shelley and the miltonic element in mary shelley

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Shelley and the Miltonic Element in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Phillip Wade

Milton and the Romantics, 2 (December 1976), 23-2

{23} An attentive reader will hear many echoes of Milton's Paradise Lost in MaryShelley 's Frankenstein. Their presence is a distinctive featre of the wor!" and thefre#ency with which they occr s$$ests that Mary intended a series of parallels %etweenthe characters and events in Milton's poem and those in her novel. Amon$ stdents ofMary's wor!" however" only &hristopher Small has attempted to show that she did in facteecte sch a scheme of comparisons.( Small's thesis" insofar as it toches on the Miltonicaspect of the novel" is that the monster" %e$innin$ as a newly)created" Adam de$eneratesthro$h re*ection ntil he %ecomes a Satan" the adversary of his creator +ictor,ran!enstein. The monster's own comment on his de$eneration" -'t it is even so" thefallen an$el %ecomes a mali$nant devil"'- Small concldes" -toches the centre of the whole

theme.-2 This is a perceptive and" / thin!" alto$ether *stified interpretation. t it fails toaccont for the tre ori$in of the Miltonic element in Frankenstein which" / s%mit"

was Percy Shelley 's contri%tion to the novel.

Frankenstein" it shold %e !ept in mind" was the ei$hteen)year)old Mary Shelley'sfirst ventre into the craft of athorship. And it was Shelley" himself already the athor oftwo 0othic romances" Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne" who encora$ed her to write it and whoserved as her adviser and editor as she wor!ed. That his inflence on the novel was acontinin$ and pervasive one is an inference spported %y her correspondence as well asthe entries in her 1ornal"3 entries as early as that for A$st 2(" (( 4the smmer she

%e$an Frankenstein56 -Shelley and / tal! a%ot my story"- and as late as that for May (7"((8" when it was almost completed" -Shelley corrects . . . ',ran!enstein.' Write Preface.

9Shelley wrote it" we learn from Mary's preface to the (3( edition: ,inis.- ;ven morerevealin$ of the part Shelley played in the writin$ of Frankenstein is Mary's letter to him

written on Septem%er 27" ((8" as fthese" forty)one are direct #otations and the rest ver%al echoes of phrases 4e. $." -palpa%leo%scrity-5 which are n#estiona%ly Miltonic. /n concldin$ his stdy 1ones compiled ata%le of Shelley's specific sorces in Milton" showin$ that a%ot ninety percent of his

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%orrowin$s come from Paradise Lost . 0iven Shelley's role as Mary's adviser and editor"then" alon$ with the a%idin$ admiration for Milton evidenced in his own wor!" it is notsrprisin$ that Frankensteinshold have a palpa%le Miltonic ara.

/n some instances Shelley's Miltonic inflence on Frankenstein seems to have %eendirect" s$$estin$ his conscios spervision of Mary's wor! )) or even his own hand in thenovel. The mar!ed resem%lances %etween his own 0othic romancesand Frankenstein spport this spposition. The title pa$e of Zastrozzi " for eample" %orean epi$raph from Milton6

That their 0odMay prove their foe" and with repentin$ hand

A%olish his own wor!s. This wold srpass&ommon reven$e.

Paradise Lost " //" 3)38(

The title pa$e of Frankenstein" as it was first p%lished in ((" li!ewise %ore aMiltonic motto6

?id / re#est thee" Ma!er" from my &lay To mold me Man@ ?id / solicit thee,rom dar!ness to promote me@

Paradise Lost " " 873)87=

4Mary omitted this motto from the second edition in (3(. / have more to say of thislater.5

Shelley's earlier characteriBation of CastroBBi with his -lofty statre- and -di$nifiedmein and dantless composre-8 clearly owed mch to Milton's Satan" as did that of Wolfstein in in St. Irvyne" descri%ed as havin$ a -towerin$ and ma*estic form- and-epressive and re$lar featres . . . pre$nant with a loo! as if woe had %eat to earth a mind

whose native and nconfined ener$ies had aspired to heaven - /n this second romanceShelley had also pictred a character -whose proportions" $i$antic and deformed" wereseemin$ly %lac!ened %y the inerasa%le traces of the thnder%olts of 0od.-D This !ind ofdescription" so patently imitative of Milton's characteriBation of Satan" is as evidentin Frankenstein as it is in Shelley's *venile romances. To $ive an eample6in Zastrozzi there is a scene played in a conventional Alpine settin$. A li$htnin$ storm"properly terrifyin$" rattles from cra$ to cra$. And there Matilda6

&ontemplated the tempest which ra$ed arond her. The %attlin$ elements pased"

an ninterrpted silence" deep" dreadfl as the silence of the tom%" scceeded. Matildaheard a noise )) footsteps were distin$isha%le" and loo!in$ p" a flash of lightningdisclosed to her view the towering form of Zastrozzi. His gigantic figure was againinvolved in pitchy darkness" as the momentary li$htnin$ receded. A peal of crashin$thnder a$ain madly rattled over the Benith" and a scintillatin$ flash annonced CastroBBi'sapproach" as he stood %efore Matilda.(E

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The identical scene occrs in Frankenstein" with +ictor ,ran!enstein findin$himself in the Alps drin$ an electrical storm6

{27} / watched the storm" so %eatifl yet terrific . . . . This no%le war in the s!y

elevated my spiritsF / clasped my hands" and eclaimed alod" 'William" dear an$elG this isthy fneral" this is thy dir$eG- As / said these words" I perceived in the gloom a figure . . .

flash of lightning illuminated the o!"ect# and discovered its shape plainly to me# itsgigantic stature . . . instantly informed me it was the wretch" the filthy demon" to whom /had $iven life.((

0ranted" storm scenes are not nsal in Homantic literatreF one need onlyrecall yron's $hilde Harold . t the Miltonic ima$e of a titanic Satan silhoetted %y firesin the pitchy %lac!ness of Iell %ears the nmista!a%le mar! of Shelley's inflence.

Writin$ as the ostensi%le athor of Frankenstein" Shelley spea!s in the preface 4tothe first edition5 of his endeavor in the novel to -preserve the trth of the elementary

principles of hman natre" while / have not scrpled to innovate their com%inations"-addin$ that" -The Iliad . . . Sha!espeare . . . and most especially Milton" in Paradise Lost "conform to this rle- 9Preface (:. 1st what -trth of the elementary principles of hmannatre- was to %e revealed in Frankenstein" Shelley made clear in an anonymosreview written to accompany the p%lication of the novel. The monster's -crimes andmalevolence"- Shelley wrote there" -are the children" as it were" of Jecessity and ImanJatre. /n this the direct moral of the %oo! consistsF it is perhaps the most important" andof the most niversal application" of any moral that can %e enforced %y eample. Treat aperson ill" and he will %ecome wic!ed.-(2 The thematic !inship %etween Shelley's preface"his review" and the Miltonic parallels %etween ,ran!enstein's monster and Satan %ecomeseplicit in the monster's declaration that -the fallen an$el %ecomes a mali$nant devil.- Andthe etended analo$y %etween Satan and the monster clminates in this allsion.

Most of the allsions to Paradise Lost in Frankenstein are consistent with thescheme of comparison / have attempted to delineate. Ksally it is the monster who pointsto parallels %etween himself and Milton's Satan6 -/ am the fallen an$el. . . . Misery mademe a fiend- 4D=5F or -/ considered Satan as the fitter em%lem of my conditionF for often"li!e him" when / viewed the %liss of my protectors 9the ?e


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4A$st 2(" ((5. ;ntry after entry records the fact that Shelley was readin$ Paradise Lost . And they show that more often than not he read it alod to Mary. Hepresentative entriesread6 -?raw" write" read


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shelley and the miltonic element in mary shelley

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