2012-10-09
Frankenstein, or the Modern
Prometeus
Per Bäckström
tisdag 2 oktober 2012
KVGA01/KVGAMH
”OR THE MODERN”?
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2012-10-09
Peter Childs
•  Engelsk förståelse av begreppen:
”modernitet”, ”det moderna” och
”modernism”.
•  Angloamerikansk kanon.
•  Lite om t.ex. nordisk konst och kultur.
•  Men, högst relevant för Mary Shelleys bok.
Begreppsdefinition
•  Epistemologiskt/sociopolitiskt
–  Modernitet – tidsperioden från renässansen och
framåt (Anthony Giddens).
–  Det moderna – tidsperioden från cirka 1850 (Theodor
W. Adorno).
–  Det senmoderna – från femtiotalet och framåt
(Anthony Giddens).
•  Tre estetiska strömningar i det moderna
–  Avantgarde, modernism och postmodernism
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Modernismbegreppets ambivalens
1.  En historiskt avgränsad epok cirka
1910–1930.
2.  Samlingsbegrepp för de estetiska
strömningarna i det moderna.
3.  Det epistomologiska skifte som
inträdde från cirka 1850.
Begreppsförvirring
Det moderna
Modernism
Modernism
Avantgarde
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2012-10-09
Avantgarde
• Expressionism (debatterad tillhörighet)
•  Italiensk och rysk futurism
•  Dada
•  Surrealism
•  Vorticism
•  m.fl. radikala -ismer
”Det futuristiska manifestet” Le
Figaro 1909
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Vi vill besjunga kärleken till faran, förtrogenheten med energin och oförvägenheten.
Mod, djärvhet och uppror skall bli grundelement i vår poesi.
Litteraturen har hittills förhärligat den tankfulla stillheten, kärleksruset och sömnen. Vi vill
förhärliga den aggressiva rörelsen, den febriga sömnlösheten, språnget, saltomortalen,
örfilen och smockan.
Vi förklarar att världens härlighet berikats med en ny skönhet: fartens skönhet. En racerbil
med motorhuven prydd med stora tuber som liknar ormar med explosiv andedräkt... en
rytande automobil som verkar driven av en kulspruta är vackrare än Nike från Samothrake.
Vi vill besjunga människan vid ratten, vars stång tycks gå tvärs igenom jorden, som även den
har full tävlingsfart i sin omloppsbana.
Poeten måste med hetta, överdåd och generositet hänge sig åt att stimulera naturelementens
entusiastiska intensitet.
Det finns ingen skönhet utom i kampen. Inget verk som inte har en aggressiv karaktär kan
vara ett mästerverk. Poesin bör uppfattas som en våldsam attack mot de okända krafterna,
för att tvinga dem att underkasta sig människan.
Vi befinner oss på seklernas yttersta udde!... Varför skulle vi se tillbaka när vi vill slå in de
hemlighetsfulla portarna till de Omöjliga? Tiden och Rummet dog i går. Vi lever redan i det
absoluta, eftersom vi redan har skapat den eviga och överallt närvarande hastigheten.
Vi vill förhärliga kriget - världens enda hygien - militarismen, patriotismen, anarkistens
destruktiva handling, de sköna idéer för vilka man dör samt föraktet för kvinnan.
Vi vill förstöra museerna, biblioteken, akademier, av alla slag och bekämpa moralism,
feminism och varje opportunistisk eller utilitarisk feghet.
Vi kommer att besjunga de stora folkmassorna, hetsade av arbete, nöjen eller uppror.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
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2012-10-09
Engelsk romantik
George Gordon, lord
Byron 1788–1824
Engelsk romantik
John Keats 1795–1821
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Engelsk romantik
Mary Shelley 1797–
1851
Engelsk romantik
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792–1822
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Shelleys begravning
Keats/Shelley Rom
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2012-10-09
Romantiken
Var en reaktion på:
•  Upplysningstiden
•  Förnuftet
Upphöjde:
•  Känslorna
•  Fantasin
•  Naturen
Romanticism
Romanticism in English literature began in the
1790s with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads
of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. Wordsworth’s ”Preface” to the
second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads, in
which he described poetry as ”the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings”, became the
manifesto of the English Romantic movement
in poetry.
Enc. Britannica
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Wordsworth ”Preface”
”For all good poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings: and though
this be true, Poems to which any value can
be attached were never produced on any
variety of subjects but by a man who, being
possessed of more than usual organic
sensibility, had also thought long and deeply.
For our continued influxes of feeling are
modified and directed by our thoughts,
which are indeed the representatives of all
our past feelings;
Coleridge – Imaginaton & Fancy
”Repeated meditations led me first to suspect,–
(and a more intimate analysis of the human
faculties, their appropriate marks, functions,
and effects matured my conjecture into full
conviction), – that fancy and imagination were
two distinct and widely different faculties,
instead of being, according to the general
belief, either two names with one meaning, or,
at furthest, the lower and higher degree of one
and the same power”.
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Shelley – Inspiration
”when composition begins inspiration is
already on the decline, and the most
glorious poetry that has ever been
communicated to the world is probably a
feeble shadow of the original conception of
the poet”.
Poeten
”Poets are the hierophants of an
unapprehended inspiration, the mirrors of
the gigantic shadows which futurity casts
upon the present, the words which express
what they understand not; the trumpets
which sing to battle, and feel not what they
inspire: the influence which is moved not,
but moves”.
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2012-10-09
Frankenstein
•  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, föddes den 30
augusti 1797 i Somers Town, England.
•  Hennes föräldrar, William Godwin och Mary
Wollstonecraft, var välkända författare.
•  Under en vistelse i Schweiz 1816 började
hon skriva på Frankenstein, eller den
moderne Prometheus. Inspirationen från
samtal med sin make Percy Bysshe Shelley
och Lord Byron om skapandet av konstgjort
liv.
•  När boken publicerades för första gången
1818 blev den direkt en succé.
Frankenstein
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2012-10-09
Ramhandling
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Waltons brev till sin syster
Frankensteins berättelse
Monstrets berättelse
Frankensteins berättelse
Waltons brev till sin syster
Kapitel fem – lycka
”It was on a dreary night of November that I
beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an
anxiety that almost amounted to agony,
collected the instruments of life around me, that
I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless
thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in
the morning; the rain pattered dismally against
the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out,
when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished
light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature
open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion
agitated its limbs”.
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2012-10-09
Kapitel fem – katastrof
”How can I describe my emotions at this
catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with
such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to
form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had
selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! -- Great
God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of
muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a
lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more
horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed
almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets
in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and
straight black lips”.
Reception
Frankenstein received mixed reviews when it was
first published:
•  it was noticed in many of the leading periodicals of
the day
•  some of the reviews were concerned by its
dedication to a well-known radical writer, Mary
Shelley’s father William Godwin
•  some reviews were concerned by the fact that it
bore many of the features of the extremely popular
literary genre of Gothic fiction.
crossref-it.info
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2012-10-09
Success
•  The novel’s Gothicism was one of the
reasons for its popularity with readers, if
not with reviewers
•  Its concern with the topical subject of the
possibilities and limits of scientific enquiry
also contributed to its success.
crossref-it.info
Gotisk roman
Frankenstein was read as an example of Gothic fiction, which was initiated by
Horace Walpole with The Castle of Otranto (1764) and reached the height of its
popularity towards the end of the century with such novels as Ann Radcliffe’s
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1796)
•  Gothic fiction is notable for its use of historical or remote settings to
dramatise the ways in which events in the past may affect individuals in the
present
•  it uses many of the devices of the modern horror genre, particularly settings
such as castle, crypts and dungeons, and often involves stories of torture
and persecution. […]
•  the authors deliberately set out to create tension, fear, a sense of
claustrophobia and the anticipation of violence or horror
•  as the genre developed, it began to employ more modern settings, as in
The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) by Mary Shelley’s father, William
Godwin
•  as in Godwin’s novel and in Frankenstein, the Gothic genre began to
explore contemporary philosophical, political and scientific preoccupations
•  also, as well as evoking anticipation and fear in its readers, it began to
explore the psychology of terror, guilt and the divided self – all of which play
a prominent part in Frankenstein.
crossref-it.info
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2012-10-09
Richard Brinsley Peake
Presumption: or the Fate of
Frankenstein (1823)
”The striking moral exhibited in this story is
the fatal consequence of that presumption
which attempts to penetrate beyond
prescribed depths, into the mysteries of
nature”.
James Whale Frankenstein (1931)
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2012-10-09
James Whale Frankenstein (1931)
Fritz Lang Metropolis (1927)
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James Whale Frankenstein (1931)
Marvel comics
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Australisk punk
Bladerunner
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2012-10-09
GRUPPARBETE
Uddatalsgrupper
•  Vad är det som gör Frankenstein till en
modern roman?
•  Vilka element i romanen är ett uttryck för
det moderna/moderniteten?
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2012-10-09
Jämnatalsgrupper
•  Vad är det som gör Frankenstein till en
omodern roman?
•  Finns det element i romanen som är ett
uttryck för traditionen (i förh till 1818)?
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