Weeks seven - eight
Weeks 7-9
1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
ReplyDeleteLord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and John Polidori wre writers who rented the Villa Diodati in Switzerland during summer in 1816 and it was here, by the Geneva Lake where they would tell stories about their most horrific nightmares and dreams. Here, these stories led to the ‘birth’ of the gothic genre, and the product being stories like Frankenstein. David (2011) describes the word gothic, in literature terms, as being that of fiction dealing with supernatural or horrific events and being linked to atmospheres with spiritual aspects. On the night that these stories were being told, it was, according to Vitelli (2010), a night of abnormal weather patterns (rain, storm etc.). I believe that the weather played a major role in the events leading to the stories being told, this is because telling scary stories is usually considered as an activity for cold, dark and rainy night/days. Had it not been raining on this particular summer night, these stories possibly would not have left the minds of the writers and we would never get to experience this particular genre. After all, Frankenstein was ‘created’ on a dark stormy night.
Buzzwell (n.d.) states that the circumstances in which Mary Shelly was in (on that stormy summer night in 1816), is much like the setting of most horror stories themselves as it involved rain, storm and darkness.
References:
Buzwell, G. (N.D.). Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and the Villa Diodati. Retrieved from:
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati
David,E. (2011).Byron in Geneva that Summer of 1816. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press
Vitelli, R. (2010). Who inspired Frankenstein?. Retrieved from http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2010/12/inspiring-frankenstein.html.
Well described. It must have been quite a party, 'Stories like Frankenstein' is a bit vague. There is Frankenstein and one other of note, what was it? What was different about Frankenstein from previous tales of terror?
DeleteWell described. It must have been quite a party, 'Stories like Frankenstein' is a bit vague. There is Frankenstein and one other of note, what was it? What was different about Frankenstein from previous tales of terror?
DeleteThere is Frankenstein and “The Vampyer” which was written in 1891 by John Polidori. This work, as described by Christopher Frayling, is "the first story successfully to fuse the disparate elements of vampirism into a coherent literary genre." Lord Byron wrote (and abandoned) a fragment of a story, “Fragment of a Novel”, about the main character (Augustus Darvell). Later, Polidori used later as the basis for his own tale, “The Vampyre”, the first published modern vampire story (Wikipedia, The Vampyre). What was different about Frankenstein from previous tales of terror was that it was considered as the first of its kind. For example, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein consists of elements from the gothic novel, romantic movement and is considered to be “one of the earliest examples of science fiction” (Wikipedia, Frankenstein). Frankenstein has influenced many horror stories and acts as an archetype for horror films, plays and other forms of story telling. The following is a chronological list of most of the major feature films between 1910 and 2005 based on Shelley's novel:
Frankenstein , Edison Film Company, 1910 (USA)
Directed by J. Searle Dawley, starring Charles Stanton Ogle, Augustus Phillips, and Mary Fuller.
Der Golem, Deutsche Bioscop, 1914 (Germany)
Directed by Henrik Galeen and Paul Wegener, starring Paul Wegener, Lyda Salmonova, Carl Ebert, Jacob Tiedtke, and Rudolf Bluemner.
Son of Frankenstein , Universal, 1939 (USA)
Directed by Rowland V. Lee, starring Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson, and Donnie Dunagan.
Bride of the Monster, Edward D. Wood Jr. Productions, 1954 (USA)
Directed by Edward D. Wood Jr., starring Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Tony McCoy, Loretta King, Harvey Dunn, and William Benedict.
Doctor Franken, NBC, 1980 (USA)
Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky and Jeff Lieberman, starring Robert Vaughn, Robert Perault, David Selby, Teri Garr, Josef Sommer, and Cynthia Harris.
Gods and Monsters, BBC/Lionsgate Films, 1998 (USA)
A film about James Whale, director of the classic Frankenstein film (1931) and sequels, using many themes from Mary Shelley's novel. Written and directed by Bill Condon, starring Ian McKellan, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave, Jack Betts, and Rosalind Ayres.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre
http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/Pop/filmlist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
ReplyDeleteVilla Diodati, a mansion located in the village of Cologny near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Lord Byron rented it and stayed there with John Polidori in the summer of 1816. Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, rented a house nearby, were frequent visitors according to this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati Villa Diodati was originally called the Villa Belle Rive. Byron renamed it after the first family who lived there. Lord Byron rented the Villa from 10 June to 1 November 1816. The scandal of his separation from his wife, rumours of an affair with his half-sister, and ever-increasing debt, had forced him to leave England, never to return, in April of that year. It was at the Villa, while the party was confined indoors by rain, that Byron and Shelley had the long talks of which Mary Shelley remembered being ‘a devout and nearly silent listener.
Lord Byron and the party would gather in the Villa to tell ghost stories that which then triggered “Frankenstein.” The Villa is also the birth place of John Polidori’s The Vampyre, a tale which influenced Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. The vital spark that gave the novel life however was Lord Byron’s suggestion one evening at the Villa Diodati, as candlelight flickered within the house and lightning flashed across the surface of the lake outside, that those present should turn their hands to the writing of ghost stories. - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati#sthash.UK1ERYQ8.dpuf
Reference list.
Todayinliteraturecom. (2015). Todayinliteraturecom. Retrieved 19 May 2015, from http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=6/19/1816
In-text citation: (Todayinliteraturecom, 2015)
Typepadcom. (2015). Providentia. Retrieved 26 May 2015, from http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2010/12/inspiring-frankenstein.html
In-text citation: (Typepadcom, 2015)
Wikipediaorg. (2015). Wikipediaorg. Retrieved 26 May, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati
In-text citation: (Wikipediaorg, 2015)
Well answered.
DeleteQuestion 2 - Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816…
ReplyDeleteIn the summer of 1816, Mary Shelley – then Mary Godwin, having not been married to her husband yet (Providentia, 2010) – along with her husband Percy and John Polidori rented the Villa Diodati with Lord Byron (Shelley, 1818). There were many scandalous rumors surrounding the group, most of them centered on Lord Byron, implying that he had an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, and therefore their meeting was well known (King, 2015). The year was known as the Year Without A Summer, with abnormal and unusually strong weather patterns around the world, most likely due to the eruption of Mount Tambora the year before (Providentia, 2010), and Shelley describes it as “a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house (Shelley, 1818).” Due to this the group would gather inside to read ghost stories to each other, and prompted Lord Byron to announce his now famous challenge to the four of them to write a ghost story, and thus the ‘birth’ of the gothic genre began (Shelley, 1818).
Shelley had difficulty coming up with a concept for her own idea, while Polidori settled on an idea which would then become the world-renowned The Vampyre, the first in the genre of romantic vampire literature (Providentia, 2010). Shelley (1818) states that “many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and [Percy] Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener.” The conversation then changed to the experiments of their acquaintance, Dr. Darwin, and how he used electricity to make piece of vermicelli, a piece of a worm, move voluntarily within it’s confinement. Shelley (1818) states that “perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endured with vital warmth”, which to any reader of Frankenstein will note that this is almost exactly what happened in her novel.
That night she was then visited by her imagination, unable to sleep as she saw “the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion (Shelley, 1818).” This dream of hers is often considered to be the birth of the story of Frankenstein, and the next day she decided that she would expand upon it to create her ghost story. Percy Shelley then helped her with a transcript of her thoughts, beginning with the words “It was on a dreary night of November (Shelley, 1818)”, and he then later convinced her to expand it from a short story into a full novel. The abnormally terrible weather inspired the group to read first about ghosts, and then write about the supernatural, creating the ‘birth’ of the gothic genre, and from Shelley’s transcript, perhaps the trope beginning of “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Question 4 – Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati “brat-pack” and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampyre >> Dracula etc.)
ReplyDeleteBoth Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre contributed to the beginning of the Gothic genre, and indeed formed their own subgenres within that. The definition of the Gothic genre, according to Kennedy (2015), is literature that employs dark scenery, mystery, dread and will sometimes include a supernatural element or presence. Within the Gothic genre, Shelley’s Frankenstein is considered to be the first true work of science fiction, and Polidori’s The Vampyre was the beginning of the romantic vampire literature subgenre.
These two genres have both lasted throughout the centuries and have evolved into a modern genre, inspiring works and authors for years. The most famous of the romantic vampire literature subgenre after Polidori is considered to be Bram Stoker’s Dracula, written in 1897, surrounding the character of Count Dracula who attempts to seduce Mina Harker, and kill the vampire hunters she is associated with, including her husband Jonathan (Wikipedia, 2015). Polidori’s inspiration for his main character, Lord Ruthven, is said to be heavily influenced by his friendship with Lord Byron, and the life that Byron lead (King, 2015). One of the first homosexual themed romantic vampire literature works was Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, written in 1872. Anne Rice was inspired by the genre and indeed wrote a series of novels and stories known as the Vampire Chronicles, started in 1976. Vampire themed literature and film has become incredibly popular, and the character of the vampire has changed throughout time – notably in F. W. Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu, when it was revealed that Count Orlok cannot survive in sunlight, a popular vampire trait, though this was rebuffed in the popular YA book series Twilight, wherein the vampires sparkle in the sunlight, instead of burn. Other popular texts in the romantic vampire subgenre are Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries, turned into the television show True Blood, and Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Providentia, 2010).
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is considered to be the first true science fiction novel that gave birth to the subgenre. Although numerous films and plays have been made of the original novel, or heavily inspired by them, the subgenre created by Frankenstein centers around the Artificial Intelligence and Frankenstein’s Monster tropes, wherein a creature or intelligence is created, and oftentimes seeks out to meet it’s creator, or alternatively destroy it (TV Tropes, 2015). This can be seen in films such as Jim Sharman’s 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, and James Cameron’s film franchise The Terminator (Romantic Circles, 2002). According to the Frankenstein’s Monster trope (TV Tropes, 2015), Shelley’s Frankenstein also gave birth to the zombie subgenre, categorized by shambling, undead creatures that often kill and eat humans to survive, sometimes created by an evolved manmade virus gone out of control. Well-known zombie texts are George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, Danny Boyle’s 2002 film 28 Days Later, Max Brooks’ 2006 novel World War Z, Stephen King’s 2006 novel Cell, and Frank Darabont’s 2013 television series The Walking Dead (Eat Horror, 2008).
References:
ReplyDeleteEat Horror. (2008). The Birth of the Zombie Genre. Retrieved from
http://www.eathorror.com/zombies.php
Kennedy, P. (2015). Gothic Literature. Retrieved from
http://literatureintranslation.about.com/od/definitions/g/Gothic-Literature.htm
King, Steve. (2015). Frankenstein, Milton & the Computer. Retrieved from http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=6/19/1816
Providentia. (2010). Who Inspired Frankenstein? Retrieved from http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2010/12/inspiring-frankenstein.html
Romantic Circles. (2002). Responses to and Adaptations of Frankenstein in Film and Elsewhere. Retrieved from
http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/misc/ficrep/frankenstein.html
Shelley, Mary. (1985;1818). Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, London: Penguin.
TV Tropes. (2015). Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtificialIntelligence
TV Tropes. (2015). Frankenstein’s Monster. Retrieved from
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FrankensteinsMonster
Wikipedia. (2015). Vampire Literature. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature
Awesome answer!
DeleteI totally agree where you say " Shelley’s Frankenstein also gave birth to the zombie subgenre, categorized by shambling, undead creatures that often kill and eat humans to survive, sometimes created by an evolved manmade virus gone out of control". There has been countless movies/books/t.v series based on this 'motif/concept' which I believe has been derived from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.
What I find interesting is how overtime, such genres are able to develop and become sub-categorised. For example, there was Frankenstein, which has influenced many movies and like you say, has "given birth to the zombie sub-genre". I wonder, what new subgenre will zombie's take us? and what this means for future categories of lietrature and film. Perhaps 200 years from now there may be a new subgenre derived from Frankenstein and zombies that we may never get to experience. The idea of zombies would have been nothing but mere imagination in the time that Frankenstein was created.
Stories like Frankenstein do not get published/born everyday so it is rare nowadays for a unique genre to arise as everything now is a remake of something from the past. For example, look at the movie 'Jaws' by Stephen Spielberg. The movies that have been inspired by Jaws include Alien (1979) and was considered as ‘Jaws in space’ as it features “the crew of a vessel being picked off by a largely unseen and sharp-fanged beast that can strike at any moment and often in a blood-splattering fashion.” (Digital Spy, 2012). The movie Tremors (1990) which is considered as ‘Jaws in the sand’ as it features underground killer worms. Also, the movie Lake Placid (1999) which “made a decent postmodern attempt of unleashing a 30-foot-long crocodile in a lake” (Digital Spy, 2012).
So, my point I am trying to make is, because everything had been seen and done so frequently, it may be years until the next breakthrough in movie/literature genre is born which is exciting even though it may be a very long wait from now.
Digital Spy (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/at-the-movies/a387604/jaws-10-movies-that-were-inspired-by-steven-spielbergs-classic.html#~pfh49PaM0fMROf
Question 2
ReplyDeleteThe year 1816 has been described as the ‘year without a summer’, due to the eruption of Mount Tamboro in Indonesia sending billows of volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere. This provided a fitting backdrop to the year Lord Bryon gathered his friends at Villa Diodati, and created the circumstances that eventually brought us Frankenstein and The Vampyre.
Byron left England in early 1816 to flee from scandal; a divorce and rumours about his ‘close’ relationship with his half-sister Augusta. He travelled through Europe before meeting with his friends Mary and Percy Shelley (a note, they did not get married until later that year) at a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland before finally renting a house in nearby Cologny. The Shelleys took up residence in the humble Maison Chapuis, while Byron stayed in the more lavish Villa Diodati.
From letters, we know that the group often gathered at the villa, along with John Polidori, where they read German ghost and horror stories. Dr Polidori also taught his friends about the latest theories on the life force and animation. Wine and laudanum – a form of liquefied opium – flowed constantly, and it’s likely that these elements mixed together in Mary’s head, conjuring up what would be one of the most iconic gothic stories of all time.
Mary wrote an introduction in her 1931 print of Frankenstein after her publishers asked her to describe how she came to write her novel. She wrote that they wandered the shores of Lake Geneva, though it was a wet summer. Byron proposed that they each write a ghost story. While her friends got straight to work, she was trying to think of what to write. From encouragement of her soon-to-be husband, she not only thought of an idea, but at the age of 19 she had written a story that would send chills down peoples spines for centuries to come.
As well as this, Lord Byron himself wrote a dramatic poem. ‘Manfred’ is widely regarded as Byron’s most gothic work, and he published it June 1817. Dr Polidori also rose to the challenge, writing a short story he called, ‘The Vampyre’. It is widely believed that this piece is what brought Vampires from myth to fiction, and also that it inspired Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.
Unfortunately, we will never know for sure exactly what happened minute by minute in Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816, but the stories that came out of there have become truly iconic. From what I have found in my research, there are a few discrepancies in accounts, but the infamous ghost story challenge is something we do know happened. And without it, we wouldn’t have the great works we have today.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati
http://www.keats-shelley-house.org/en/romanticism/timeline-1816
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati
http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/intro (also in critical reader)
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
ReplyDeleteA popular question to answer among my peers, I was extremely excited to explore what the world knew about that fateful night. Purely because Shelley’s account allured such mystery and fascination. I believe her account to be factual. In which she describes her and Mr Shelley’s vacation to Switzerland in the summer of 1816. What appears to be by chance, and inevitably luck, the Shelley’s were the neighbours of Lord Byron. Also by luck of circumstance, that particular summer was a wet one, and as Shelley described “incessant rain often confined us for days in the house” [1]. To curb boredom, the four guests of Byron’s place uncovered collections of Ghost stories, predominantly of German heritage [1]. Upon my online research, most accounts of that night briefly detail some aspects of the evening, and over-exaggerate others in contrast to Shelley’s account. Firstly, some accounts fail to mention where the birth of the idea to write ghost stories came from [2]. In Shelley’s account, she reflects on Byron daring every individual to write a ghost story. Whereas other online accounts simply describe that fateful night to have bred the idea itself [3]. But perhaps, in a way it did. I find it a beautiful ‘coincidence’ that the founders of the Gothic genre, which is predominantly works of strange, terrifying situations, had its inception on a summer night that turned into a storm that lasted for days. How could nature be any more mysterious and terrifying? That fateful night, in the darkness and among the prickly nervousness and excitement that comes from hearing ghosts stories, the most revolutionary and nerve-tingling genre was born. This genre was born through works such as ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Prometheus’ by Mary Shelley, Byron’s poem called ‘Manfred’ and Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’ [4].
[1] Extract: Shelley, Mary. (1985; 1818). Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, London: Penguin.
[2] Smedley, R. (2011). The writing spaces: Villa Diodati & Mary Shelley
Bargain Travel Europe.(n.d).
[3] http://www.bargaintraveleurope.com/08/Switzerland_Villa_Diodoti_Geneva.htm
[4] http://shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/diodati-the-residence-of-lord-byron#Description.
ReplyDeleteQ 3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
Equally as fascinating as the above question, I was intrigued to research how many fictional works about that night can be found. I started with Youtube, uncovering;
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haS7s4MI0mI This was found following the hint in the question. It is Ken Russel’s 1986 trailer for his movie ‘Gothic’. Trailer’s are never designed to give the full story away, but there a few plot reveals in this trailer. Notably, is the fictional addition of Byron actually being some form of Devil, and the proposition he makes towards his guests to write ghost stories, is portrayed in this trailer/movie, as more of a cult demand by Byron. What appears to follow is a door opened into a horrifying world with supernatural creatures, and thus the fight of survival and escape by each guest. It is excitingly over-dramatic.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQwwVThTuZM This is the first ten or so minutes of the 1998 film ‘Haunted Summer’ by Ivan Passer. Imdb’s synopisis of the film states that is a movie about the authors, who “get together for some philosophical discussions, but the situation soon deteriorates into mind games, drugs and sex”. In this extract of the film, there are scenes of openness that express this group’s revolutionary way of living.
[3] http://lastroseofsummer2.hubpages.com/hub/Percy-Byssche-Shelley-and-the-Victims-of-the-Summer-of-1816
This page details some horrific facts about that fateful summer, that transcends our understanding of it being a friendly, fun filled time of writers finding their passions. I am not entirely sure whether all of it is fictional or not, as further research has not supported what is written in this blog post. Regardless, it is fascinating and focuses on the many deaths that resulted from that summer, and Percy and Mary’s love affair and decision to marry 20 days after Percy’s first wife Harriet threw herself into a lake, killing her and her unborn child. This text casts more mystery on the actual events of that summer, and the personalities present.