1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected
in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under
consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what
really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816
ReplyDeleteThere are numerous online accounts that describe the gathering at Villa Diodati situated by Lake Geneva. Members of the gathering include: Lord Byron and his mistress (rumoured to be Claire Clairmont), Percy Shelley and partner Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who later changed her surname to Shelley) and Byron's personal doctor John Polidori.
Originally called the Villa Belle Rive, Byron named it Diodati after the family that owned it.
It is believed that one fateful night during a storm, the entourage gathered to retell ghost tales that would later inspire literary ingenuity in the likes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre.
References:
King, S. (n.d.) Frankenstein, Milton and the computer. Retrieved May 22, 2013 from http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=6/19/1816
Sutherland, J., & Fender, S., (2011) Love, Sex, Death and Words: surprising tales from a year in literature. London, United Kingdom: Icon Books, Ltd.
Villa Diodati (n.d.) Retrieved May 22, 2013 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati
Great post Courtenay :)
DeleteGood references too. I too agree that there's a lot of versions or other accounts that relate to the describing of what actually took place at the Villa Diodati. After researching about this question it only made me want to watch the movie just to see what it portrayed, seeing that we watched only a bit in class!
I like your post Courtenay,I agree with Sam that there are so many different accounts on this story we wont be 100% sure what exactly happened though the material on the story available is overwhelming and makes for a good read.
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DeleteIt does right?
DeleteUnfortunately I found it a huge pain to find DIFFERING accounts. Seems like everyone knows the basis of the story, its the details I find the most interesting. Except, there doesn't seem to be too much floating around online that actually goes into much detail.
Go online and see if you can find out about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816.
ReplyDelete“The Villa Diodati is a manor in Cologny close to Lake Geneva” (Wikipedia, n.d.). It is famous amongst its fans because of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstien” and other literary texts. There are a lot of slightly different versions in regards to what actually happened at the Villa Diodati. The Villa was the home of Lord Byron and John Polidori (Byron’s physician) during that 1816 summer. They were accompanied by Percy Bysshey Shelley, Mary Godwin (Shelley) and Claire Claremont who had been to the Villa previous to their visit in the summer of 1816.
“The group gathered to tell ghost stories around the fireplace of a villa overlooking Lake Geneva, Switzerland” (Olson, n.d.). This group was kept indoors because of the eruption of Mount Tambora the year before and it’s after effects were still ongoing during this summer of 1816. “The adverse weather in 1816 had profound effects on North America, Asia and particularly Europe” Wickens (n.d.).
While their stay in the Villa it was said by Mary that Lord Byron suggested that they each come up with their own story to write. Mary had been embarrassed for a couple of days after this suggestion was made seeing that she had not come up with anything. However on one occasion after the group had gathered around the fireplace after midnight she retired to her bedroom but could not sleep. She had envisioned extraordinary things that would alter be the inauguration of the said classic ‘Frankenstein’. “I opened mine [eyes] in terror.... I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through.” (Olson, n.d.).
This summer residence for the group was the foundational work of the famous horror stories ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Vampyre’.
Olson, D. (n.d.). Frankensteins Moon. Retrieved from http://exhibitions.nypl.org/biblion/outsiders/frankenstein/essay/essayfrankensteinsmoon
Wickens, S. (n.d.). 1816 Eruption of Mt Tambora – The Year Without Summer. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/323747/1816-Eruption-of-Mt-Tambora-The-year-without-summer
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Villa Diodati. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati
Hey Sam, Good post. Your post is very well put together. Good use of references too.
DeleteSUMMER AT THE LAKE
ReplyDeleteIn 1816 Lord Byron left England in order to escape certain sodomy and incest allegations and ultimately, to pursue his sexual interests without fear of persecution (MacCarthy, 2002). His travels took him to Switzerland, where Claire Clairmont (Byron’s London mistress) had set up a meeting between Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who would be accompanied by his lover Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley, and step-sister of Clairmont). The fifth wheel, if you will, was John Polidori, then a 20 year old physician (a kind of romantic Doogie Howser) who was bought along presumably to keep an eye on Byron’s tuberculosis (Herriman, 2010), or, “syphilis”.
The Villa Diodati itself is by no means modest. Three stories right beside Lake Geneva. It even had a reasonable sized guest house where Shelley and Godwin stayed. My classmates have already discussed the events that led to the eventual creation of Frankenstein’s monster and Polidori’s Vampyre, but I’m much more interested in one particular occurrence that happened on that faithful night; June 18th 1816.
The following section is mostly paraphrased from John Polidori’s 1816 Journal (Rosetti, 1911). Supposedly it was particularly bad weather, Polidori himself was suffering from an ankle sprain and his pain had been getting increasingly worse over the previous few days. The group stayed indoors at Diodati that night, and at around midnight the ghostly talk began. Byron facilitated this with his reading of Colridge’s Christabel, which contains sexual themes and parental guidance is advised. Polidori noted that the poem was so creepy and the atmosphere so tense that Shelley at one point lost his shit and freaked right out. Suddenly, in the middle of Byron’s reading, Shelley put his hands to his head and shrieked, swiftly grabbed a candle, then vigorously stormed out of the room. When he returned, he announced that he’d had to splash water in his face to calm down, and that his reaction had been due to glance at Godwin which had led to a certain recollection. His lover’s face has had stirred the memory of a tale he had once heard about a woman who had eyes for nipples. This image, briefly taking hold of his mind, had horrified him to the point of physical discomfort.
Any of my own attempts to track down a story about a woman with an “all-seeing-breast” were unfruitful, although I did manage to find an academic journal about something called “The Face-Breast Equation” (Almansi, 1960), which states a female torso resembles a human face, and which also has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m discussing here.
Continued:
DeleteRegardless, this leads to some interesting questions about Shelley’s state of mind that night. Most urgently, which hallucinogenic substances was he taking, and where did he attain them? This situation was not the only insight offered from Polidori’s journal though. Polidori wrote that on the same evening, Godwin referred to him as her little brother. Polidori doesn’t go further into this but it can be assumed this was a dismissive move on Godwin’s part. It was noted in a source I can no longer locate that Shelley Godwin and Bryon would frequently refer to Polidori as Polly, often coupled with the precursory adjective “poor”. Poor Polly’s own romantic desire for Godwin was clear to others (Egged on by Byron, Polidori’s ankle was sprained in an attempt at chivalry; pulling Godwin up into the shelter during a rain storm. In a cruel twist of fate, he slipped over before she could even take his offered hand.) Godwin of course being madly in love with Shelley, Polidori’s feelings were doomed from the beginning. He was also considered an intellectual subordinate by the others, as outlined by Godwin (Shelley) in the introduction to Frankenstein (1831), stating that Polidori’s own contribution to the ghost stories was “some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady”. Later, she implies that the “illustrious poets” Byron and Shelley found poor Polly’s prose to be trite and meaningless despite its presentation as the foundation for a serious fictional work.
References
Almansi, R. J. (1960). The Face Breast Equation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association, 8 (1). http://apa.sagepub.com/content/8/1/43.extract
Herriman, R. (2010, March 4). Famous people and the infectious deseases they were afflicted with. Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.examiner.com/article/famous-people-and-the-infectious-diseases-they-were-afflicted-with
MacCarthy, F. (7 November 2002). Byron: Life and Legend. John Murray Publishers Ltd.
Rosetti, W. M. (1911). The Diary of John William Polidori: 1816, Relating to Byron, Shelley etc. London: Elkin Mathews. (Retrieved from http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Polidori/poldiary.html)
Shelley, M. (1831). Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. (Retrieved from http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/intro.html)
http://www.english.uga.edu/nhilton/lexis_complexes/neyesja2.gif
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ReplyDeleteSituated close to Lake Geneva in Cologny is the Villa Diodati manor which was originally called Villa Belle Rive and was changed by Lord Bryne after the family that used to own it. “It is most famous for having been the summer residence of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Polidori and others in 1816, where the basis for the classical horror stories Frankenstein and The Vampyre was laid.” (Wikipedia).
ReplyDeleteThere are many fictional accounts in the form of film narrative based on the Villa Diodati. Here are some of the links:
Olson, D. (n.d.). Frankensteins Moon. Retrieved from http://exhibitions.nypl.org/biblion/outsiders/frankenstein/essay/essayfrankensteinsmoon.
Bloom, H. (2007). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Retrieved from http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=fOIplEmfNDEC&pg=PA18&dq=villa+diodati+story&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xBC7UanUJsGsiAeyxoCICg&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=villa%20diodati%20story&f=false
SOCIALPSYCHOL. (2012). Villa Diodati. Retrieved from
http://socialpsychol.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/villa-diodati-birthplace-of-legends/
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Villa Diodati. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati
Wood, R. (2010). Great Stories of Fear and Their Creators. Retrieved from
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=ainYnxE-IAMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=villa+diodati+story&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xBC7UanUJsGsiAeyxoCICg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=villa%20diodati%20story&f=false
Hey Rahel,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very literal interpretation of the question. I think you were meant to paraphrase some of this stuff rather than post up links. Looks like a reasonably good spread though...