FRANKENSTEIN

MARY SHELLY

30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).

She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

ROMANTICISM

Focus on the individual

A sense of idealism or optimism

Romanticism in art and literature was based in a part of the feeling of optimism About possibility that provided Western Culture and the American and French Revolution

Major Works

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History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817)

Frankenstein (1818)

Matilda (1820)

Valperga (1823)

The Last Man (1826)

The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830)

Lodore (1835)

Falkner (1837)

Rambles in Italy and Germany (1844)

Focus on emotions and Imagination

THEMES

Alienation

Montrosity

Birth and Creation

The Family and Domestic Affection

GALVANISM

In The 1780s Luigi galvani a professor of anatomy conducted experiments on animal tissue Using a machine that could produce electrical Sparks

He concluded that animals tissue contained electricity in the form of fluid

The theory was incorrect but he had proven that muscles contracted in response to an electrical stimulus

GOTHIC LITERATURE

They feature wild and remote settings such as haunted castles or wind blasted moors and their plots involve violent or mysterious events

In literature the term applies to works with a brooding atmosphere that emphasize the unknown and inspire fear

It can mean harsh or cruel reffering to the barbaric Gothic tribes of the Middle ages.