How is the Romantic construction of the Sublime reflected in
the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under
consideration in this Romanticism reader?
You can look here at Blake's Songs, Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, Byron's Manfred and Frankenstein...
#1 for Alan
ReplyDeleteI will pick Frankenstein as an example.
Frankenstein is divided into two parts
One part was wrote in letter (1-4)
The second part was in story.
From the ideological view, the story was describe a journey to the north pole.
Con'd from ideological view..
ReplyDeleteVlasopolos (1983) shows " The hidden logic of Frankenstein rests on Mary Shelley's fusion of the sociopolitical forces used to ensure the survival of the aristocracy and the private drama of a man who sees himself as ineluctably driven to incest. The principal dynamics of Victor Frankenstein's actions involves incest-avoidance; his fear leads to the creation of the monster and to the demise of his circle."
Frankenstein is not a story only on adventure. It do have scientific and human thoughts in the story.
From ideological view , it do have ethical and moral thoughts with the author.
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ReplyDeleteAlan, I agree with you, however, I think Frankenstein the story itself is not ethical as Frankenstein is a doctor, remember...he is wanted to cheat death and that is why he wanted to create a life.
ReplyDeleteAlan, you said, "Frankenstein is not a story only on adventure. It do have scientific and human thoughts in the story". Well, it is true it has human thoughts.
Do you know?
“Historically speaking there were men who studied galvanism attempting to reanimate life. Galvani for example made a frogs leg's twich after an electrical shock (perhaps that one was just reflex but still intersting and he thought it was life). Historians say SHelley could have based this off real scientist's experiments and the time. She claims it was a nightmare. I think there was a bit of both. The story is hers, but the facts were perhaps of some inspiration. In any case she made a great book” (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpf-71KTflk&feature=PlayList&p=258725EB6AF9D0EC&index=3) Check the comments thanks.
Anyway, Alan, I found an article where I clearly can see what I wanted to say, read below or go to the website thanks.
“What separates the living from the dead? What is the “spark of life” that animates the living? Can physicians control and manipulate that spark to restore life? All of these questions were on the minds of scientists during Mary Shelley’s era. In a quest for the principle of life, Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, performed an extensive series of experiments in “animal electricity” or “galvanism” in the 1780s and 1790s. Galvani’s nephew, physician Giovanni Aldini (1762–1834), conducted demonstrations of the effects of electricity on animal and human bodies for audiences throughout Europe.
In London in 1803, Aldini administered electrical current to the ears and nose of a recently beheaded ox. To the astonishment of his audience, the eyes of the ox opened, the tongue moved, and the nose of the animal stirred. Aldini performed similar demonstrations using the heads of newly executed criminals, producing quivering of the jaw, contortion of the muscles, and opening of the eyes. Mary Shelley was well aware of “galvanism”; she made explicit reference to it in the revised edition of Frankenstein published in 1831”.
From Giovanni Aldini, An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism Artist unknown, 1803 History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine
I recommend you to go to this pdf file since you have a lot of interest about Frankenstein http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/about/exhibition/travelingexhibitions/pdf/franktext.pdf
Sheikh: to elaborate on your Galvani theory- Shelly was definitely aware of it, and it is referenced in the book, in chapter 2, that Frankenstein was inspired by Galvani's experiments.
ReplyDeleteI looked up a definition for sublime, and this was the best one I found: "The sublime is that in nature which is so much greater than man that its attraction actually includes a certain degree of fear and trepidation on the part of the beholder, although a fear not so immediate that it traumatizes."
When I read that, there was a scene from Frankenstein (not in the reader) that I was instantly reminded of.
Frankenstein had grown up really interested in nature and botany, learning names of plants, etc. Then one day he was watching a thunderstorm, and watched a tree get struck by lightning. "I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump." (Frankenstein, chapter 2)
Shelley goes on to show the sublime linguistically using repetition. frankenstein describes that tree as being "utterly destroyed." Later, looking back on everything that happened in his life, he says: "Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction."(last line of chapter 2)
Here sublime is shown in the contrast of free will and destiny, beauty of nature being destroyed, and the enigmatic idea of lightning, or fire, being so powerful, yet Frankenstein, as a human, wanted to master it. The hard lesson he then learned was that man cannot be the master of nature. it's another ideological sublime that humanity is hardwired to try to be the master of their world, but in reality, it's an impossibility.
Hi Group, I wanted to clear out the meaning of sublime. According to White (n.d.), “The word 'sublime' is used colloquially nowadays as a vague superlative. However, in particular in the realms of philosophy, literary studies, art history or cultural criticism, it has a range of more specific meanings. It might be used to refer to the transcendent, the numinous, the uplifting or the ecstatic. (Source: http://homepage.mac.com/lukewhite/sub_history.htm)
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Blake's songs, as far as I am concerned, Blake’s songs have the mutual balance of word/image, and at the structural level, he further offers a second such symmetry, however these bilateral symmetries are broken at higher level of complexity, in other words difficulty, within the trilateral construction of narrative.
ReplyDeleteI will say more things about Frankenstein again, as it interests me a lot.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Sparknotes.com website, The sublime usual world, embraced by Romanticism (late eighteenth century to mid-nineteenth century) as a source of natural emotional experience for the individual, initially offers characters the opportunity of spiritual renewal.
Reference:
(Source:http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/themes.html)
Also the website says, Over-involved in hopelessness and remorse after the deaths of William and Justine, for which he feels responsible, Victor heads to the mountains to lift his spirits.
Similarly, after a hellish winter of cold the monster feels his heart lighten as spring arrives.
The influence of nature on mood is obvious throughout the novel, but for Victor, the ordinary world's power to console him wane (I wanted to keep the word “wane” when I was paraphrasing as I assume “wane” means disappear in this context) when he realizes that the monster will trouble him no matter where he goes.
By the end, as Victor chases the monster obsessively, in the form of the frozen desert, functions simply as the symbolic backdrop for his primal struggle against the monster.
Reference:
(Source:http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/themes.html)
Con'd
ReplyDeleteConceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader?
For conceptual construction of Frankenstein. I will say it is related to human thinking and the reborn of humans. According to Popen (1998) explains
Mary Shelley gothic tale contains a modern parable about our ambiguous relationship to
technological creation and power. Indeed, it\u2019s subtitle is: The Modern Prometheus. The monster ex-
plains to Frankenstein that the Doctor was wrong to release him into the world with no provision for his role or influence in the presence of others.\u201d
In lingustic construction, it can be defined in many ways. For example, using past tense
with linked connection in the story.
Bednarek (2008) shows the linguistics usage in Frankenstein. This includes keywords
like I,my,me,myself. I, my, me, myself (style markers pointing to the importance of first person narration and dialogue), creature, monster, fiend, wretch, daemon (referencing the gothic elements of the story), mountain, mountains, nature, earth, ice, lake, sun, moon, desert (relating to the importance of nature and the romantic elements of the novel).
The lingustics in Frankenstein is in past enese. Mostly the sentences are long and using past tense with action, this is the example
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years.(Mary,1818,p.4)
Reference
ReplyDeleteBednarek, M. (2001) Teaching English Literature and Linguistics Using Corpus Stylistic Methods. Retreived on 28 May, 2009 from University of Technology, Sydney website http://www.asfla.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/teaching-english-literature-and-linguistics.pdf
Popen (1998). Thinking Though Technology:
Frankenstein’s Problem (or: How I Learned to Stop Worry- ing and Love Technology). Retrieved on 28 May, 2009 from Viterbo University website
www.viterbo.edu/analytic/Vol%2019%20no.%201/thinking%20through%20tecnology.pdf.
Vlasopolos,A. Frankenstein's Hidden Skeleton: The Psycho-Politics of Oppression. Science Fiction Studies Journal. No.30 (2). Depau University
ReplyDeleteFredricks (1996) believed that the sublime only lied in the structure in the story of Frankenstein. The story included letters which were first person narratives and its structure restricted the presentations and created a sense of confinement and directness.
ReplyDeleteShelley demonstrated the sublime out of the confinement of the beauty that kept social distinctions and hierarchies. The sublime made way for contesting the dominant discourse.
The word ‘monster’ was commonly employed to refer to class and gender conflict following the French Revolution (1830-1848). As for the Shelley’s parents, Godwin and Wollstonecraft called the royalty and nobles as ‘monster’ in accordance with Fredricks (1996). The utilization of the word ‘monster’ for the creatures in Frankenstein marginalized women and the working class.
The sublime setting connected with appearance of female subjectivity and gave a chance to Shelly to express her personal vision. (Fredricks, 1996)
Reference List:
Fredricks, N. On the sublime and beautiful in Shelle’s Frankenstein. Essays in Literature, 23 (1996): 178-189. Retrieved from Kim A. Woodbridge database.
Sandner( 1996) stated that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) was regarded as feminine critique of Romantic sublime. In Frankenstein, terror was the source of the sublime, which Shelley purposely placed in a list of Gothic landscapes, solitary mountaintops, wastelands and thunder storms.
ReplyDelete"The appearances of the creature in the novel are simultaneous with the revelation of the eighteenth century sublime” ( Sandner ,1996, p.116). The monster ‘Frankenstein’ embodied the human sublime owing to his size, force and his terrible birth out of the dead substance of corpses. Frankenstein, then represented the failed Romantic sublime, or what might be named the Gothic or eerie sublime of dissolution and blockage(Sander,1996 ).
This is the continual discussion on my last post.
ReplyDeleteFrankenstein divulged the belief that knowledge of the principles of life offers people no reason to cheer. The elements combined in man promote disharmony, monstrosity and misfortune (Sander, 1996). Frankenstein’s making is a monster, and the sublime laid in his Dantean mix the aesthetic responses to beauty and the sublime. Thereby, he realized a new form of sublime (Sander,1996).
Reference List:
Sander, D (1996). The fantastic sublime: romanticism and transcendence in nineteenth-century children's fantasy literature.
Greenwood Publishing Group.
Romantic writers such as Mary Shelley generally used nature as a mirror of their emotions and twisted their natural environments to express their particular feelings. Such is a main tenet of Romanticism and key in perceiving the emotional changes undergone by Viktor Frankenstein throughout the novel.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, after Viktor’s experiments with the creature, he felt sad, regret and guilt in Montavert. Shelley employed the specific natural images such as deserted mountains with fog and mists to describe his feeling.
Reference List :
http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=21273
Huh , 123helpme as reference ?
ReplyDeleteFor linguistics concerns, the text was used many connections word and told in past.
Kennedy (1990) explains
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, shows "a concern with problems in com-munication" (Meyers 1), when the monster realizes that thefamily he has been observing "possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by
articulate sounds" (Shelley 112).
Hahaha, 123help me as a reference, I am sure Paul would laugh about it...
ReplyDelete