volumes of Barruel again and again, and that he was particularly taken with the conspiratorial account of the Illuminati. We know that Mary and Percy both studied Barruel during their continental tour of 1814, and that Percy read parts of the “Memoirs” to her out loud at that time. So, there is reason to assume that Mary Shelley had Barruel in mind when she composed Frankenstein (→ eco letterario). Victor Frankenstein of course does not produce a real Jacobin monster. But he does create his Monster in the same city, Ingolstadt, which Barruel cites as the PURPORTED SECRET SOURCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (the centre where revolutionary thoughts developed) -- and as the place in which the “monster called Jacobin” was originally conceived. Victor, in effect, is producing the second famous literary monster to issue forth from the secret inner sanctum of that city. This second coming differs significantly from the first. Even though the demonic personification remains intact and though the story is nominally set in the 1790s, the French Revolution has simply disappeared. Mary Shelley retains the monster metaphor, but purges it of virtually all reference to collective movements. Her monster metaphor explains the coming of a domestic tragedy. Political revolution has been replaced by a parricidal rebellion within the family. In the writing of her book, MWS also relied on other sources, including Volney's Ruins of Empires, (→ intertextuality of “Frankenstein”). As Lisa Vargo (American scholar, expert on Shelley) suggests, “Like the creature, who is the product of gathered material, the novel itself is a palimpsest (stratification) of Mary Shelley’s own reading, though one can argue it is a happier assemblage than what Victor Frankenstein creates.” This can be explained taking into account that the Shelley household, wherever it was located, was intensely bookish (reading and writing consumed much of every day). Moreover, between 1870s and 1880s, MWS spent days and nights reading and writing with her husband. The editions Susan Wolfson is important for publishing a freshly annotated, illustrated edition of “Frankenstein” (“The Annotated Frankenstein”) which illuminates the electrifying afterlife of the novel. Its first edition was that of 1818. However, the most interesting edition appeared in one volume on 31 October 1831. Published by Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, this edition was heavily revised by Mary Shelley (except for the “dismembered body”), partially because of pressure to make the story more conservative, and included a new, longer preface by her, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story. Frankenstein’s myth 85 rationalization that the inequality was natural or God-given. The different physical traits of African-Americans and Indians became markers or symbols of their status differences.” Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)’s Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice (1978): Article 1 1. All human beings belong to a single species and are descended from a common stock. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all form an integral part of humanity. 2. All individuals and groups have the right to be different, to consider themselves as different and to be regarded as such. However, the diversity of life styles and the right to be different may not, in any circumstances, serve as a pretext for racial prejudice; they may not justify either in law or in fact any discriminatory practice whatsoever, nor provide a ground for the policy of apartheid, which is the extreme form of racism. 3. Identity of origin in no way affects the fact that human beings can and may live differently, nor does it preclude the existence of differences based on cultural, environmental and historical diversity nor the right to maintain cultural identity. 4. All peoples of the world possess equal faculties for attaining the highest level in intellectual, technical, social, economic, cultural and political development. 5. The differences between the achievements of the different peoples are entirely attributable to geographical, historical, political, economic, social and cultural factors. Such differences can in no case serve as a pretext for any rank-ordered classification of nations or peoples. Article 2 1. Any theory which involves the claim that racial or ethnic groups are inherently superior or inferior, thus implying that some would be entitled to dominate or eliminate others, presumed to be inferior, or which bases value judgments (giudizi di valore) on racial differentiation, has no scientific foundation and is contrary to the moral and ethical principles of humanity. → the theory of White supremacy implies that the White are superior to the Black, but this is scientifically false. 86 2. Racism includes racist ideologies, prejudiced attitudes, discriminatory behavior, structural arrangements and institutionalized practices resulting in racial inequality as well as the fallacious notion that discriminatory relations between groups are morally and scientifically justifiable; it is reflected in discriminatory provisions in legislation or regulations and discriminatory practices as well as in anti-social beliefs and acts; it hinders the development of its victims, perverts those who practice it, divides nations internally, impedes international co-operation and gives rise to political tensions between peoples; it is contrary to the fundamental principles of international law and, consequently, seriously disturbs international peace and security. 3. Racial prejudice, historically linked with inequalities in power, reinforced by economic and social differences between individuals and groups, and still seeking today to justify such inequalities, is totally without justification. → race is a neutral way of describing physical differences. People need to know this in order to face the forms of prejudice they may come across (control “race”). These principles are now RECOGNIZED by the INTERNATIONAL community (organization). The Language of “Race” in Eighteenth-Century British Culture: “Observations on the Treatment of Negroes in the Island of Jamaica” [1788], Hector McNeill. He was a Scottish Labour politician. He lived in the West Indies (Jamaica...) which came to be known as the “Sugar Islands”. He was a slave driver (negriero) so he had to control the work human beings were forced to do. “The commerce between the whites and the blacks has been, and must be, productive of infinite disadvantage to Negro population. A black woman, instead of a Negro child, produces a Mulatto; which, again, instead of turning out a valuable slave, is generally emancipated by the father, and becomes often a vagabond, if a male, and always a lady of concubinage, if a female. This elegant cross-breed seldom are productive with each other; so that if they are to propagate effectually, it must be with a black man or a black woman, which production is called a Sambo. But as the brown lady considers it a step derrogêr a noblesse, to descend anything darker than her own complexion, she either turns a wistful eye to a Boccra [i.e. White] Keeper, or contents herself with a gentleman of her own colour. By those practices, a host of Mulattoes, Mustees, Guadroons [sic] and Mawkish Whites, SWARM (this verb, meaning SCIAMARE, is used to refer to insects) in every town, and every corner, to the great detriment of Negro population, and the general disadvantage of the community; ...” 87 “Observations on the Treatment of Negroes in the Island of Jamaica” reveals that race was at work in the 18th century. This passage claims to be based on objective definitions of race. We know that “observations” are not arbitrary (subjective) and that McNeill was an “eyewitness”. However, his objectivity can be questioned. The subject of this passage is not sexual violence, but the disadvantages brought to the Negroes of slave societies (the commerce of slaves takes a symbolic meaning). McNeill talks about: • “commodity”. This is the definition from Merriam-Webster dictionary: 1. an economic good such as a product of agriculture or mining, an article of commerce especially when delivered for shipment, a mass-produced unspecialized product; 2. something useful or valued, also: thing, entity; convenience, advantage; 3. a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price; 4. one that is subject to ready exchange or exploitation within a market <stars as individuals and as commodities of the film industry.— Film Quarterly>; 5. (obsolete) quantity, lot. Hence, “commodification” (trasformazione in merci di cose che per loro natura - qualità umane, relazioni sociali, tradizioni culturali, valori ideali o estetici, ecc. - non sarebbero oggetto di commercio) indicates that a value which cannot be bought or sold is turned (as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a “commodity” (object). For example, men are transformed into products, implying that human life can be bought or sold. The classification of men according to economic values is typical of the language of “race”. It is interesting that “commodification” (mercificazione) is a recent noun (date: 1982); • “miscegenation”, i.e. the mixture of different races through marriage, cohabitation or sexual intercourse, especially between a White person and a member of another race (a Black...). “Miscegenation” was perceived to negatively impact the purity of (make impure) a particular race (→ no mix marriages). Hence, it was a term with a negative nuance. It comes from Latin miscēre (to mix) + genus (race) and it was coined in 1863. According to McNeill, the outcome of cross-breeds is infertile. An example is the Mulatto, the product of the sexual union between a Black woman and a White man (the case of Othello, i.e. the sexual union between a White woman and a Black man was not conceivable). Hence, a Mulatto is an “in-between” person (a person of mixed race). If he was a man, he might become emancipated or a vagabond. Instead, if she was a woman, she could become a prostitute (→ concubinage). This means that a Mulatto did not become a slave as it was usual (this condition was transmitted from a generation to another). McNeill underlines that blood distance from original Black parents corresponds to Mulattoes, Mustees, Guadroons [sic], Mawkish Whites. 90 Diagram of the 'Brookes' Slave Ship. The diagram of this Liverpudlian (di Liverpool) ship is probably the most widely copied and powerful image (visual document) used by the abolitionist CAMPAIGNers. It depicts the ship loaded to its full capacity - 454 people crammed into the hold (ammassate nella stiva) as insects. This exemplifies the non-sentimental approach towards slaves (how enslaved people were perceived in England). The 'Brookes' sailed the passage from Liverpool via the Gold Coast in Africa to Jamaica in the West Indies. The diagram was a very useful piece of propaganda/kind of pamphlet. Thomas Clarkson – the leader of the abolitionist STRUGGLE in England – commented in his “History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade” (1808) that the 'print seemed to make an instantaneous impression of horror upon all who saw it, and was therefore 91 instrumental, in consequence of the wide circulation given it, in serving the cause of the injured Africans'. Signet ring for wax seal (sigillo con cera lacca) After 1787 Unknown artist Gold with red stone, possibly jasper face 2.8 x 2.1 cm This ring bears the official seal of the London Committee of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Designed in October 1787, it shows an African man with shackles around his ankles and wrists, kneeling in a pose of supplication. Hands clasped, head upraised, he seems to ask the inscribed question, “Am I not a man and a brother[?]” Hence, the slave is pointing at a shared humanity (→ symbolic message), a desire impossible to realize. Indeed, hierarchy could not be changed (he would have been a slave forever). The design is engraved in reverse so that when pressed into hot wax (to seal a document), the resulting impression would have been legible. The Committee’s seal quickly became an icon of the abolitionist cause (movement). In December 1787, the potter (and Committee member) Josiah Wedgwood (founder of the homonymic fine china, porcelain, and luxury accessories company founded) translated the design into a black and white jasperware cameo, which he distributed to fellow abolitionists and marketed to great success. Like this ring, Wedgwood’s so-called “Slave Medallions” were often worn on or kept near the body, as decorative inlays on snuff-box lids or set into bracelets and hairpins. The design also appeared in a variety of products: it was printed on plates, enamel boxes, tea caddies, and tokens. 92 With motto “Am I not a man and a brother?” The Society’s seal is among the most famous of all political images and also one of the most controversial. It appropriates and perpetuates the image of the subservient “kneeling slave”, suggesting that freedom is a privilege to be bestowed upon a passive rather than an active subject. In fact, resistance and action on the part of the enslaved themselves was crucial to the abolition of slavery in Britain. “Frankenstein” and the context of “Race” (Patrick Brantlinger, ‘Race and Frankenstein’. The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein. Ed. Andrew Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017: 128): in the late 1700s and early 1800s (19th century), there was an ongoing (continua) transformation regarding science. What has come to be called ‘race science’ or ‘scientific racism’ was beginning to emerge as an offshoot (prodotto) of natural history, a vast field that consisted of everything that Victor Frankenstein studies at the University of Ingolstadt, including chemistry, physiology and anatomy (an alternative name for natural history was ‘natural philosophy’, the phrase Victor and his professors use to describe their areas of study). During the 1700s, natural history was beginning to transition into the modern disciplines that included those Victor studies but also biology, zoology and anthropology, among others. The concept of race – in the form we know it today – was elaborated exactly in the period of ‘scientific racism’. ‘Race science’ classified human beings as if they were natural elements. This classification spread in Shelley’s age. She became acquainted with the concept of race thanks to Lawrence who was part of the radical (political and scientific) background from which she came (indeed, Lawrence was also a friend of her husband). 95 The Greek were the model to refer to. The “thick lips” recall those of Othello. Indeed, in Shakespeare’s time racial prejudice was already engraved (and he was bounded to this “discriminatory” language). In this excerpt, the autor invites to compare the description of European populations to that of non- Europeans. Another idea of Lawrence is that each physical appearance corresponded to a higher or lower level of intelligence (mental faculty). Shelley and ‘race’: a critical view (detailed essay of 1993 by H. L. Malchow): (biographical evidence: Mary Shelley’s readings, as recorded in her journal) 96 Malchow wrote in the decades in which the concept of race was developing. According to him, Mary Shelley was more or less conscious (cogent) of defining the monster in terms of racial bias (pregiudizio). Surely, she was familiar with colonial writings (those of the photo below) which described the “racial” characteristics of slaves. This can prove that the creature embodies the “colonial” Other. Malchow also suggests that one can create an image of racial inferiority and then render it reality. Santo Domingo (and Haiti) participated in the “racial revolution”. 97 Defining the creature’s race: the “creature” stands for different figurations (raffigurazione) of the “other” (race equality) with reference to the cultural developments of the age of revolution. He belongs to the margins of the world in which he experiences life, but despite his human like-quality (ability to speak, read and learn) he is not recognized by the community (→ tragedy of the novel). Indeed, he is seen as a monster and not as a man: even Victor refuses his “creature”. The creature’s physiognomy: Physical features: Repulsiveness (volume 1, chapter 4) “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.” The initial description of the creature’s (supernatural) ugliness mixes different elements related to non-White people. For example, 1. the yellow skin (and eyes). This physical trait links the monster to Asian people, recalling the “Yellow Peril” (racist color-metaphor, integral to the xenophobic theory of colonialism, according to which the peoples of East Asia are a danger to the Western world) studied by Edmond Malone. 2. the black hair. This physical trait links the monster to Black people; 3. the white teeth. This physical trait links the monster to Black people; 4. the shrivelled complexion. This physical trait links the monster to (the enslaved) Africans: their skin suffered from ongoing exposition to the sun (hence the “shrivelled” aspect); 5. the black lips. This physical trait links the monster to Black people. Physical features: Size (volume 1, book 6) “I clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, "William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy dirge!" As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy dæmon, to whom I had given life.” The creature is gigantic: it has a non-human appearance. This quality is typical of Africans.