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Title: On "Frankenstein" Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley Date: 1832 Language: en Topics: notes, science fiction Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prose_Works_of_Percy_Bysshe_Shelley/On_%22Frankenstein%22
The novel of "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus," is undoubtedly,
as a mere story, one of the most original and complete productions of
the day. We debate with ourselves in wonder, as we read it, what could
have been the series of thoughts—what could have been the peculiar
experiences that awakened them—which conduced, in the author's mind, to
the astonishing combinations of motives and incidents, and the startling
catastrophe, which compose this tale. There are, perhaps, some points of
subordinate importance, which prove that it is the author's first
attempt. But in this judgment, which requires a very nice
discrimination, we may be mistaken; for it is conducted throughout with
a firm and steady hand. The interest gradually accumulates and advances
towards the conclusion with the accelerated rapidity of a rock rolled
down a mountain. We are led breathless with suspense and sympathy, and
the heaping up of incident on incident, and the working of passion out
of passion. We cry "hold, hold! enough!"—but there is yet something to
come; and, like the victim whose ​history it relates, we think we can
bear no more, and yet more is to be borne. Pelion is heaped on Ossa, and
Ossa on Olympus. We climb Alp after Alp, until the horizon is seen
blank, vacant, and limitless; and the head turns giddy, and the ground
seems to fail under our feet.
This novel rests its claim on being a source of powerful and profound
emotion. The elementary feelings of the human mind are exposed to view;
and those who are accustomed to reason deeply on their origin and
tendency will, perhaps, be the only persons who can sympathize, to the
full extent, in the interest of the actions which are their result. But,
founded on nature as they are, there is perhaps no reader, who can
endure anything beside a new love-story, who will not feel a responsive
string touched in his inmost soul. The sentiments are so affectionate
and so innocent—the characters of the subordinate agents in this strange
drama are clothed in the light of such a mild and gentle mind—the
pictures of domestic manners are of the most simple and attaching
character: the pathos[1] is irresistible and deep. Nor are the crimes
and malevolence of the single Being, though indeed withering and
tremendous, the offspring of any unaccountable propensity to evil, but
flow irresistibly from certain causes fully adequate to their
production. They are the children, as it were, of Necessity and Human
Nature. In this the direct moral of the book consists; and it is perhaps
the most important, and of the most universal application, of any moral
that can be enforced ​by example. Treat a person ill, and he will become
wicked. Requite affection with scorn;—let one being be selected, for
whatever cause, as the refuse of his kind—divide him, a social being,
from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible
obligations—malevolence and selfishness. It is thus that, too often in
society, those who are best qualified to be its benefactors and its
ornaments, are branded by some accident with scorn, and changed, by
neglect and solitude of heart, into a scourge and a curse.
The Being in "Frankenstein" is, no doubt, a tremendous creature. It was
impossible that he should not have received among men that treatment
which led to the consequences of his being a social nature. He was an
abortion and an anomaly; and though his mind was such as its first
impressions framed it, affectionate and full of moral sensibility, yet
the circumstances of his existence are so monstrous and uncommon, that,
when the consequences of them became developed in action, his original
goodness was gradually turned into inextinguishable misanthropy and
revenge. The scene between the Being and the blind De Lacey in the
cottage, is one of the most profound and extraordinary instances of
pathos that we ever recollect. It is impossible to read this
dialogue,—and indeed many others of a somewhat similar
character,—without feeling the heart suspend its pulsations with wonder,
and the "tears stream down the cheeks." The encounter and argument
between Frankenstein and the Being on the sea of ice, almost approaches,
in effect, to the expostulation of Caleb Williams with Falkland. It
reminds us, indeed, somewhat of the style and character of that
admirable writer, to whom the ​author has dedicated his work, and whose
productions he seems to have studied.
There is only one instance, however, in which we detect the least
approach to imitation; and that is the conduct of the incident of
Frankenstein's landing in Ireland. The general character of the tale,
indeed, resembles nothing that ever preceded it. After the death of
Elizabeth, the story, like a stream which grows at once more rapid and
profound as it proceeds, assumes an irresistible solemnity, and the
magnificent energy and swiftness of a tempest.
The churchyard scene, in which Frankenstein visits the tombs of his
family, his quitting Geneva, and his journey through Tartary to the
shores of the Frozen Ocean, resemble at once the terrible reanimation of
a corpse and the supernatural career of a spirit. The scene in the cabin
of Walton's ship—the more than mortal enthusiasm and grandeur of the
Being's speech over the dead body of his victim—is an exhibition of
intellectual and imaginative power, which we think the reader will
acknowledge has seldom been surpassed.
[1] In The Athenæum and The Shelley Papers the word father's occurs here
instead of pathos. As father's barely makes sense, and pathos is
unquestionably the right word, there need be no hesitation in crediting
Medwin with an error of transcription.