Texts and Context
Romanticism
A movement of the 18th and 19th centuries that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion and politics to the formation of the preceding Neoclassic period o The Neoclassic period valued reason, formal rules and demanded order in beauty A current definition: a psychological desire to escape from the unpleasant Walter Pater thought the addition of strangeness to beauty defined the Romantic movement Characteristics: o Predomination of imagination over reason and rules o Primitivism o Love of nature o Interest in the past o Mysticism (valuing experiences) o Individualism o Idealisation of rural life o Beauty in the grotesque
Gothic
Simplest definition: a style of fiction characterised by the use of desolate or remote settings and macabre, mysterious or violent incidents But on a deeper level: exploration of social values, prescriptions and proscriptions, concern with good and evil, and questions regarding the boundaries between what is human, monstrous, natural, unnatural, supernatural and divine Humanity in conflict with the supernatural and the fantastic, both in the world and in themselves o It is a world that opens up the dark irrational side of human nature the savage egoism, the perverse impulses, and the nightmarish terrors that lie beneath the controlled and ordered surface of the conscious mind Ambition to transcend earthly human limitations and reach the divine The Gothic relates the individual to the infinite universe (Varma 16) In Frankenstein: human natures depravity, struggle between good and evil in the human soul, existence of inexplicable elements humanity and the cosmos Multiple/spiral/interpolated narrative multiple layers. E.g. Waltons letters, Frankensteins narrative, Monsters narrative Often 1st person narrator who feels compelled to tell story to a fascinated audience Dreams/visions: many layers of consciousness
The Doppelganger
Federick S. Frank a second self or alternate identity
The doppelganger in demonic form can be a reciprocal or lower bestial self. They represent the duality of human nature
Faustian Motif
Forbidden knowledge/power Trying to become God and overcome human limitations Ambition often leads to the heros fall although it sometimes inspires admiration