1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
2. In April 1815, the year before the famous summer of 1816, the huge volcanic eruption of Mt Tamboro in Indonesia, created clouds of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. Consequently, the sky was dark, the sun covered, temperatures dropped, and accompanied by heavy torrential rainfall. This caused crop failures for many, including North America, Europe and some parts of Asia (Jackson, 2016). As a result the summer of 1816, was filled with damp, distressing weather, with no resemblance of summer. It was the perfect setting for the creation of dark stories.
ReplyDeleteThe story begins with Mary Shelley, and her then finance Percy Shelley, as well as her step sister, Claire Claremont, Lord Byron, and Dr John Polidori travelled to Geneva, Switzerland for a getaway holiday by the North side of Lake Geneva. Due to the poor weather conditions, the group spent much of their time indoors; reading German ghost stories from a collection called Fantasmagoriana, and discussed their love for literature. One night in June, Lord Byron suggests that they start a competition, each coming up with a ghost story of their own, which would then be read out loud and the winner be discussed amongst them. The stories they told inspired Mary Shelley’s famous ‘Frankenstein' and Polidori's 'The Vampyre', which created the gothic genre in literature. In fact, the first person to come up with a story was Polidori, with 'The Vampyre', who he based off of Lord Byron. Mary Shelley was said to have had writers block and couldn’t come up with any ideas for days, until finally she had a dream, a nightmare of sorts, about a scientist who created a monster like man (Rohrmoser, 2007).
In the preface of the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, Shelley mentioned some of the things that inspired her when writing the book. She wrote about how she became interested and inspired by Dr John Polidori's knowledge on the human anatomy, and discussions on galvanism, as well as the awful scenery of the ruined crops she witnessed whilst travelling to Switzerland. She spoke about how the landscape was bleak and desolate, and how bad it frightened her, as the imagery she witnessed effected her, as she too was experiencing emotional and financial difficulties at the time. It may be important to note that Mary was severely distraught during this time, as only in February she had lost her daughter who was born prematurely. Mary stated that the thunder and lightning, the bad weather, as well as the candlelight scenery of the Lake House, all played huge parts in the inspirations behind her book (Buzwell, n.d.).
All these pieces of inspiration have “dark” connotations to them, her distress, the rainy weather, as well as discussions of the dead, and ghost stories, caused the creation of the gothic novel, “Frankenstein,” which was said to be the very first piece of literature, that incorporated science fiction, romance, and gothic elements into one.
Reference:
British Library. (n.d.). Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and the Villa Diodati - The British Library. Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati
Frankenstein Films. (2007). Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein. Retrieved from http://members.aon.at/frankenstein/frankenstein-novel.htm
Prospect Magazine. (2016, May 17). The haunted summer of 1816 | Prospect Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/sumer-1816-frankenstein-shelley-byron-villa-diodati
Here’s some more info about Mary Shelley and what inspired her to write ‘Gothic’ stories:
ReplyDeleteIt was in May of 1816 when Mary Godwin-(she did not become ‘Mary Shelley’ until December 1816) and Percy Shelley along with their son William, travelled to Geneva. Mary’s step-sister “Claire Clairmont”- (a former lover of Lord Byron) also travelled with them.
“The journey across the French border and into Switzerland involved travelling through bleak, wintry landscapes. As Mary recorded afterwards in her travel volume History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland (1817) ‘Never was a scene more awefully desolate.”
It was the trees in landscapes of these areas; they stood very tall and in “scattered clumps”, throughout the ‘white wilderness’; “the vast expanse of snow was chequered only by these gigantic pines, and the poles that marked our road: no river or rock-encircled lawn relieved the eye, by adding the picturesque to the sublime’. The landscape, with its frightening, lonely and bleak aspect, clearly haunted Mary, and she would describe similarly desolate locations in her novel Frankenstein, a book that both begins and ends amidst bleak snowy wastes.”
See more at - http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati#sthash.b6liCOZV.dpuf
I find it interesting that you've mentioned how everything Mary saw she took into account when writing Frankenstein. It all impacted upon her writing and gave her inspiration which almost makes Frankenstein seem more real if thats possible. This is caused by the fact she's used things out of the real world and experiences she's had
DeleteQuestion 1)
ReplyDeleteAlthough the ‘sublime’ is usually linked to something being beautiful or divine as Pateman (2004) says in the opening paragraph of his article entitled “‘The Sublime’ in Key Concepts: A Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts in Education”. He then goes on to say that if people who are criticizing an author’s work and describe it as ‘sublime’ but what they really mean is it amazed them or made them wonder in awe, then sublime is the wrong word to use.
A book written by Longinus called “On the Sublime” deals with the sublime in this way;
“On the Sublime deals with forms of expression which have the power to
`entrance' us, to `transport us with wonder', as opposed to merely
persuading or pleasing us. Sublime passages in literature exert an
`irresistible' force. Couched as rhetorical advice, `a well-timed stroke of
sublimity scatters everything before it like a thunderbolt, and in a flash
reveals the power of the speaker'”
The power behind the speaker does not just arise from a mere mastery of the technique:
Not all skilled authors are capable of sublimity. To some degree it can only be by those authors who can form ‘grand conceptions’ and who are consumed by ‘powerful and inspired emotion’. These are qualities which Longinus defines as ‘very largely innate’.
Longinus goes on to say; “Combined with technical competence, powerful thought and emotion produce the `true sublime', in works which `uplift our souls', fill us with `proud exaltation and a sense of
vaunting joy, just as though we had ourselves produced what we had heard.'”
Another way to dissect what sublime could mean is; something that is sublime produces terror, something that is obscure or powerful as well as the infinite. Burke says; “Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime’.”
317 words
Reference; Pateman, T. (2004, 1991) ‘The Sublime’ in Key Concepts: A
Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts in Education. London: Falmer Press, pp 169 - 171.
Longinus On the Sublime quoted from Aristotle, Horace, Longinus
Classical Literary Criticism ed. T S Dorsch Harmondsworth Penguin
Books 1965
Burke, E (1757) A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of
the Sublime and Beautiful. Reprint edition, Oxford: Basial Blackwell
Question 2:
ReplyDeleteIt’s said that in the summer of 1816 there were many things that contributed to the strange happenings at the Villa Diodati. During that summer there were two iconic tales that developed, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre by John Polidori, which ended up being the inspiration to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Many said that it was the feeling that the night gave off when they started to write their ghost stories that influenced the creepy tones throughout the books. It’s said that the writing of ghost stories had been suggested by Lord Byron, as a way to pass a few hours during the bad weather they hd been enduring since they arrived.
All stories were written by candle light within the house while a storm was going on outside. This was very unusual for the weather at the time seeing as it was summer which gave the idea that there were some strange happenings going on. The year without summer, as 1816 is known as was caused by Mount Tamboro in Indonesia erupting in 1815. This was the cause behind the wintery weather that North America, Europe and Asia experienced the next year, all year round.
In an article written by Buzwell, (2014) it can be seen that nearly every aspect of life and conversations had in the Villa Diodati in 1816 in some way took form and were inspiration in either Frankenstein or The Vamprye. The many conversations that were had between Mary, Lord Byron, Percy and John were influences behind the novel Frankenstein, its said here in the preface of the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, “Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered communicated” (Buxwell, 2014) This shows that everything the four were speaking about was silently building up in her head and it wasn’t until she had the nightmare that everything started coming together as the nightmare was the central idea to Frankenstein.
Reference:
Buzwell, G. (2014) Mary Shelley, Frankentein and the Villa Diodati. British Library. Retrieved from: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati
The year of 1816 was known to be the year without Summer. This happened because of the volcanic eruption that took place in Mount Tamboro, Indonesia, in the year of 1815. What seemed to be a perfect summer, soon turned out to be ashes coming out from the volcanic area of Mount Tamboro, sending pollution to the sky causing much lightening and rain.
ReplyDeleteIn 1915, a group of travellers went to Switzerland for a holiday, including Mary Shelley who was 19 at the time and her whole entourage (stepsister, Claire Clairmont, Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori, Byron’s physician.) While at their stay at Villa Diodoti on the shores of Lake Geneva, they decided to write up ghost stories which was suggested by Lord Byron.
Some believed that the inspiration behind Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the Vamipre by John Polidori was due to the weather condition that was taken place outside of their window. While others believed that their level of emotions played a key part of making these two horror stories successful.
References
Mary and Shelley Frankenstein. (n.d.). The Summer of 1816. Retrieved from http://www.marywshelley.com/essays/the-summer-of-1816/
How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
ReplyDeleteThe notion of the sublime as emphasised during the Romantic period is the philosophy that refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation. The aesthetic quality of the sublime is mutually exclusive to the idea of beauty however, and that was argued in the Romantic texts of the period. Attributed significantly to natural wonder, the notion of the sublime is an explanation of the feeling we get when we encountering something in nature that's a mixture of terror and beauty. (Staley, n.d.)
In Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ the idea of the sublime is concentrated heavily in the back story of Victor Frankenstein, he becomes interested in studying electricity after witnessing a lightening storm, he also finds comfort in nature, thinking that nature is mourning for his younger brother. The deepest relation to the Sublime is to the Monster itself, the passage below speaks greatly of to the notion of the Sublime, due to its awe inspiring description of nature.
“While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; 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 daemon, to whom I had given life. (Shelley, 7.22-4)”
Ideologically, the experience of the sublime involves a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might, and is similar to the experience of the tragic. (Staley, n.d.)
So Dr. Frankenstein is experiencing the Sublime when he creates the monster, because the fear has been replaced due to the superiority of inventing man.
References:
Staley, C. Concept of the Sublime in Philosophy and Aesthetic Theory. Amerindianarts.us. Retrieved 12 June 2017, from http://www.amerindianarts.us/articles/concept_of_the_sublime_as_an_aesthetic_quality.shtml
Shelley, M. (2008). Frankenstein (1st ed.). Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press.