Context of frankenstein

  Order Description   : Read the Introduction to Frankenstein, Third Edition (1831) by Mary Shelley pg 165-169, (available online) 1. What does Mary Shelley say inspired her to write the story? 2. What did she want her audience to experience from the story? Watch Frankenstein the Preface by Providence Learning https://youtu.be/JAOgTPJ4shk 3. What themes are present within Frankenstein (as per the video)? Luigi Galvani's experiments Read the first four paragraphs of Luigi Galvani's biography. Online Text 4. What parallels do you see with his experiments and Victor Frankenstein's?   Romanticism and the Enlightenment Note: The description of the Romanticism and the Enlightenment movements are generalizations that do not encompass every work or idea that was composed during these times. The Romantic movement of the 19th century (1800's) was a response to the Enlightenment movement that proceeded it. Here is outline of the major elements of both viewpoints. (Adapted from Richard L W Clarke)   Enlightenment Romanticism   Dominant View Material world an imperfect reflection of an ideal world Material world the manifestation or self-expression of God   Emerging view mechanistic, dead universe (à la Isaac Newton) Organic, living, vital universe   Hierarchical universe with God at the top, man somewhere in the middle God expresses himself through man who is, as such, inherently divine   Moderation, Order, Preparation (admired city, cultivated gardens) Excess, Disorder, Spontaneity (admired country-side, natural phenomena such as mountains)   Dominant metaphor Mirror: to examine humanity   Core of Human Identity Reason: common sense, logic, rationality its primary features Imagination: emotion, feeling, passion its primary features   Universalism: human nature is everywhere and at all times the same Cultural nationalism: Human beings differentiated by the social and historical context in which they live   Knowledge Objectivity is possible (via great effort) and the absolute truth can be known about any and all things Subjectivity is inevitable for which reason only perspectivism is possible   5. How does Victor embody the ideas of Enlightenment? 6. How does his description of his adventures seem more rooted in Romanticism?   The Modern Prometheus Read the introduction to the Wikipedia entry about Prometheus. Online Text 7. How is Victor Frankenstein like Prometheus? Within the myth, Prometheus is a hero that saves humankind by bringing them fire. 8. Should Victor be considered a hero? Prometheus is punished by the gods for his act. 9. Who is punishing Victor? Is it God or is it the creature? Reminder the painting, Prometheus Bound (Ruebens and Snyder), that was discussed in the The Heart of Empathy. Online 10. Does the suffering Prometheus is experiencing in the painting parallel to the suffering Victor is within the story?   The Gothic Novel and Science Fiction Frankenstein has a mix of elements from both the Gothic novels of the time and the science fiction novels that would come after. Elements found in Gothic novels: •a castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not •ruined buildings which are sinister or which arouse a pleasing melancholy •dungeons, underground passages, crypts, and catacombs which, in modern houses, become spooky basements or attics •labyrinths, dark corridors, and winding stairs •shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering candle, or the only source of light failing (a candle blown out or an electric failure) •extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, or icy wastes, and extreme weather •omens and ancestral curses •magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural •a passion-driven, willful villain-hero or villain •a curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued–frequently •a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel •horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happenings 11. Which of these do we see in the novel? Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." 12. Given what you have learned about Mary Shelley's influences above, does the novel, Frankenstein, fit Heinlein's description of science fiction? How?     Promethus This article is about the Greek mythological figure. For other uses, see Prometheus (disambiguation).     Prometheus depicted in a sculpture by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, 1762 (Louvre) Prometheus (/pr??mi??i?s/ pr?-MEE-thee-?s; Greek: ????????? [prom??t?eús], meaning "forethought")[1] is a Titan in Greek mythology, best known as the deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of mankind and its greatest benefactor, who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind. Ancient myths and legends relate at least four versions of the narratives describing Prometheus, his exploits with Zeus and his eternal punishment as also inflicted by Zeus. There is a single somewhat comprehensive version of the birth of Prometheus and several variant versions of his subjection to eternal suffering at the will of Zeus. The most significant narratives of his origin appear in the Theogony of Hesiod which relates Prometheus as being the son of the Titan Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. Hesiod then presents Prometheus as subsequently being a lowly challenger to Zeus's omnipotence. In the trick at Mecone, Prometheus tricks Zeus into eternally claiming the inedible parts of cows and bulls for the sacrificial ceremonies of the gods, while conceding the nourishing parts to humans for the eternal benefit of mankind. The two remaining central episodes regarding Prometheus as written by Hesiod include his theft of fire from Olympus for the benefit of mankind against the will of Zeus and the eternal punishment which Prometheus would endure for these acts as inflicted upon him by the judgment of Zeus. For the greater part, the pre-Athenian ancient sources are selective in which of these narrative elements they chose by their own preferences to honor and support and which ones they chose to exclude. The specific combinations of these relatively independent narrative elements by individual ancient authors (Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, Pythagoras), and specific exclusions among them, are often influenced by the particular needs and purposes of the larger myths and legends which they are depicting. Each individual ancient author selectively preferred certain crucial stories depicting Prometheus over others. The intensive growth and expansion of Greek literature and philosophy in the classical fourth and fifth century Athenian period would greatly affect both the interpretation and influence which the myth of Prometheus would exert upon Athenian culture. This influence would extend beyond its dramatic and tragic form in the Athenian period and influence large portions of the greater Western literary tradition which would follow it for over two millennia. All three of the major Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, were affected by the myth of Prometheus. The surviving plays and fragments of Aeschylus regarding Prometheus retain a special place of prominence within modern scholarship for their having survived the ravages of time. The majority of plays written by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides have been lost to literary antiquity, including many of their writings on Prometheus. Both during and after the Renaissance, Prometheus would again emerge as a major inspiration for his literary and poetic significance as a symbol and archetype to inspire new generations of artists, sculptors, poets, musicians, novelists, playwrights, inventors, technologists, engineers and film-makers. His literary and mythological personage remains prominently portrayed in contemporary sculpture, art and literary expression including Mary Shelley's portrayal of Frankenstein as The Modern Prometheus. The influence of the myth of Prometheus extends well into the 20th and 21st century. The artificial chemical element Promethium is named from it.   Contents [hide] 1 Etymology 2 Myths and legends 2.1 Oldest legends     2.2 Athenian tradition     2.3 Other authors 3 Late Roman antiquity 4 Middle Ages 5 Renaissance 6 Post-Renaissance 6.1 Post-Renaissance literary arts     6.2 Post-Renaissance aesthetic tradition   7 Notes 8 References Etymology[edit] The etymology of the theonym prometheus is debated. The classical view is that it signifies "forethought," as that of his brother Epimetheus denotes "afterthought".[1] It has been theorized that it derives from the Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedic pra math, "to steal," hence pramathyu-s, "thief", cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The Vedic myth of fire's theft by M?tari?van is an analog to the Greek account. Pramantha was the tool used to create fire.[2] Myths and legends[edit] Oldest legends[edit] The four most ancient sources for understanding the origin of the Prometheus myths and legends all rely on the images represented in the Titanomachy, or the cosmological struggle between the Greek gods and their parents, the Titans.[3] Prometheus, himself a Titan, managed to avoid being in the direct confrontational cosmic battle between Zeus and the other Olympians against Cronus and the other Titans.[4] Prometheus therefore survived the struggle in which the offending Titans were eternally banished by Zeus to the chthonic depths of Tartarus, only to survive to confront Zeus on his own terms in subsequent climactic struggles. The greater Titanomachia depicts an overarching metaphor of the struggle between generations, between parents and their children, symbolic of the generation of parents needing to eventually give ground to the growing needs, vitality, and responsibilities of the new generation for the perpetuation of society and survival interests of the human race as a whole. Prometheus and his struggle would be of vast merit to human society as well in this mythology as he was to be credited with the creation of humans and therefore all of humanity as well. The four most ancient historical sources for the Prometheus myth are Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, and Pythagoras. Hesiod's Theogony and Works Of The Days[edit] The Prometheus myth first appeared in the late 8th-century BCE Greek epic poet Hesiod's Theogony (lines 507–616). He was a son of the Titan Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus. In the Theogony, Hesiod introduces Prometheus as a lowly challenger to Zeus's omniscience and omnipotence.[5] In the trick at Mekone, a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus (545–557). He placed two sacrificial offerings before the Olympian: a selection of beef hidden inside an ox's stomach (nourishment hidden inside a displeasing exterior), and the bull's bones wrapped completely in "glistening fat" (something inedible hidden inside a pleasing exterior). Zeus chose the latter, setting a precedent for future sacrifices.[5] Henceforth, humans would keep that meat for themselves and burn the bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods. This angered Zeus, who hid fire from humans in retribution. In this version of the myth, the use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus.[6] Prometheus, however, stole fire back in a giant fennel-stalk and restored it to humanity. This further enraged Zeus, who sent Pandora, the first woman, to live with humanity.[5] Pandora was fashioned by Hephaestus out of clay and brought to life by the four winds, with all the goddesses of Olympus assembled to adorn her. "From her is the race of women and female kind," Hesiod writes; "of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth."[5]     Prometheus Brings Fire by Heinrich Friedrich Füger. Prometheus brings fire to mankind as told by Hesiod, with its having been hidden as revenge for the trick at Mecone. Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where his liver is eaten daily by an eagle,[7] only to be regenerated by night, due to his immortality. The eagle is a symbol of Zeus himself. Years later, the Greek hero Heracles (Hercules) slays the eagle and frees Prometheus from the eagle's torment.[8] Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus in the Works and Days (lines 42–105). Here, the poet expands upon Zeus's reaction to Prometheus's deception. Not only does Zeus withhold fire from humanity, but "the means of life," as well (42). Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus's wrath (44–47), "you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste." Hesiod also expands upon the Theogony's story of the first woman, now explicitly called Pandora ("all gifts"). After Prometheus' theft of fire, Zeus sends Pandora in retaliation. Despite Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepts this "gift" from the gods. Pandora carried a jar with her, from which were released (91–92) "evils, harsh pain and troublesome diseases which give men death".[9] Pandora shuts the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped, but Hope is left trapped in the jar because Zeus forces Pandora to seal it up before Hope can escape.[10] Angelo Casanova,[11] Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Florence, finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster-figure, who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life, and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar in Enuma Elish; as an opponent of Zeus he was an analogue of the Titans, and like them was punished. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in Theogony in which he is liberated[12] is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.[13] According to the German classicist Karl-Martin Dietz, in Hesiod's scriptures, Prometheus represents the "descent of mankind from the communion with the gods into the present troublesome life."[14] Homer and the Homeric Hymns[edit] The banishment of the warring Titans by the Olympians to the chthonic depths of Tartarus was documented as early as Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey where they are also identified as the hypotartarioi, or, the "subterranean." The passages appear in the Iliad (XIV 279)[15] and also in the Homeric hymn to Apollo (335).[16] The particular forms of violence associated especially with the Titans are those of hybristes and atasthalie as further found in the Iliad (XIII 633–34). They are used by Homer to designate an unlimited, violent insolence among the warring Titans which only Zeus was able to ultimately overcome. This text finds direct parallel in Hesiod's reading in the Theogony (209) and in Homer's own Odyssey (XIX 406). In the words of Kerenyi, "Autolykos, the grandfather, is introduced in order that he may give his grandson the name of Odysseus."[17] In a similar fashion, the origin of the naming of the Titans as a group has been disputed with some voicing a preference for reading it as a combination of titainein (to exert), and, titis (retribution) usually rendered as "retribution meted out to the exertion of the Titans."[18] It should be noted in studying material concerning Prometheus that Prometheus was not directly among the Titans warring with Zeus though Prometheus's association with them by lineage is a recurrent theme in each of his subsequent confrontations with Zeus and with the Olympian gods. Pindar and the Nemean Odes[edit] The duality of the gods and of humans standing as polar opposites is also clearly identified in the earliest traditions of Greek mythology and its legends by Pindar. In the sixth Nemean Ode, Pindar states: "There is one/race of men, one race of gods; both have breath/of life from a single mother. But sundered power/holds us divided, so that one side is nothing, while on the other the brazen sky is established/a sure citadel forever."[19] Although this duality is strikingly apparent in Pindar, it also has paradoxical elements where Pindar actually comes quite close to Hesiod who before him had said in his Works and Days (108) "how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source."[20] The understanding of Prometheus and his role in the creation of humans and the theft of fire for their benefit is therefore distinctly adapted within this distinguishable source for understanding the role of Prometheus within the mythology of the interaction of the Gods with humans. Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Doctrine[edit] In order to understand the Prometheus myth in its most general context, the Late Roman author Censorinus states in his book titled De die natali that, "Pythagoras of Samos, Okellos of Lukania, Archytas of Tarentum, and in general all Pythagoreans were the authors and proponents of the opinion that the human race was eternal."[21] By this they held that Prometheus's creation of humans was the creation of humanity for eternity. This Pythagorean view is further confirmed in the book On the Cosmos written by the Pythagorean Okellos of Lukania. Okellos, in his cosmology, further delineates the three realms of the cosmos as all contained within an overarching order called the diakosmesis which is also the world order kosmos, and which also must be eternal. The three realms were delineated by Okellos as having "two poles, man on earth, the gods in heaven. Merely for the sake of symmetry, as it were, the daemons – not evil spirits but beings intermediate between God and man – occupy a middle position in the air, the realm between heaven and earth. They were not a product of Greek mythology, but of the belief in daemons that had sprung up in various parts of the Mediterranean world and the Near East."[22] Athenian tradition[edit] The two major authors to have an influence on the development of the myths and legends surrounding the Titan Prometheus during the Socratic era of greater Athens were Aeschylus and Plato. The two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for Aeschylus centered on his mastery of the literary form of Greek tragedy, while for Plato this centered on the philosophical expression of his thought in the form of the various dialogues he had written and reco