Understanding Romanticism and Gothic in "Frankenstein

1. Romantic and Gothic Genres In Frankenstein

2. Romanticism Definition: A movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics to the formalism of the preceding (Neoclassic) period. The Neoclassic period valued reason, formal rules, and demanded order in beauty.

3. Romanticism Victor Hugo called Romanticism “liberalism in literature.” It freed the artist and writer from restraints and rules. A current definition: a psychological desire to escape from unpleasant realities.

4. Individualism • Idealization of rural life • Enthusiasm for the wild, irregular, or grotesque in nature • Enthusiasm for the uncivilized or “natural” Romanticism Characteristics: The predominance of imagination over reason and formal rules Primitivism Love of nature An interest in the past Mysticism

5. Romanticism More Characteristics: Interest in human rights Sentimentality Melancholy Interest in the gothic

6. Gothic Cathedrals Cathedrals with vaulting arches and spires • reach wildly to the sky - trying to grasp the heavens • covered with wild carvings depicting humanity in conflict with supernatural forces • demons, angels, gargoyles, and monsters.

7. Humanity’s division between a finite, physical identity and the often terrifying and bizarre forces of the infinite. • The Gothic aesthetic also embodies an ambition to transcend earthly human limitations and reach the divine.

9. Gothic Genre • Late eighteenth-century • devoted primarily to stories of horror • the fantastic, "darker" supernatural forces. • Frankenstein belongs specifically to the Gothic genre.

10. Gothic Literature • Focuses on humanity’s fascination with the grotesque, the unknown, and the frightening, inexplicable aspects of the universe and the human soul. • Creates horror • Portraying humans in confrontation with the terrifying forces found in the cosmos and within themselves. • Human condition as an ambiguous mixture of good and evil powers • cannot be understood completely by human reason.

11. Gothic Literature • Human condition as a paradox • Duality—humans are divided in the conflict between opposing forces in the world and in themselves. • The Gothic themes in Frankenstein • human nature’s depravity • struggle between good and evil in the human soul, • The existence of unexplainable elements in humanity and the cosmos

12. The Double or Doppelganger (German for "double-goer"): • a second self or alternate identity, sometimes, but not always, a physical twin • Gothic doppelgangers often haunt and threaten the rational psyche of the victim to whom they become attached

13. The Double Motif • Comparison or contrast between two characters or sets of characters within a work to represent opposing forces in human nature. • Suggesting that humans are burdened with a dual nature, a soul forever divided. • Double characters are often paired in common relationships • twins, siblings, husband/wife, parent/child, hero/villain, creator/creature, etc.

14. Forbidden Knowledge or Power/ Faust Motif:

15. Forbidden Knowledge or Power • Gothic protagonist’s goal. • The Gothic "hero" questions the universe’s ambiguous nature • Tries to comprehend and control those supernatural powers that mortals cannot understand. • He tries to overcome human limitations and make himself into a "god." • This ambition usually leads to the hero’s "fall" or destruction; • Sometimes this will evoke admiration because individuals have the courage to defy fate and cosmic forces

16. Dreams and Visions • Terrible truths are often revealed to characters through dreams or visions. • The hidden knowledge of the universe and of human nature emerges through dreams • when the person sleeps, reason sleeps, and the supernatural, unreasonable world can break through. • Dreams in Gothic literature express the dark, unconscious depths of the psyche that are repressed by reason • truths that are too terrible to be comprehended by the conscious mind.

17. Signs and Omens • Reveal the intervention of cosmic forces • Often represent psychological or spiritual conflict • (e.g., flashes of lightning and violent storms might parallel some turmoil within a character’s mind).

18. Framed Narrative • A story within a story, within sometimes yet another story • different individual often narrates the events of a story in each frame. • unlike an omniscient narrative perspective, the teller of the story becomes an actual character with concomitant shortcomings, limitations, prejudices, and motives.