Frankenstein
Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley, 1818
- also called The Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelley
- her mother was the famed writer and women's rights thinker, '''Mary Wollenstonecraft'''
- Wollenstonecraft is considered the "first feminist"
- her father, '''William Godwin''', was a famous political philosopher and novelist
- Godwin was considered a political radical for his attacks on institutions, "aristocratic privilege", and religion
- he argued
- he was an early promoter of "utilitarianism," a philosophy that sought to create the "greatest good" or "happiness" for the "greatest number of people"
- Godwin wrote a novel that drew from John Milton's "Paradise Lost"
- Mary Shelley also drew inspiration from ''Paradise Lost''
- Godwin was considered a political radical for his attacks on institutions, "aristocratic privilege", and religion
- Shelley had an affair with the poet Percy Shelley, who was married, and married him in 1816
Writing of Frankenstein
- it was on a trip to Switzerland in 1816 w/ Shelley, the poet Lord Byron, and William Polidor that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein
The Summer with no Sun
- Mary wrote of her time in Switzerland,
"It proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house"
Galvanism
- Benjamin Franklin's discoveries in the mid-1700s of the nature of lightning as electricity spurred research into electricity
- in the late 1700s, Luigi Galvani realized that muscle tissue reacted to electricity
- his assistant accidently touched a dead frog's leg with a charged scalpel, which made its leg move
- the study or practice of generating electricity with chemicals was called "Galvanism"
- became a cultural meme