Home > Gothic Literature > Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797 - 1851) - Fred Botting (Essay Date 2000)

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FRED BOTTING (ESSAY DATE 2000)

SOURCE: Botting, Fred. “Reflections of Excess: Fran-kenstein, the French Revolution, and Monstrosity.” In Frankenstein: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Contemporary Critical Perspectives, edited by Johanna M. Smith and Ross C. Murfin, pp. 435-49. Boston and New York: Bedford—St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Botting views the monster and monstrosity as a metaphor in Frankenstein within a cultural, historical, and literary context.

This essay examines the appearance and effect of monsters in British political positions immediately after the French Revolution and analyses some of their reverberations in Frankenstein. The project, however, is not one that simply tries to identify Frankenstein’s meaning in terms of British exchanges...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Essay Date March 1824)
   2. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Story Date 1891)
4. General Commentary
   1. Diane Long Hoeveler (Essay Date 1997)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
   2. Fred Botting (Essay Date 2000)
6. Further Reading

1. Mary Shelley