HOME SCHOOL - Frankenstein: Monster, Myth, and Meme
On June 16, 1816, Mary Godwin (later Shelley), not quite 19 years old, awoke with a start from a restless slumber. A powerful vision had come to her: an artificial man who terrified his creator, a being neither living nor dead, made not born, the awesome power of science unleashed in monstrous form. For 200 years, her nightmare has continued to disturb our sleep, expanding its influence with each new frontier of human knowledge and each innovation in the media of art-- from the indelible image of Boris Karloff as the Creature to the sci-fi rhapsodies of Blade Runner and The Terminator, from Frankenweenie to Frankenfoods. Somehow, an untested writer, trying out her powers, conjured up a modern myth, encapsulating our shifting cultural perspectives on soul and selfhood, genius and destiny, man's place in nature and women's place in a world dominated by men--and somehow we keep returning to her creature to express our fears and concerns regarding these themes.
This illustrated talk begins with the origins of Frankenstein in the revolutionary ideas of European Romanticism and traces the myth through 19th-century politics, 20th-century film and popular culture, and the 21st-century terror of an apocalyptic end to the modern idea of progress.
Bernard Welt is Professor Emeritus at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at the George Washington University, where he taught courses in general humanities, film studies, and creative writing, as well as popular courses on the uncanny in literature and film, and on Frankenstein as modern myth. He is the author of Mythomania: Fantasies, Fables, and Sheer Lies in Contemporary American Popular Art (Art issues Press). In 2016, he delivered a version of this slide talk in the Smithsonian Associates program, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s original composition of the novel.