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Romanticism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Essay

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Mary Shelley, with her brilliant tale of mankind's obsession with two opposing forces: creation and science, continues to draw readers with Frankenstein's many meanings and effect on society. Frankenstein has had a major influence across literature and pop culture and was one of the major contributors to a completely new genre of horror. Frankenstein is most famous for being arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel. In Frankenstein, some of the main concepts behind the literary movement of Romanticism can be found. Mary Shelley was a colleague of many Romantic poets such as her husband Percy Shelley, and their friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, even though the themes within Frankenstein are darker…show more content…
Given that the Industrial Revolution had impacted all forms of society, including how people thought, felt, worked, and related to each other, it would not be totally crazy to think that such a change might have been the reason why Romanticism was quickly adopted. Romanticism as a reaction to the hyper-active period of change might have been the only way to deal with the backlash of the Enlightenment's scientific thoughts and concerns. Romanticism gave people spontaneity, the chance to dream again, to explore fantasy, whereas the Enlightenment made everything predictable, taking the fun out of life. First expressed by the English poets, these ideals of Romanticism spread to other artistic models, such as art and music, and on to other countries. Because of this, the value of the arts, emotions and the value of the individual was able to reestablish a place in the minds and practices of people and society. Before delving too deep into Shelley's novel, it is very important to label the ideologies and connections behind Romanticism as a literary period, and a literary movement. The poetry and prose of the Romantic movement meant to show a obvious connection to the imagination. Romanticism, at it's most basic understanding, which was mainly active through the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, can be separated from the preceding Enlightenment by recognizing that in the Enlightenment, there was a “preoccupation with reason in
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