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Roseanne Montillo On The Lady and Her Monsters A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece
Roseanne Montillo on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in ‘The Lady and Her Monsters’
Would you share with us some aspects of Mary Shelley’s life and perspective that may have influenced her to create the literary masterpiece Frankenstein and of course Victor Frankenstein?
RM: Her family also played a very large part in her creative process. Her father, William Godwin, held weekly intellectual soirées at his home where prominent guests included poets, writers, scientists, doctors, all round natural philosophers and their conversations revolved around the general topics of the time. Those topics included the lure of forbidden knowledge, of course, and reanimating the dead. Although as a girl she was not allowed to take part in these conversations, it is well known that she often hid in the room or sat atop the staircase to listen to the men. Percy Shelley also influenced her. He had quite a knowledge of galvanic electricity, poisons and had experimented himself, so he kept up with the scientific conversations of the times.
I see Mary Shelley had a torrid love affair with Percy Shelley aka Mad Shelley that include sex in a cemetery and got weirder as the night progressed. Would love to know more.
RM: When they met, Shelley was already a married man and father to a young child. That didn’t stop them. For his part, his views on love and sexuality were always very flexible, but for Mary, that was her first love, and there was also an understanding that he was involved in a very unhappy marriage. But theirs was not only a very physical love, but an intellectual one. He believed he had found his match in every sense. As the daughter of two intellectuals, Percy believed that she would keep up her parents’ tradition of brilliance.
PLEASE VISIT THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW FOR MUCH MORE REAL LIFE STORIES OF DOCTOR FRANKENSTEIN’S CREATOR MARY SHELLEY. BY VISITING YOU HELP RAISE MY RANKS AT EXAMINER. THANKS.
