Initial reviews of ‘Frankenstein’
Posted by: tware in Frankenstein, Reviews and criticism, Romantic GothicIt is important to be able to contrast modern ‘readings’ of Frankenstein with the persepctives of contemporary readers and critics. Follow the link here to look at 6 initial reviews of the novel. Ideally, look at a few of them, but by the next lesson (Wednesday 4th June) please make sure to have read the review specified for you below, and post a comment doing the following:
- summarising that particular reviewer’s views of the novel;
- evaluating whether this seems typical of commonly held perceptions of early Gothic novels;
- contrasting modern critical reactions to the text.
Reviews allocated as follows. If there are 2 of you looking at one review, please both write a separate comment. All comments will be held for moderation and published only once all comments have been submitted:
The Belle Assemblee or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine - Liseli
The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany - Helen, Shomari
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine - Victoria
The British Critic – Sophie
The Literary Panorama and National Register - Emma
The Quarterly Review - Samantha, Daniel
Entries (RSS)
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:42 am
The british critic of Frankenstein is very scathing about the book and is often quite sarcastic about it especially of it’s author ”
The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment”. The critic does sympathise with the monster “very pitiable and ill-used monster, and are much inclined to join in his request, and ask Frankenstein to make him a wife”. The critics points would have been more prevalent at the time, due to higher religiosity and the shocking nature of the creature, “the horror which abounds in them is too grotesque and bizarre ever to approach near the sublime, and when we did not hurry over the pages in disgust, we sometimes paused to laugh outright; and yet we suspect, that the diseased and wandering imagination, which has stepped out of all legitimate bounds, to frame these disjointed combinations and unnatural adventures, might be disciplined into something better”.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
To be honest i didn’t fully understand this extract, and felt that it was incredibly critical especially in the last paragraph when they state, ‘it inculcates no lesson of conduct, manners, or morality; it cannot mend, and will not even amuse its readers, unless their taste have been deplorably vitiated’. Although when i considered the time in which this piece was written i found that it was fairly typical. However i do not share their view point as i think Shelley fills some aspects of the novel with morals and lessons concerning that of the vanity of society and the effects of a rejected ‘child’ (i am of course referring to the monster).
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
My extract, written in 1818 starts off in a slightly obscured manner, stating, ‘the novel is a feeble imitation of one that was very popular in its day – The St Leon, Mr Godwin.’ This i think slightly alters the authors view, making them highly critical and perhaps bitter throughout the novel because they believe the basis of Frankenstein was an ‘imitation’ of another novel.
The review starts with an opening paragraph mentioning the above but also boldly and immediately stating the problems with the novel, only praising the author of occasionally putting forward tendencies of talent.
The review then goes with a long paragraph summing up the beginning and ending of the book, with barely any explanation as to what happens in between. This serious fault hopefully would have been spotted by readers of this review, as without the important middle section, where EVERYTHING happens. The author touches on the fact that the monster kills everyone and ruins everything in Victors life, but only in one sentence, not justifying the importance or relevance of the chase and the torment that Victor experiences with the terrifying and intense build up, a major gothic theme.
The wording used is in a slightly mocking manner, like they are telling a child a story, starting, ‘The story begins at the end.’
Ok, the story begins at the end but why?! They have written no explanation as to why it is important the story is at the end.
The author states that the book was written with haste and with no heart, which has let down the authors opportunities to write an extremely good novel. Questionably though as we have read the book in great detail and with slight fascination as the book has gone on, we know that the writing style Shelley has used is what makes the book great, with the feelings and intensity between characters and the underlying messages all adding to the great time and effort it took to get it spot on.
However the author of this review has mentioned something we picked up on. The fact that the monster has taken so little time to adapt to human life, with no human teaching it the vital social skills and morals, let alone the faculties that a human must gain to be able to do anything, i.e walk. The author points out as soon as the monster is ‘born’ he begins to walk, which in our eyes was also a little ridiculous, as technically the monster was literally being born, who on earth taught him how to walk!?
And then the quick adjustments to human techniques such as speech and intelligence generally, summed up in chapter 11 by the monsters strange and quick interpretations of birds, calling them ‘winged creatures’ then ‘birds’ then by their species in a small paragraph.
I think it was harder for the romantic audience to get to grips with this ‘flaw’ in Shelley’s writing, mainly because of the scientific changes happening. If someone could ultimately bring alive a collection of dead bodies, forming one big corpse through electricity as Victor does, the intelligence possessed would be minimal and the readers would want a realistic approach to the science ‘part’ of the writing, due to the importance of new discoveries, unlike today we just consider it another part of the genre. Shelley probably had a valid reason for doing so, but for HER audience, it was not appreciated.