Discussion Questions
1. What appears to the nature of the Gothic and the Romantic? Is there overlap? What do either of these have to do with the sublime? (Also see question 2, chapter 3, volume 1)
2. M. Waldman, Victor's Mentor, says of the progress of science:
The ancient teachers of this science [chemistry] promised impossibilies,
and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know
that metals cannot be transmuted, and that the elixi of life is a chimera. But
these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and
their eyes to pour over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature, and shew how
she works in her hiding places. They ascnet into the heaves;
they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air
we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers;
they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and
even mock the invisible world with its own shadows. (28)
Describing his labors in giving life to his creature, Victor Frankenstein says,
One secret which I alone possesed was the hope to which I had dedicated
myself, and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed
and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding places. (32)
Which of the following lines appear to agree with the attitudes towards Nature and the spirit of scientific pursuit express in Frankenstein? What is the nature of this attitude? Is it justifiable? Further, what appears to be Mary Shelley’s attitude towards all this? What clues can be pickup from Mary Shelley’s 1831 introduction to the novel?
Nature, and Nature's Laws lay hid in Night:
God said, Let Newton be! and All was Light.
---Alexander Pope, "Epitaph"
Not Newton's Art can show
A Truth, perhaps, not fit for us to know
--Mary Leapor, "The Enquiry"
Nature compell'd, his piercing Mind, obeys,
And gladly shews him all her secret Ways;
Gainst Mathematicks she has no Defense,
And yields t' experimental Consequence.
---John Desaguliers, "The Newtonian System..."