Meike Kohl

QUB 2006

18th century and Romantic literature

Mary Shelley′s Frankenstein and the Gothic ­ exploring the individual

psyche and operating as a form of social critique

The Gothic often employs a first person narrative focussing on the inner lives of its

protagonists. The psychological processes revealed reflect political and social issues

arising in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Enlightenment, French,

American and Industrial revolution had set in motion a reshuffling of traditional social

orders; a new middle class, the bourgeoisie emerged, and with it mercantilism and

rationalism. The Gothic can be seen as a reaction to overtly rational thinking, exposing

the hidden fears of that time, and criticising the new models of society. The core text

used as a representative of the genre Gothic is Mary Shelley′s

Frankenstein

. However,

Frankenstein

is not only a Gothic novel, but is closely connected to Romantic thoughts

and ideas. Vice versa, some of the tropes of the Gothic novel can also be found in

Romantic literature.

Frankenstein

is intertextually connected with Wordsworth´s and

Coleridge′s

Lyrical Ballads

through references to Coleridge′s `Rime of the Ancient

Mariner′ and Wordsworth´s `Tintern Abbey′. Romantic poetry focuses on the

individual, too. Although the form of novel and poetry inevitably differs, and thus also

the extent to which a character or issue is presented, a lot of similarities can be found

which stand for a discourse typical of that epoch.

A prerequisite for the exploration of the individual mind is a narrative exposing the

processes of the protagonist′s mind. The suitable narrative form is thus the first person

narrative employed in Mary Shelley′s

Frankenstein

, as well as in some of the

Lyrical

Ballads

. In a time of political and social upheaval very few things appear stable, and

neither does the individual mind. Cultural and individual change is paralleling each

other.

2

In Wordsworth′s poem `Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey′, the

changing of a personality is addressed. Time is an influential factor for change: `Five

years have passed: five summers, with the length / Of five long winters!′1. Whilst the

setting and therewith nature herself seems to have been untouched by the course of

time, the narrator is aware of the changes which occurred in himself and in his attitude

to his surroundings. Nature serves as a base for contrasting his former and his present

state of mind, as stated in self-reflective lines such as:

And so I dare to hope

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o′er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lovely streams,

Wherever nature led; more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved.

(115, ll. 65-73)

Nature is also presented as a reliable source of `tranquil restoration′(114, l. 31), like the

domestic relations, that is the lyrical persona′s sister, focused on in the last lines. This

interpersonal relationship anchors the self between now and then, for, in opposition to

nature′s invariable attitude, the sister remembers the past and perceives the present:

My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes!

(117, ll. 117-120)

This self-observation of a character changing and maturing over the years is enabled

through the first person narrative of the lyrical persona.

1

Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Lyrical Ballads

. (London, New York: Routledge, 1988) 113, ll. 1-2

Subsequent references will be marked in the text..

3