Weeks seven - eight
Weeks 7-9
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. So in the summer of 1816 Lord Byron rented a wee villa on the banks of lake Geneva. With him was his personal doctor John William Polidori. And further down the road was the likes of Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft and Claire Claremont. Now apparently the weather was terrible, "the summer without sun," so this set the scene for some gold old ghost stories. It was at Lord Byrons request that this whole bizarre sage began.
ReplyDeleteIt was a typical English evening: gloomy. The groups source of light was a candle, their music was a combination of thunder and lighting and a heavy dose of rain upon the roof. It was here that Byron made his move. He suggested that they each tell scary stories to while away the time. From these stories emerged the works of Frankenstein and Vampyre (which Bram Stoker took inspiration from and created Dracula).
However we will never know the true story surrounding the events at villa Diodati. Apparently the group all experienced bouts of hysteria, angelic and demonic dreams, and actual visions. This, coupled with the mysterious weather, has created all sorts of fanfare around the subject, and it even bears resemblance to a bit of a gothic story.
Yeah the weather was horrible because a mountain near the village had started erupting
DeleteOh it was not near the village at all it was in Indonesia the mountain called Mount Tamboro that erupted which caused that summer to be called "the summer without sun", (Buzwell n.d.)
DeleteThe villa Diodati had an original name which was Villa Belle Rive and that Lord Byron only referred to it as villa Diodati because the original owners were related to the poet John Milton who's friend was Diodati,(BL, N. D.).
DeleteBritish library,(N.D.). Illustration of the Villa Diodati. Retreived from http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/illustration-of-the-villa-diodati
DeleteVilla Belle Rive means beautiful shore, ( British library, N.D.)
DeletePerhaps there was some interesting coincidences with the hysteria and shelly's former wifes suicide - Harriet who died age 21 in the same year killing herself in the Serpentine river. acounts in 1811 and 1816 of the water nymth a form of European romance - water nympth was the idea that the a nympth becomes human when she falls in love with a man but is doomed to die if he is unfaithful to her".
Deletei think if we are also talking about what happened because of the creation of these stories on the summer of 1816 it is equally important to note how they effected things from the bigger picture. As the popularity of marry shelly's story and the gothic fiction genre increased so did the overall displacement in peoples beliefs. Because of the idea that 'devine' creatures (frankenstine) could be created by man, it was considered a vital point in the death of god, or at least the idea that he was not the only faith avalible for those in europe.
DeleteWhy? it created questions and other ideas about artificial life which caused a cultural shift as it undermined the current monarchy in England. It was said that the royal line was the plan of god, and so the idea of queens and kings place was questioned as doubt about religion creeped in.
It al raised some concern about humans not being the final product. What it also raised which is still relevent in todays society is the idea that god would no longer continue to be seen as a key figure or the dominant creator by society.
Definitely, I guess the creation of the frankenstine story indicated in some way that GOD was not the only creator of life. Furthermore, the frankenstine story has changed over time. In the original (if my source is correct) frankenstine was created because the owner wanted his family to be murdered.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvtCLJ-1N34
3. Fictional Accounts of Villa Diodati
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctqOXLSCjdI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nj3SVvsCEM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foAPqrFOp4o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn3w26w0n10
http://www.teemingbrain.com/2013/09/05/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-dark-mythic-summer-of-1816/
DeleteMary Shelly had a dream in the summer of 1816 where she dreamt of Frankenstein in a terrifying dream where she was awake, (Dangerousminds.net, n. d.).
ReplyDeleteThe cause of this dream was a discussion between Mary Shelly her half- sister Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron and John Poladori, (Dangerousminds.net, n. d.).
These people above read ghost stories to each other from a book called Fantasmagoriana an anthology of German horror stories, (Buzwell, n.d.)
One night Lord Byron set them all a challenge to write their own horror stories, (Dangerousminds.net, n. d.).
Lord Byron’s challenge of writing stories had got John Polodori to write the Vampyre, (Buzwell, n.d.)
Lord Byron wrote a poem called Darkness, (Buzwell, n. d.)
In the movie Gothic the director of the movie reckons that a lot of sex and drugs took place in that Villa Diodati, (Canby 1987).
References
Buzwell, G, (n. d.). Mary Shelly, Frankenstein and the Villa Diodati. Retrieved from http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati
Canby, V, (1987). Film: Shelly, Byron and friends in ‘Gothic’. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/10/movies/film-shelley-byron-and-friends-in-gothic.html
Dangerousminds.net, (n. d.). Today in 1816 Mary Shelly First dreamt of ‘Frankenstein’. Retrieved from http://dangerousminds.net/comments/today_in_1816_mary_shelley_first_drea
This answer is and references are connected with question 2 not question 3
DeleteThe second that was supposed to have been taken out before I published that sentence sorry if that last statement for June 3rd 2015 does not make sense at all.
ReplyDeleteGo ONLINE and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1816 Lord Byron had fled from England after a scandalous divorce from his wife that was rumoured caused by an affair he had had with his half sister Augusta and also an ever increasing debt forced Byron to leave England and not return. In doing so Byron and John Polidori ended up at the Villa Diodati, rented it and stayed there.Originally called the VILLA BELLE Rive, Byron named it the Villa Diodati after the family that owned it. In the early 1800s, Some of the world’s most flamboyant artists sought after the fleshpots of Lake Geneva. Which may be the reason of their arrival to Villa Belle .
The summer of 1816 was also remarkable for a startling event in atmospheric lore. The eruption of Mount Tambora in faraway Indonesia sent a cloud of volcanic ash across the northern hemisphere; it became “the year without a summer”. Which could have predicted the arrival of a group of scandalous thinkers .
Lord Byron who was accompanied by John Pollidori stayed in the Villa Diodati and. frequent visitors to Villa Diodati were Mark shelley and Percy Bysche Shelley who were renting the house nearby.
Because of the eruption of Mount Tombora this caused heavy rain and lightning to where Byron and his friends were residing Byron proposed that each member of the group compose a horror story. It was here that Mary came up with the idea for Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Byron’s traveling companion AND PHYSICIAN, John Polidori, wrote a nightmarish short story called The Vampyre. It was the first vampire story in English and would influence Bram Stoker’s Dracula some 80 years later.
References
http://exhibitions.nypl.org/biblion/outsiders/frankenstein/essay/essayperrottet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodati
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKNVkavv8Vs
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, amongst other things, came out of summer spent at Lord Byron’s Villa Diodati. The year was 1816 and it was know as the year with no summer. Apparently there was volcanic eruption in Indonesia that caused unexplainable strange weather patterns across Asia, Europe, and North America. These patterns included lots of rain, low temperatures, and an obscured sun. It was like the end of days. Also, scientists learned of dark spots on the sun that same year. In this atmosphere a group of friends decided to write ghost stories at the Villa Diodati. One story inspired a nightmare that led Shelley to write Frankenstein. Also, there were drugs and lots of sexual tension at the mansion thanks Lord Byron’s mistress being there and one of Mary Shelley’s friends making unwanted advances.
ReplyDeleteReference:
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati
Fictional Accounts of Villa Diodati
ReplyDeleteFrankenstein itself since Shelley described the scenery in reference to the area around the Villa
An opera about Mary Shelley and Villa Diodati, titled Villa Diodati
http://composersforum.org/get-involved/events/villa-diodati-chamber-operafilm
Upcoming movie The Retreat is inspired the events at the Villa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCYi1Fx1oTc