To what extent does Mary Shelleys Frankenstein

show evidence of
influence from Edmund Burkes A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of
our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
?

The subject of this essay is an analysis of the extent to which Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein
was influenced, both directly and indirectly, by Edmund
Burkes A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
and the Beautiful. As I am profoundly interested in philosophy and literature,
I was keen on exploring the connections between these two areas of
knowledge which inevitably overlap in themselves and with history, for
example, and are not subject to any restriction of time or space. The idea of
the Sublime has its roots in Ancient Rome, until it was significantly
developed by Burke in the 18th century and inspired notable cultural and
literary 19th century movements such as Romanticism and Gothic.
Frankenstein, first published by Shelley in 1818, is an extraordinary novel
claimed to belong to both genres, for it presents many features that are
specific of each, as well as many connections with Burkes essay.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus evolved from a short horror story
to a fully accomplished novel, now regarded as one of the very masterpieces
of English literature. It narrates the story of Swiss scientist Victor
Frankenstein, who succeeds in finding the secret to life and vivifies a
composition of body parts which turns out to be monstrous. This creature
could be regarded as sublime, for it possesses the attributes of grandeur and
its exceptional nature, yet it fails to positively inspire awe, and is merely
terrible. According to Burke, the two are, in fact, sides of the same coin
which is distanced from ordinary experience. Instantly shunned by its creator
and later on, by other human beings, the creature resolves to bitterness and
thirst for vengeance against Frankenstein and his loved ones. Amongst the
most prominent themes, we find the complex relationship between society
and the individual, the conflict between the anthropic and the natural world,
mans and natures laws. These struggles are closely linked with the 19th
century Romantic movement, which exalted the beauty of nature against the
products of mankind. Natural
landscapes in Frankenstein have a great
symbolic significance, as well as a direct influence on the characters; the

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calm and heavenly scene of the mountains and lake near Geneva first
restores Frankensteins spirit on the journey home after the death of his
brother, the overwhelming beauty causing him to weep like a child. On the
contrary, human society is responsible for the injustice and evil in the world.
As the creature explains to his father, I am malicious because I am miserable.
Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? [...] Shall I respect man when he
condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and
instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of
gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are
insurmountable barriers to our union. The inadequacy of man, his
inferiority to and dependence on greater natural forces is once again hinted
at by Shelley in the subtitle of the novel: Prometheus, one of the Titans in
Greek mythology, was punished by the father of Gods, Zeus, for overstepping
the boundaries and making the gift of fire to mortals. According to Burke, the
transgression of the norm is an essential feature of the Sublime (or Terrible).
It is also a central theme to the story of Frankenstein, and the exploration of
the extent to which it is possible or even just to respect a limit, according to
who or what it is set by.

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in 1730, and attended university at the
Trinity College, after which he devoted himself mostly to philosophy and
politics. In 1757, he published A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our
Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful, where he discusses the attraction of
the grotesque, the terrible and the uncontrollable, a stark contrast to the
prevailing 18th-century preferences for the controlled and balanced1. This
predilection for equilibrium owed very much to Greek ideals of harmonic
beauty. Burke, though owing much to the legacy of the Classics, found the
Sublime in infinity, which, by definition, cannot be limited to a ,
the measure wherein perfection supposedly lies. The advent of Christianity
brought about a fundamental revolution in this respect, endorsing a positive
view of endlessness, as a product of Gods infinite greatness and
omnipotence. Burkes religious upbringing (both his parents were Christians2

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/burkes-a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-subli
me-and-beautiful
2
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/burkes-wise-counsel-on-religious-liberty-and-freedom
2
) certainly influenced his thought: in fact, we find in his essay that hardly
anything can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some
sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to
perceive its bounds, for infinity possesses a tendency to fill the mind with
that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect and truest test
of the sublime. In the Philosophical Enquiry Burke traces power, identified
as one of the chiefest causes of the Sublime, through its several gradations
unto the highest of all [God]. Many are the references Shelleys creature
himself makes to God and the story of the creation of man, especially after
the deep impression that Miltons epic biblical poem Paradise Lost produces
on him. More importantly, however, is the extent to which Frankenstein plays
with the ideas of balance and moderation, only to let excesses and extremes,
which constitute the Sublime, triumph over them.

Burkes theory of the Sublime, echoed in Shelleys novel, is actually owing to

the Classical author Longinus, who is generally credited with the first
historical dissertation on the subject. In his Treatise on Sublimity, Longinus
relates this concept to rhetoric, the art of words, suggesting to consider
those examples of sublimity, to be fine and genuine which please all and
always3 , and defines it also as a certain loftiness and excellence of
language, which takes the reader out of himself.... The Sublime, acting with
an imperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he will or no4
. Burkes Sublime is much like that of Longinus (whom he references in the
Philosophical Enquiry), in that it is infinitely more powerful than its victim,
which is totally and overwhelmingly possessed by it. In F rankenstein,
Paradise Lost did indeed excite in the creature different and far deeper
emotions than any other book he had read, moving every feeling of wonder
and awe. This is precisely very different from Beauty, which has far less
serious consequences on the person. The reason for the distinctness of the
two is to be discerned from their effect: beauty enkindles love, whereas the
sublime generates terror. In fact, Burke says, they are indeed ideas of a very
different nature, one being founded on pain [Sublime], the other on pleasure
[Beauty]. Furthermore, the hierarchy of these emotions and feelings is

3
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/essays/detail/69397
4
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17957/17957-h/17957-h.htm
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crystal clear: the argument put forth by Burke is that the ideas of pain,
sickness, and death, fill the mind with strong emotions of horror; but life and
health, [...] make no such impression by the simple enjoyment, therefore
whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to
say, whatever is in any sort terrible [...] is a source of the sublime; that is, it is
productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.
This notion may be considered the core and starting point of F rankenstein,
which deals extensively with different kinds of pain, misery, danger, fear,
hope, love and hatred.

Burke lived and wrote long before Mary Shelley, but was well known by her
parents, radicals William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and particularly
opposed by Wollstonecraft on political matters. They were all, indeed, deeply
affected by the political upheaval which, triggered in France in the 18th
century, resonated within the whole European continent and beyond. In 1789
Paris revolted against the ancien rgime which was emblematically
symbolised by royal absolutism and the existence of [feudal] privileges,
foundations of a society juridically established upon natural inequality and
the regime of power5. Its tragical ending in the Age of Terror of Robespierre,
(in)famous for its innumerable and unjust executions, caused representatives
of the Romantic movement like Byron and Wordsworth, who had initially
sympathised with it, to fear the consequences of radical social change6 . Even
after the Napoleonic parabola, in a Europe formally restored to balance
between nations and within them, the many questions that were raised by the
events of 1789 were still in want of definite answers. What was the original
condition of men? Where did power in society come from? Where should it
come from? To what extent should people be their own masters? In
Frankenstein, this confusion is most clearly expressed by the monster, when
he confesses he continually asked himself Who was I? What was I? Whence
did I come? What was my destination? without being able to solve these
questions. The existentialism is not only relevant to him as an individual, but
can be considered from a larger perspective and applied to humanity and our
society as a whole.

5
http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/Ancien_R%C3%A9gime/105343
6
http://web.utk.edu/~gerard/romanticpolitics/revolution.html
4
Wollstonecraft, Shelleys mother, participated in a fair share of her husbands
reputation for radicalism in zealous support of the French ideals of libert,
galit, fraternit, owing to her publication of A
Vindication of the Rights of
Man (1790). The letter was a response to Burkes Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790), in which he advocates a conservative view in condemnation
of those events. Inspired by the same episodes, Godwin notably became the
author of the political and philosophical treatise An Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice (1793): in this work he repeatedly stresses the importance of
personal freedom and private judgement above all else, presenting the
government as an instrument for restricting the individuals ability to fully
develop to the best of its mental and physical possibilities. Likewise, Shelleys
creature is shocked when he discovers the strange system of human society,
which allows for so much unfairness and prejudice; he is so disappointed in
his findings that he goes so far as to say that sorrow only increased with
knowledge and wishes that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor
known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!. These
ideas are very close to those endorsed by Romanticism, which sought beauty
in nature rather than humans, and were influenced by Burkes essay on the
Sublime.

In the Preface to the 1831 edition, Mary Shelley herself says that Many and
long were the conversations between Lord Byron and [Percy] Shelley to which
I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various
philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the
principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being
discovered communicated, referring to the short period of time spent at
Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, when the first nucleus of the novel was born.
Her relationship with Percy Shelley was undeniably fruitful in terms of how
they influenced each other in their writings. Indeed, he wrote the Preface to
the first publication of the novel, where he makes powerful links between the
book and its place in the context of Gothic literature, Romanticism, and in
the long tradition of endeavouring to preserve the truth of the elementary
principles of human nature7 to which conformed Homer, Shakespeare,

7
https://boutell.com/frankenstein/preface.html
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Milton (a few of the most significant sources for both F rankenstein and
Burke). The Philosophical Enquiry had inspired Percy Shelley in another stop
of his and Mary Shelleys Six Weeks Tour through a part of France,
Switzerland, Germany and Holland: in the poem M ont Blanc from the
aforementioned collection, the boundaries between mind and nature are
deliberately blurred8, and he admires the landscape in a trance sublime9 .
Likewise, Frankenstein and the creature are overpowered by natures
magnificence, whereas every cause of evil and harm seems to be
anthropogenic.

The monster created by Victor is, first of all, never named by its father.
Instead, he is constantly referred to with harsh, derogatory terms
highlighting his exaggerated physical proportions and his overall terrible
aspect. The first time the scientist directly addresses his creature, he calls it
devil, which is associated both with the supernatural and the horrific.
Words like monster, fiend, wretch, daemon and the derivative
adjectives are constantly found throughout the novel, along with many
descriptions of the tangible effects that are produced by its appearance on
those who encounter it. These are always deeply disturbing, beginning with
Frankensteins initial response in contemplating his finished work, when
the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled
my heart. The pleasant feeling of having accomplished his mission, which he
was expecting, is immediately replaced by the shock of beholding a thing
such as even Dante could not have conceived. Shelley is referring to the
Italian medieval epic poem written by Dante Alighieri, in which all the
horrors of Hell are recounted during his visit to the afterworld; the creatures
looks are so hideous that no mortal could support the horror of that
countenance. Not only is the sight of him tremendous and abhorred and
his ugliness unearthly, he also boasts extra-human physical qualities such as
a more than mortal speed and impassivity to cold and frost. Such hyperbolic
depictions, which may also be perceived as repetitive due to the frequency
with which they are used throughout the novel, represent an effective

8
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/landscape-and-the-sublime
9
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mont Blanc, London, 1817
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reflection of Frankensteins own hybris, in his trespassing of the boundaries
of human knowledge and the line between life and death.

The themes of limit and moderation are thoroughly explored in Shelleys

novel, and are also a key point in Burkes discussion of the Sublime. The latter
is meant to be inspired by objects of magnitude, that can only and must
necessarily be found beyond the constraints and sobriety of what we typically
experience on a daily basis. The creature, as a creature of extremes, is
Sublime. It is capable of the highest sensitivity and the greatest intelligence,
one whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions
of the beauty and majesty of goodness, only to be crushed because of its very
nature. As is explained in A Philosophical Enquiry, when danger or pain
presses too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply
terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be,
and they are, delightful. The monster admits himself how I was terrified
when I viewed myself in a transparent pool, and regarded his figure
hideously deformed and loathsome; when approached from a close distance,
he cannot shake off his cocoon, his terrible armour, and develop into a
lovely butterfly, he cannot be truly seen and recognised as sublime in light
of his inner richness. The splendour of his soul, the aspiration to the good
and beautiful is repressed by the direct contact with the human kind, whose
limitedness prevents them from going beyond his appearance, which is
beyond any reason and convention. Mary Shelley invites the reader to
empathise with the creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime
and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness, yet
Frankenstein openly recognises, speaking in the name of all the humans who
have beheld the monster, that the human senses are insurmountable
barriers to our union. When the creature requests the scientist make him a
female companion to have a chance at finding happiness, Victor is moved by
his arguments and acknowledges he is a creature of fine sensations,
wherefore he may envisage a possible reconciliation with him; nevertheless,
looking again upon the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened
and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. The prospect is
rejected almost at once, the last hope of the poor wretch vanishes, and his
creator sets on his destruction.

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The settings in the novel, and specifically those where the most decisive
confrontations take place, tend to be harsh environment like the North Pole, a
place of extreme temperatures and landscape (a completely frozen stretch of
ice). However, it is presented as beautiful at the beginning: the first narrator
of the novel is the explorer Robert Walton, to whom Frankenstein relates his
tragic story after having been found and saved by him in the Arctic; in the
early letters he writes to his sister, he says that I try in vain to be persuaded
that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my
imagination as the region of beauty and delight. As the object of his
expedition gets closer and closer, the charming picture Walton had visualised
in his mind becomes the source of a trembling sensation, half pleasurable
and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. The North Pole thus
assumes more dire connotations which pertain to the Sublime, as described
by Burke. The grandeur of the Swiss Alps is comparable to the pole, and
perhaps even more significant. Here, among the sublime shapes of the
mountains, the creature and its master are reunited for the first time after
the scientist turned from him in disgust. Furthermore, Victor initially spots
its gigantic stature in the middle of a raging tempest, depicted as so
beautiful yet terrific, where nature itself is actively participating in the
importance of the event, adding even more to the magnificent scenes.
Without the intrusion of the monster, these afforded me [Frankenstein] the
greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all
littleness of feeling, [...] solemnizing my mind and causing me to forget the
passing cares of life.

The quotation above introduces a new prompt for analysis: the

mind-elevating effect of the Sublime is rendered possible not only by the
grandiosity of the cause, but could not exist without our own smallness. The
17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal felt the same way about mans
position in the universe, for he said that M
an is equally incapable of seeing
the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is
engulfed10. Shelley, too, poetically describes Victor as filled with a sublime
ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure

10
Blaise Pascal, Thoughts, 1670, France.
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world to light and joy in contemplating the summits of the mountains. This
is the power of the sight of the awful and majestic in nature compared to
man as being merely half made up, lacking potential for the grand and
sublime which can be found in nature. In the Alpine valleys, Frankenstein
seeks in fact to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.
In addition to the awe inspired by the monumental Alps (specifically the
supreme Mont Blanc), the world also offers beautiful and picturesque
landscapes, like the valley of Servox. The beautiful provides a different kind of
peace for the spirit, in which the feeling of happiness is mentioned, in
opposition to the totalising emotions sparked by the sublime. Contentment
best suits beauty, as the scientist indirectly remarks on the day of his
wedding to his beloved Elizabeth, when he says What a divine day! How
happy and serene all nature appears!.

Interestingly enough, the characters who are most praised for their virtue,
their balance and rationality are either destroyed by the monster in his
vindictive crusade against the father who spurned him or die prematurely. An
example of the latter kind would be the death of Victors mother because of
illness, which deeply affected the scientist at the beginning of the story; even
her passing away is said to have happened calmly, and her countenance
expressed affection even in death. The murders at the hands of the creature,
on the other hand, are far more brutal and violent, yet they can be viewed as
Natures own revenge against the arrogance of Frankenstein in meddling
with the matters of life and death when he assembled his creature. After
having taken it upon himself to bestow the gift of life in our world, as
Prometheus did with fire, he finds himself responsible for the deaths of four
of his closest friends and family members: first his younger brother, a child
named William; second Justine, a poor peasant girl that was kindly taken in
by his parents and truly deserved and received their love, care, affection, until
she was unjustly accused of killing William and sentenced for the crime; third
Clerval, his best friend, who died because Victor broke his promise to build
another like the creature to keep him company in his isolation; fourth
Elizabeth, strangled on her wedding night, the date when the monster had
promised he would be with them, to take his revenge on the broken promise.

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Finally, the creature and Frankenstein are the same. Both have been
consumed by each other, their nature that brought them beyond the
limitations of humanity, and have been severely punished for their actions.
They have lived with one thought, one conception, one purpose: the
anaphora reflects their total and utter dedication to the annihilation of the
other, when the relationship between two characters is actually an
exploration of the Gothic theme of doppelgangers, or doubles, in
supernatural tales. The desolation of the Arctic mercilessly strips them of
everything superfluous and leaves them equally at the mercy of nature, in a
desperate struggle for survival, equally bent either in life or death to the
others (and therefore their own) destruction. Yet they do not recognise the
similarity in their situation themselves, and both achieve their goal, in that
they both ultimately die. The immensity of their ambition made them at
times Terrible and Sublime, like the novel itself. Thus ends the strangest tale
that ever imagination formed, as defined by Walton.

Superlative adjectives and hyperbolic expressions such as the one above are
all but rare in Shelleys novel. Both Frankenstein and the creature feel they are
each the most miserable mortal between themselves and among the whole
of humanity. Sublimity, as mentioned before, is a concept intimately linked
to the ideas of infinity, magnitude, power, which are all in turn inextricably
bound together. Mary Shelley had fully internalised this notion, and
personified Burkes thinking, so that the monster, who far exceeds ordinary
forms and physical attributes, becomes the very terrifying embodiment of the
Sublime. As explained in the Philosophical Enquiry, the close nature of the
relationship between fear and wonder is intrinsic to the language: the
duplicity of English words such as astonishment and amazement, the
French tonnement, the Ancient Greek , , the verb
, the Latin vereor. This should come as no surprise, for
confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the
grander passions, than those have which are more clear and determinate,
than those of which we can perceive the bounds. In Frankenstein, Shelley
confronts her readers with absolute extremes, refusing to compromise with
little ideas and mediocrity, thus producing arguably one of the best works of
literature ever.

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In conclusion, Edmund Burkes essay on the Sublime influenced Mary Shelley
in several ways: both directly - as exemplified by the majestic landscapes,
their effect on the characters, and the idea of proportion and crossing of
boundaries found throughout the novel - and indirectly - considering the
connections between Burke and Shelleys parents, the historical and cultural
context they shared and its conspicuous legacy. More points of contact
between the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the
Sublime and Beautiful and Frankenstein can also be found in the other
sources they drew upon for inspiration, such as Classical antiquity (many
direct quotations from Ancient Greek and Latin authors are included in
Burkes essay) or Miltons Paradise Lost. However, Burkes remains the most
important contribution to Shelleys novel, especially because of the impact his
essay had on the intellectual and artistic contemporary landscape, and
consequently on Frankenstein.

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