Romanticism In Frankenstein

scuss how texts studied in the Romanticism elective engage us both intellectually and emotionally.

The romantic period was a time of unprecedented change, recognised for its expression of transformative ideas, varied perspectives and exploration of meaning. It is this amalgamation of radical multifarious viewpoints that has endured and remained poignant both on intellectual and emotional levels. The reactionary nature of the movement itself characterized a set of antithetical values to the preceding age of reason. Logic and rationality gave way to imagination, an individual’s search for meaning, intense emotion, idealistic perspectives and pantheistic views of the natural world. Using their texts as a medium romantic artists explored the

Mary Shelley chooses to portray the protagonist, Frankenstein, as the ultimate dreamer concerned only for otherworldly and unattainable ideas, but unlike elements of ‘The Tyger’ this method of thinking is not encouraged rather illustrated as corruptive and consuming. The depiction of his uncompromising idealism, using casual tonality, “life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should break through” explores how Frankenstein’s unchecked ambition has blinded him to the unnatural course of his fantastical pursuits. The depiction of the process of creation lacks the grandeur of his previous statements, the use of imagery, ”tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay,” depicts Frankenstein’s self-disgust and awareness of the horror of his actions, the importance of needing to “torture the living to animate the inanimate” metaphorically insinuates the cost of his ambition to the natural world. Mary Shelley uses these consequences to highlight the monstrosity, which can result from an individual’s imaginative pursuit of the unattainable. The result of which is the birth of the monster, “ a gigantic flash of light illuminated the object,” the tempest of a storm symbolic of the danger of imaginative power, foreshadows the consequences of Frankenstein’s decision to play god. The monster himself has an ambiguous nature “ I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage off which you would not believe,” signifies the ability for good and evil in every act of creation, a concept which challenges the romantic rhetoric of imaginative thought being a pathway to the sublime. Shelley engages her audience through an examination of romantic ideas and challenging their traditional use to encourage healthy