Creating Frankenstein Jeremy Kessler - The New Atlantis

Creating FRANKENSTEINversion is a collection of fragments—not only of Mary and Percy’s variouscontributions, but of what ClaudeLévi-Strauss called bricolage: the cobblingtogether of a new story or symbolout of cultural hand-me-downs.This process of piecemeal creationalso characterizes the manufactureof Frankenstein’s creature. Book andmonster are each man-made, bearingthe marks of a human subjectivitywrestling with the constraints ofthe world around it—bending theworld to its will. It may be that thiscontest between interior vision andexterior medium always results ina kind of fractured genesis, a creaturewhose seams must show. MaryShelley herself appreciated the analogybetween book and monster. Whenthe substantially-revised third editionwas released on Halloween 1831,she remarked: “And now, once again, Ibid my hideous progeny go forth andprosper. I have an affection for it, forit was the offspring of happy days.”In the first chapter of Frankenstein:A Cultural History, Susan TylerHitchcock—author of Mad MaryLamb: Lunacy and Murder in London(2005) and the blog MonsterSightings—recounts the story ofthese happy days, when a group ofyoung artists and lovers took shelterfrom the pounding Swiss rain in thesummer of 1816, and pondered thewonders and horrors of nature. Twoyears earlier, Mary Godwin had metPercy Bysshe Shelley, fallen in love,and borne his child out of wedlock.(The baby was premature and did notsurvive.) Percy was still married tohis first wife Harriet; scandal ensued.The rebellious couple eventually fledto the Continent with Mary’s stepsisterClaire, who herself was pursuinganother poet, Lord Byron. InMay 1816, the lovestruck threesomearrived in Geneva, where the alreadyinfamous Byron was summering at alakeshore chateau once frequented byJohn Milton.Despite the unseasonably cool,damp weather, the lakeside communitywas abuzz. As Percy Shelleyrecalled to a friend, “The inhabitantson the banks of the lake oppositeLord Byron’s house used telescopesto spy upon his movements.” Thesevoyeurs were not just driven by simplecuriosity: “They said that we hadformed a pact to outrage all that isregarded as most sacred in humansociety.” The group’s entertainmentsappear to have been more staid thanthe neighbors cared to imagine.Conversation revolved around suchhappy bourgeois subjects as scientificprogress, and evenings were occupiedwith ghost stories.As the rain came down, LordByron and Percy Shelley discussed“the nature of the principle of life”and other “philosophical doctrines.”Conversations about “galvanism” lefta deep impression on Mary; electricitywas a hot topic. Less than twentyyears before, Luigi Galvani had shotanimals through with an electricalSummer 2009 ~ 83Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information.