Browsing by Subject "Percy Shelley"

This Master’s Thesis proposes a reading of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (first edition published 1818) against the historical background of secularization and the philosophical problem of secular ethics. At a moment in Western history when religious views of man and the world he inhabits were rapidly losing significance, many intellectuals sought to find a non-theistic foundation for ethical values. Among them were many of the renowned British Romantic poets, much of whose literary opus can be read as an ethico-philosophical undertaking. This thesis reads Frankenstein against the backdrop of the religious and ethical thought of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley’s companion, literary mentor during the composition of Frankenstein, and later husband. In comparison with other period texts, Frankenstein presents a distinctly naturalistic outlook from which the supernatural is strikingly absent. Furthermore, the religious and ethical views of the novel’s protagonist are remarkably similar to those of Percy Shelley; this finding dovetails with recent scholarship which suggests that Victor Frankenstein was modeled upon the author’s real-life companion. However, the fact that the novel’s Shelley-like protagonist can easily be read as the villain of the story and that his distinctly Romantic attitudes result in an ethical catastrophe suggests a subtle but powerful critique of Shelleyan Romanticism and its metaphysical and ethical tenets. This interpretation is underscored by an analysis of Victor Frankenstein’s first-person confession narrative employing James Phelan’s taxonomy of narratorial unreliability, which highlights the protagonist’s lack of ethical clairvoyance and his inadequate engagement with his severe ethical failures.