Romanticismo inglese - Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë e Edgar Allan Poe

Mary Shelley

Mary was born and grew up in an intellectual environment. She married Percy B. Shelley and took his name. They travelled a lot with some of his friends, in particular with Byron and in Switzerland she got the inspiration to write “Frankenstein” at only 18 years. When she moved to Italy, she finished it and published it in 1818.

Frankenstein

A scientist gives birth to a creature made with pieces on different human bodies. After it takes life, he learns to talk and read but he gets rejected by the society. He asks his creator to make him a companion but he refuses, so it becomes aggressive and kills.
The entire novel is built on a complex structure with different narrators and different styles which also mirror the creature’s body. The creator can be compared to Prometheus because he was too ambitious and did something forbitten. The novel represents the relationship between Mary Shelley and the science which is a hate and love relationship (she was curious but also scared).

Emily Brontë(1818-1848)

Emily was born into a poor family of a clergyman and a mother who died when she was a child. In the Yorkshire Moor where they grew up, they were surrounded by nature and books. She and her sisters (Charlotte and Anne) were very fond of literature and created three fake male names to publish their works: The Bells Brothers. In 1846 “Wuthering Heights”, “Agnes Grey” and “Jane Eyre” were published and became bestsellers.

Wuthering heights(1846)

It is a romantic novel that develops around two opposite families: the Linton and the Earnshaw. The entire novel is a flashback of the current tenant Mr. Lockwood, of the story told him by Nelly Dean. She is very important because she knows both sides of the story.
The main characters are Catherine and Heathcliff whose love goes beyond everything but it is forbitten because they are siblings. The themes are the ones of the romanticism like the Byronic Hero, passionate love and the death with the adding of supernatural events and the gothic setting.

Edgar Allan Poe

His life was characterized by instability, loss and failures becoming orphan at 2 years old. He was adopted by the Allan, so he took the two surnames, and lived in Richmond, Virginia. He travelled a lot and passed two years in the ARMY. He was the master of horror and short stories, which he published in journals. His major themes are scary and mysterious like being buried alive, the death, the double and claustrophobic settings due to the desire to violate tombs.

The oval portrait (1845)

The narrative frame enclosing the sad story of the girl painted in the oval portrait create the mysterious and supernatural atmosphere. The setting is a gothic castle which suggest luxury but also decay. The candles pave the way to the discovery of the painting in a dark and partial view. The reaction of the narrator suggests a supernatural event. The theme here is the premature death of the beautiful girl, because of love. Another theme is the immortality of art rather than the human life. The double, linked to the transfer of life into art to make it immortal would become the features of the movement “Art for art’s sake”.