Concept
Frankenstein
Overview
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature from different body parts in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18 and staying in Bath, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in a French translation published in Paris in 1821.
Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815, moving along the river Rhine in Germany, and stopping in Gernsheim, 17 kilometres (11 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, about a century earlier, Johann Konrad Dippel, an alchemist, had engaged in experiments. She then journeyed to the region of Geneva, Switzerland, where much of the story takes place. Galvanism and occult ideas were topics of conversation for her companions, particularly for her lover and future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In 1816—at the suggestion of Lord Byron—Mary, Percy, John Polidori and Byron himself, each agreed to try writing a ghost story.
After thinking for days, Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein after imagining a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made. The novel was first published anonymously in 1818, and in 1831, a revised edition was published under Mary Shelley's name. This version included significant stylistic revisions, a new preface describing the story's conception, and a more explicitly moral tone.
Frankenstein is one of the best-known works of English literature. Infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, it has had a considerable influence on literature and on popular culture, spawning a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Since the publication of the novel, the name Frankenstein has often been used to refer to the monster.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
During these little lessons, which were given and taken with little pains and less restraint, the younger boy was playing with some counters which he had secreted under the book.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Eloisa
The author is tied to Frankenstein in the knowledge graph.
He becomes deaf to the voice he used to obey; he is a lion in a fever; he distrusts his keeper and refuses to be controlled. With the moral symptoms of a changing temper there are perceptible changes in appearance. His countenance develops and takes the stamp of his character; the soft and sparse down upon his cheeks becomes darker and stiffer. His voice grows hoarse or rather he loses it altogether. He is neither a…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
The author is tied to Frankenstein in the knowledge graph.
"The pilgrim of eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent;" [Footnote: Adonais.] the second, that after the appearance of "The Giaour" and "Childe Harold," Sir Walter Scott renounced writing poetry. [Footnote: Lockhart.] The last forgot that while he was quietly writing criticisms, Byron was dying for new-born liberty in Greece.
Michel de Montaigne, Literary and Philosophical Essays
Close in meaning to Frankenstein; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Frankenstein
Related ideas
- French Revolution
- BBC News
- Geneva
- Gothic fiction
- Horace Walpole
- Great Britain
- William Godwin
- Humphry Davy
- Immanuel Kant
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- BBC Two
- Jacques Lacan
- John Milton
- Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
- The Wall Street Journal
- Germaine Greer
- The Guardian
- BBC
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- Aeschylus
- Russian Empire
- Oxford
- Occult
- Prometheus
Place in the tradition
Part of Romanticism.