Frankenstein | In the Context of the Romantic Era

In the following essay, George V. Griffith considers Frankenstein as a novel that both represents and goes beyond the ideas of the Romantic era.

Perhaps no book is more of its age than Frankenstein. Written and published in 1816-1818, Frankenstein typifies the most important ideas of the Romantic era, among them the primacy of feelings, the dangers of intellect, dismay over the human capacity to corrupt our natural goodness, the agony of the questing, solitary hero, and the awesome power of the sublime. Its Gothic fascination with the dual nature of humans and with the figurative power of dreams anticipates the end of the nineteenth century and the discovery of the unconscious and the dream life. The story of...

[The entire page is 2093 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...