The Godwinian novel blends the romance and realist forms together to represent “things as they are.” Godwin realizes that this makes the Gothic novel a perfect “vehicle” to represent a world that is increasingly complex and irrational, something Shelley later portrays in Frankenstein (Allen 25). According to Godwin, a rational world is one where the irrational and rational can be easily separated, like those in Gothic novels. Allen extends this argument by stating it is a Godwinian novel that uses “features of the well-established Gothic novel and turn them on their head” (21). He asserts that the novel’s beginnings as a “ghost story” and Shelley’s use of intensified language and emphasis on the psychological, positions it within Gothic fiction. In this chapter, Allen argues that Frankenstein isn’t a mere Gothic novel, but a Godwinian novel. “Language, Form, and Style.” Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2008. Peter’s Church in Bournemouth.Īllen, Graham. She died of a brain tumor in London on February 1st, 1851 and was buried at St. Her later years were characterized by frequent battles with depression, the love and then rejection of close female friends, and literary commitments to her own work and her husband’s. Unfortunately, Percy Shelley drowned after a boating accident in 1822, and Mary was left a widow at 24. In 1819 William died and Mary gave birth to Percy Florence, the only of Mary’s children to survive into adulthood. In December of 1816 Percy’s wife committed suicide and Mary and Percy married shortly after. While there, the novel Frankenstein was born from a ghost story contest suggested by Lord Byron, which was later published anonymously in January, 1818. In 1816 Mary gave birth to William, and in May of that year she, Percy, the baby, and Claire traveled to Switzerland to join Lord Byron, whom Claire was pursuing. Mary’s father disapproved of the match, denounced his daughter and refused to see her when the party returned to England because of financial issues. Shelley was still married at the time but had separated from his wife, Harriet, and eventually traveled around Europe with Mary, where they struggled financially and lost their first child, a daughter, mere weeks after she was born in February of 1815. It was when she returned from Scotland that her relationship with her stepsister improved and she later eloped with Percy Shelley, a poet and frequent visitor to her father’s household. Mary’s relationship with both was strained, and she found herself living away from home multiple times, spending many periods from 1812 to 1814 in Scotland. She lived with her stepsister Fanny Imlay (who later committed suicide), her father, and eventually her father’s new wife, Mary Jane Clairmont, with her daughter Jane (later Claire). Their influence persisted in Mary’s childhood and later writings, even though her mother died merely 11 days after her birth, and she was not formally educated. Mary Shelley, originally Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, was born on the 30th of August, 1797 in London to, in her own words, “two persons of distinguished literary celebrity” –Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin.
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