Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Historical Context Fact:

On April 5th, 1815, Mount

Tambora on the island of
Sumbawa in present-day
Over two hundred years ago, Mary Shelley published the gothic novel Frankenstein. It
Indonesia erupted. It led to a
has become a classic of English literature. global climate-cooling event in
1816, later known as ‘the Year
Without a Summer.’
Shelley was in a privileged position to craft this rich cultural-historical document
because her father, William Godwin, was a leading enlightenment philosopher, her
mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a pioneer English feminist who defended the rights
of women, and her husband, Percy Shelley, was a leading romantic poet. Thus was this
precocious and gifted writer poised to dramatize the clash of two cultures—the
Enlightenment that celebrated reason and science and the Romantic age that
Frankenstein or The Modern
celebrated passion and art. (From: https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/march-2018-mary-shelleys- Prometheus published anonymously in
frankenstein?language_content_entity=en)
1818

1500 1851
Scientific Revolution: 1543-1687 Mary Shelley: 1797-1851
The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that Mary was an English novelist who, at 18-years-
marked the emergence of modern science during the old, wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or,
early modern period, when developments in The Modern Prometheus, which is considered
mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry an early example of science fiction and one of
transformed the views of society about nature. her best-known works.
Sir Isaac Newton

Enlightenment: 1685-1840
A European intellectual and philosophical movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason
and individualism rather than tradition. This movement stressed the belief that science and logic give people more knowledge
and understanding than tradition and religion. Some of the major figures of the Enlightenment included John Locke, Voltaire, &
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (pictured) – who is considered the father of both the Romantic Movement and the French Revolution.

Industrial Revolution: 1750-1840

,
Shelley was inspired by the concept of galvanism - the idea that
The Industrial Revolution was a period of major mechanization and innovation that
scientists could use electricity to stimulate or restart life. Named
began in Great Britain and later spread throughout much of the world. It was dominated Fact:
after Luigi Galvani, an Italian doctor, the concept came about
by the exploitation of coal and iron. Child labour was a common feature of the Industrial The term Romanticism does
after Galvani was able to make a frog's legs twitch when he
not stem directly from the
hooked the animal up to an electric charge (above image). Revolution and involved children suffering under horrible and abusive conditions.
concept of love, but rather
Galvani’s nephew, Giovanni Aldini, went so far as to shock
from the French
dissected human corpses in pursuit of this hypothesis. In
word romaunt (a romantic
Shelley’s 1831 introduction text, she states she overheard many Romanticism: 1798-1837 story told in verse).
discussions about the topic between her husband Percy Shelley Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that It refers to an artistic style
and her friend Lord Byron. Since this was a newly discovered emphasized nature and the importance of emotion and artistic emphasizing imagination and
effect, she and many believed it to be possible to reanimate freedom. In many ways, writers of this era were rebelling against the emotion, and the suffix –ism,
dead organisms through the use of electricity.
attempt to explain the world and human nature through science and expresses a thought process
the lens of the Industrial Revolution. or movement.
© Resource made by Bare Bones Teaching (2023)
Painting: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Casper David Friedrich (1818)