Talk:Mary Shelley

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[edit] Cutting page size

I think we need to rewrite the "Fiction" section - we need to discuss the novels as a group rather than individually. I think Frankenstein should have its own subsection, but the rest should only be discussed as examples of larger themes within Shelley's oeuvre. What do you think? Awadewit (talk) 06:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we have no choice but to look that in the (wipes tear from the corner of) eye. The obvious unifying theme that occurs to me is political liberalism/radicalism. Recent commentary seems to find this in all the books, and we could then move into a summary of gender themes. Another recurrent aspect may be autobiographical themes and portraits: for example, the dominating father figure and the poetical hero.
The danger is that we give a false impression of homogeneity, since the novels are also quite distinctive. Lodore and Falkner are certainly of a type (more domestic than the others, and the prose reads similarly in both), and the two historical novels have much in common—but Matilda (incest) and The Last Man (apocalypse, futurism) are also idiosyncratic in many ways. Unfortunately, most of the material I read about the novels was from dedicated articles or introductions, where the emphasis was on one novel at a time: so we need to find sources that speak more generally about her work. Another danger that strikes me is that of ending up with a group of little grey ducklings swimming along next to a big mother duck called Frankenstein and that we give short shrift to Mary Shelley's overall body of work, confirming the stereotyped view of her. qp10qp (talk) 15:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, after having done Anna Laetitia Barbauld and advising Scartol on Balzac, I think that we are bound to loose nuance no matter what we do. There is no way to represent a writer's oeuvre with any precision. I am sure that I am not bursting any bubbles when I say that our little paragraphs on the novels are hardly nuanced representations of the works anyway. I think that four or five paragraphs on the "other" novels will have to do. Frankenstein has received so much more attention that I think we have to give it its own subsection. Looking at the Cambridge Companion's coverage of Frankenstein in comparison to the other works, for example, demonstrates how much more important that novel is considered than the others. A quick survey of the scholarship would demonstrate this to anyone. Also, I think that our efforts to explain her short stories, biographies, and editorial work help to challenge the stereotyped, and dying, view of her as a one-book author. Here are some of my ideas of themes that need to be included: (I think that Blumberg, Clemit, and Mellor will help with the sourcing. I am in a recall-war with someone over those books right now.)
  • liberal vs. conservative narrative
  • women and history (e.g. private narratives trump public narratives)
  • challenge to traditional Romanticism (e.g. challenge to Romantic individualism, Romantic imagination)
  • power of domesticity
  • father-daughter motif

I think we should work on this list for a while and then rewrite the "Fiction" section. What do you think? Awadewit (talk) 02:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine. I agree with the above themes, except I don't really get the Romanticism one, which could become a bit complicated. And should we have a section on genre? (I know that's complicated too.) qp10qp (talk) 15:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I understand the Romanticism bit, so I'll try to explain it. We'll see what happens. On genre, we could either have a separate paragraph or join the discussion with the themes - the historical novel would be the most important, I think. We also need to mention the role of autobiography in the novels - I can't believe I forgot that one! I've copied what we have over to User:Awadewit/Sandbox so that we can try to use some of what we have already written while redrafting. Awadewit (talk) 16:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm beginning to think we'll have to integrate Frankenstein into our larger "Novels" section. Eek. Awadewit (talk) 20:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I know. After all, it shares the themes too. Also, it struck me that before we know it, the themes section will be as long as the novels stuff was. qp10qp (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. I'll start integrating. *sigh* Awadewit (talk) 20:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I've moved the messy draft over so it's easier to work on. I moved all of our other material over to the respective novel pages. The "Novel" section is going to be a mess for a bit. Awadewit (talk) 22:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The page is currently at 57kb of readable prose. Awadewit (talk) 06:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That's healthier than I feared. I'm even getting 51kb on Dr Pda's gadget. 8,655 words. qp10qp (talk) 18:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turnng red links blue and other sundries

In my spare time (!), I am working on turning the red links blue. I've already done Richard Rothwell and Political Justice. If anyone wants to join in the fun, feel free! I was also thinking we might want to expand the novel articles a bit. They are rather sad. Awadewit (talk) 00:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You're doing a great job. I admit that I made a decision at the beginning of working on MS not to get dragged into working around it, because there's no end to that, and I am committed to something similar with late-sixteenth-century France: I don't want to become another Casaubon.
Ha ha, is that Von Holst is a terrible artist, or what? (But just the sort of article I love to read.)
I do have Percy Bysshe Shelley and Matilda on my list to do properly some time, if someone else doesn't do them first. Also, user:bookworm has been working on Claire Clairmont, and I've agreed to help there. But there's potentially no end to it: I mean, Percy Florence no doubt could do with an article—it would be nice to rescue him from the relentless teasing of all the biographers (surely he wouldn't have been so loved by everyone he came into contact with were he a mere simpleton, boor, or buffoon).
Your article on Mounseer Nongtongpaw is wonderful. Now that is Wikipedia doing its job perfectly: a one-stop summary of the information and scholarship available. It's better than any passage I have read about the matter anywhere. qp10qp (talk) 18:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think I would ever take on PBS. To be able to competently write about his poetry would require so much more reading than I have time to do! Awadewit (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree. And I don't even particularly like his poems. But the present article is abysmal, and I think I could at least make it better. Now that we're working on Mary Shelley, his article sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm prepared to read through the poetry, but I would have to stick to a few critical compendiums for the criticism, because life is too short (shock horror). Not too bothered about good or featured status, just about some improvement. But this is a long-term possibility: at the moment I have only read the biographies by Holmes and Blunden. I'm deliberating over what edition of the poems to get: I'd like to see one with MS's notes.qp10qp (talk) 14:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Summary of what still needs to be done

I like lists, so I'm creating a list to help myself. Scrolling through the talk page is starting to bothering me.

  • I think we need to include more about Godwin and Percy Shelley and their financial entanglements in the "Percy Bysshe Shelley" section, but I'm just not sure where or how to do it. It's so difficult to explain. However, I think money is so very important in all of these relationships, that it should be mentioned somewhere that he was giving Godwin large sums of money.
It's very complex indeed. Not least because, it does not seem to me that Shelley was giving Godwin what he was promising, and it is very difficult to work out what he did give him. It's been such a comedown for me to see how much these people thought about money, but that does make me agree that we should say more about it. They may have thought they were so careless of money because they despised it: but the truth is that they were clueless about money. What did Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont do the minute they got hold of their Shelley bequests? Invest £6,000 (context: Mary got £50 for Perkin Warbeck) in a bloody opera box (sounds to me like they were done by the equivalent of a modern-day timeshare scam). qp10qp (talk) 18:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
By the time she returned home for a second time on 30 March 1814, Percy Shelley had become estranged from his wife and was regularly visiting Godwin, whom he had agreed to bail out of debt - This is the first mention of Godwin's money troubles. We need to add something. Should we mention in the first section that Godwin was having difficulties so that it makes more sense that PBS would need to bail him out? Awadewit (talk) 16:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I leave it to you. The subject is very complicated and summarising it defeats me (mainly because I can never work out what the debts were and how much Shelley actually stumped up). There is a deep mystery in it, which I suspect arises from some kind of philosophical agreement: that money is meaningless and therefore those who have it should share with those who don't—or rather, that those who have it should share it with great artists and philosophers who don't. I suspect, however, that the practicalities lagged far behind and that less money changed hands, in reality, than was dreamed of. qp10qp (talk) 17:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Make clear what was professional about MS's editing style.
  • This is turning into a small nightmare. See the new poems section. There are lots of stray works that I have to work in somehow. Awadewit (talk) 13:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
The list is nearly done - I see the light at the end of the tunnel! Now, I have to write an interesting and informative lead! Awadewit (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Polish the substantive notes so that they read well and are cited accurately.
One thing I always do is cut substantive notes down towards the end of working on an article. With distance, I tend to see how unnecessary quite a few are. I expect you would be happy for me to do that sometime, since I added most of them in the first palce.qp10qp (talk) 18:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Rewrite the "Fiction" section so that it is more theme-driven and less work-driven. (Hopefully this will cut down on the size of the article.)
You've been doing wonders there. qp10qp (talk) 18:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Create stubs for the redlinks.
  • Add a bit more on the Gothic to the "Novelistic genres" section.
  • Paraphrase some of the many quotations I've been adding to the "Literature" section

Please add to the list! Awadewit (talk) 17:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] French book on Shelley

I keep seeing Jean de Palacio's Mary Shelley dans son oeuvre mentioned as an excellent work on Shelley. Unfortunately it is not translated and I don't have the time to plow through it right now. Can anyone zip through it? Awadewit (talk) 06:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems rare. I very much doubt I can get hold of it. qp10qp (talk) 22:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
There are several copies in my library. Want me to send you a copy? Awadewit (talk) 22:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Ha ha, across the pond? I don't want you to rack up fines. It sounds a bit more trouble than its worth, to be honest. I really ought to join a library, but the nearest one bigger than a telephone box is 40 miles away. qp10qp (talk) 23:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
By the way, your library should sell a copy; they could probably get several hundred dollars for it and buy something more useful with the cash. qp10qp (talk) 23:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image:MaryShelleyEaston.jpg

Apparently we cannot have the Easton image with the frame - it is a three-dimensional work. I have removed the frame, but something didn't turn out right with my image editing. Can someone fix the image file? Awadewit (talk) 04:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I have applied a rectangle crop - see image on commons. I kept the image as JPG so there may be some artefacts although I couldn't spot any. I first tried saving the original JPG here as PNG (to minimise JPG losses) and then applying an ellipse crop but I could not avoid jaggies. So I restarted from your ellipse crop because it had smoother anti-aliased edges. (Wikibob from Commons) -84.222.0.142 (talk) 15:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately I had to change this to a B&W version since the color versions included the frame and a cropped version of the color version was a derivative work. *sigh* Awadewit (talk) 17:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quotebox ref/ Valperga

I've added ref. Confusingly, there are two Oxford editions, one being in Oxford World's Classics, ed. Rossington, and the other being OUP, ed. Curran. I have reffed this to my edition, which is the Curran, whose book details seem to have slipped from the page. qp10qp (talk) 13:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I wanted to have only one version of the novel used as a reference, if possible, so I erased the others as I replaced the citations to their introductions. If you don't have the Rossington, I can try to find it. Awadewit (talk) 15:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I looked it up on Amazon Search Inside and changed the ref to the Rossington edition. qp10qp (talk) 22:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

I'm cutting myself off from the research. I must stop! So - revision of the writing remains.

  • Do you think some of the material in the "Novelistic genres" section should be in the "Gender" section?
Yes, maybe. The Gothic paragraph seems flimsy, relating to gender issues and scientific issues rather than to genre itself. qp10qp (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not totally clear on the relationship between Mellor and Poovey in the "Politics" section. That needs to be hammered out.

Please help with the revision! I'm drowning! :) Awadewit (talk) 22:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I know the feeling. I drowned when I was labouring to read those vast, dialogue-free novels. We were crazy even to attempt this.
If you are happy that the content is broadly sound now, I can start a deep copy edit, which will take me some time. In some cases, I will probably spoil the information inadvertently, so please revert me if that happens. I still have to do some time-consuming stuff at King Arthur, plus another review I've promised, and then I will switch into tunnel vision here. qp10qp (talk) 23:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I've committed myself to helping with Learned Hand, but I'm ready to start copyediting this one. qp10qp (talk) 21:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Questions during copyediting

  • I think some of the general statements may verge on the inaccurate (I've lost track of which of us added things, so I may be addressing these queries to myself, of course):
Mary Shelley's novels fuse the 1790s Godwinian novel with Walter Scott's new historical novel.[144] For example, Frankenstein addresses many of the same themes and employs similar literary devices as Godwin's Caleb Williams (1794). The first statement strikes me as misleading, since she only wrote two historical novels. The second sentence is not, strictly speaking, an example of the first statement, since it refers to Godwin but not Scott. qp10qp (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
This is from Clemit and Blumberg, I believe, who see elements of the historical novel in Frankenstein as well. This statement is not about the "historical novel". Would it be better to say "fuse elements of the..."? Awadewit (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • While earlier Godwinian novels had shown how rational individuals could slowly improve society, The Last Man and Frankenstein demonstrate the individual's lack of control over history. Shelley's narrative style reflects this theme; many early Godwinian novels were written in first-person, while Shelley's novels were often written in third-person. I am not clear how the narrative style reflects this theme. The point about first/third person is in itself fuzzy; and "often" seems vague to me here. Matilda and The Last Man are written in the first person, and, arguably, from the framing device, so is Frankenstein, to a degree. qp10qp (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The primacy on individuals in Godwinian novels is shown through first-person narration while MS's challenge to the possibilities of individuality is shown through third-person narration. Frankenstein is written from many different points of view, another way to challenge the primacy of the individual. "Often" is more accurate than "always", obviously. I was trying for broad, but still accurate statements. Awadewit (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Mary Shelley's works argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos put forth by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father William Godwin. This now ends the lead, but as a factual-sounding statement it is challengeable. I think it might be true of Lodore and Falkner, and possibly (haven't read it) Perkin Warbeck, but I don't think it is true elsewhere. Matilda suggests almost the opposite, unless you argue for feminine and familial qualities by their absence (both feminine and family values are corrupted and rejected). In Frankenstein, there is a strong suggestion that Frankenstein goes to his doom by rejecting the family but nothing about the reform of civil society. And although Euthanasia's values in Valperga do suggest the latter, family values don't really come into it. As I've mentioned on this page before, I do not think that Mary Shelley adopted one argument throughout her novels: her standpoint changed from book to book. Valperga in many ways echoes Percy Shelley's romanticism, since it is a paean to Italian republicanism. Curran suggests in his article in the CC (112–13) that Valperga was both Godwinian and Wollstonecraftian. qp10qp (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I was trying to write a statement that summarizes the bulk of the scholarship that I have read. Of course it is challengeable, but is it challengeable using the sources? I think that sources back up this statement to a remarkable degree. Frankenstein suggests that Victor's failure was due to his inability to work within this reforming structure, according to what I have read. It is clear that MS does not present one argument in her writings, but I think the lead needs a broad statement of the "Literary themes and styles" section. This was my attempt. Of course, elements of her republicanism can be considered Godwinian. However, I wasn't sure how much nuance we wanted to add to the lead. I tried to pick out the dominant idea from the books I have read. Awadewit (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it is definitely challengeable using the sources, and the Curran ref above does that for Valperga. I do remember reading that Mary and Percy were writing on similar romantic themes in Italy, for example on republicanism and incest (Matilda and The Cenci both concerned incest). I am not convinced that she rejected either romanticism or enlightenment values (it seems to me that she fused them) until The Last Man, where quite plainly she challenges Shelley's romanticism, though in a nostalgic rather than bitter way (there's a sort of "oh, what was the use of all that if everyone dies in the end?" feel to it). Matilda is in many ways nostalgic in the same way for Mary Wollstonecraft: Mary Shelley takes up a story fragment of her mother's—the darkness, I think, is a result of her blues rather than any rejection of her mother or father's ideas. You will know how Clemit emphasises her Godwinianism. There is a strong argument in Lodore for domestic female values triumphing over doomed romantic posturing, but the matter doesn't end there. In the Rambles it is clear that Mary Shelley was still seducible by romantic republicanism: I have read quite a few passages from that book online, now, and it is remarkably political and hearks right back to her old romantic phase. (Her behaviour over Gatteschi showed that this was the case off the page too: she was basically sponsoring Italian revolutionaries.) I don't necessarily buy the view that she remained a total radical, but I do think her outward conservatism may have been something of a necessary disguise. qp10qp (talk) 23:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, what I meant was the "bulk of the sources". Like I said, I was looking for a general statement for the lead. We can certainly add more and something on Shelley's republicanism would be good, I think. Whatever is included in the lead, however, will by its summarizing nature be somewhat misleading, I think. There is no real way to summarize Mary Shelley's works in one paragraph! Awadewit (talk) 23:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I do think we should avoid appearing to make any particular theories or readings sound like established facts. I've been having some more thoughts: see below (sorry to be such a pain).qp10qp (talk) 00:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, there are "standard" readings and I think including those in the lead is a good idea. What I was thinking was: "What would a professor tell you on 'Day 1' of the Mary Shelley lectures?" We must include something in the lead about her writings. I will not be a party to an author article that doesn't describe the author's works in the lead! :) Awadewit (talk) 02:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Although Mary Shelley believed, like her parents and her husband, in the Enlightenment idea that people could improve society through the responsible exercise of political power, she also believed that irresponsible use of power led to chaos.[177] Moreover, Shelley's works largely criticise the way that eighteenth-century thinkers such as her parents believed change could be brought about. For example, the creature in Frankenstein reads books associated with radical ideals but the education he gains from them is ultimately useless.[178] Shelley is not as optimistic about the power of people to effect change as Godwin and Wollstonecraft, and she did not accept Godwin's theory that humanity could eventually be perfected.
I think this paragraph exposes a few frayed stitches where our two bouts of editing have been joined together, because the first and last sentence contradict each other. We need to thrash this out, because I suspect that the different books we've read have given us different views on Mary's politics: and we may need to combine the result more smoothly.
In brief, I do not think it is cut and dried that Mary was criticising Wollstonecraft and Godwin; on the contrary, I believe she held close to their beliefs till the end of her days. I also think that though she became disillusioned with aspects of Romanticism and radicalism, she also preserved some of her earlier beliefs all along. I don't suggest that the other interpretations that you reference are wrong, just that they are not the only way of looking at it. For example, Betty Bennett says of Frankenstein (An Introduction, 39–40): "The novel iterates the Godwinian-Wollstonecraftian concept that a corrupt system will taint or destroy all its inhabitants, expressed in their philosophic tracts Political Justice and Vindication and then fictionalized in the novels Caleb Williams and Maria. Frankenstein resurrects these eighteenth-century theories in a model that offers its nineteenth-century audience, now shifted from revolutionary war to revolutionary commerce and industry, the possibility of making revolutionary choices ... It also aligns [Mary Shelley] with visionary political reformers—among them her parents and P. B. Shelley—who embraced the Enlightenment belief in the potential improvement of humanity".
I wouldn't buy this simply on Bennett's say so; but in my opinion, the evidence of the books backs it up. Yes, MS exposes the futility of Romantic idealism in The Last Man; but Valperga is nothing if not a grand Romantic tale, surely. Mary Shelley's special touch there is the feminism, itself Wollstonecraftian, but the book also shares Percy Shelley's libertarian values. She is advocating idealism in the form of Euthanasia's political system, which challenges Castruccio's imperialism in the way that Mary and Percy opposed Austrian imperialism against small Italian states in the Italy of their time. This reading is straightforward, I believe, and is backed up by Curran's analysis. Shelley also challenges the church in Valperga, and she expected that to cause a ruckus with the critics, but they didn't notice it. The clincher, for me, though, is Rambles, which is consciously libertarian, even revolutionary. (And apparently this political stance can also be found in Shelley's Lardner Lives.) So I think our treatment of her politics needs to take this possibility into account. At the moment, there is some jarring of views in the passage above and in the last part of the lead, in my opinion.
This was the most difficult section to write, IMO. It is clear that MS endorsed parts of Godwin's system (which itself was not static, of course!) and Wollstonecraft's theories while at the same time challenging other parts. However, the more detailed I tried to be in my drafts off-wiki, the worse they became. There was just too much to explain about Godwin and Wollstonecraft (and Burke) to make the whole picture clear. I came to the conclusion that it would be best to write a broad strokes version. I feel like another way out of these various morasses is to sit down and write a Themes and style of Mary Shelley subpage or to write all of the works' pages. Then our heads would be clearer. Those options, however, take so much time. In the end, I tried to avoid getting bogged down by individual texts and tried to bring together all of the broad statements that I could find. Obviously, this approach loses a lot in nuance. However, I feel that it is the only approach we can really use.
Now, if we want to be more specific about which parts of Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Burke she was criticizing and which parts she was endorsing, we should certainly do that. I did actually try and do that, but perhaps not enough. Awadewit (talk) 02:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Feminist critics often focus on how authorship itself, particularly female authorship, is represented in the novels.[164] For example, Shelley describes one of the heroines in Valperga, Beatrice, as strong and gifted but reveals that Beatrice is trapped in a society which does not appreciate her.
I'm not sure that the second sentence is a good example of the point about authorship. Beatrice is a visionary and prophetess but not an author; and I don't believe she is introduced into the story to comment on authorship so much as on the church's tyranny. qp10qp (talk) 00:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree - let's cut that example. Awadewit (talk) 02:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Tied myself in knots over this and in the end cut the point rather than the example and found an assertion point to link Beatrice to the previous point about Frankenstein. Please check. qp10qp (talk) 23:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
But that point is essential. The Beatrice example is peanuts compared to the point about female authorship. Gilbert and Gubar's book, for example, is all about female authorship and representations of female authorship. This idea is key to feminist scholarship and it permeates what they say about Shelley. The examples are hard to give because they depend on the details of the stories, but I think we have to have this point. I've restored the original point, minus the Beatrice example. Should I search around for an example that is easy to explain in one sentence? Awadewit (talk) 00:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The reason I took it out was technical, that the Hoeveler reference doesn't support the inference given to it. She is citing one critic and the example is specifically tied to Frankenstein. If you want to make a point about critics in the plural often saying this about the novels in the plural, then in my opinion another reference will have to be found; and I think the point would need to be developed at least one sentence further. Simply cutting the example leaves the point hanging, since it doesn't logically follow from the previous point. The issue of Beatrice is not at all peanuts in respect of gender, in my opinion, since she represents a cult that is feminist in nature and is suppressed. qp10qp (talk) 00:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Could you possibly check whether there's an "of" missing in the following quote: there is no more delightful literary task than the justifying a hero or writer, who has been misrepresented or reviled? (It might just be an old diction, of course.) qp10qp (talk) 00:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)