Romanticism Unshackled: a Study of the Modern Prometheus

The most remarkable aspect about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the ability to label the novel in so many different ways amongst many genres, ranging from science fiction, to fantasy, to horror, and have all of them be correct. At such a young age, Mary Shelley constructed a narrative so revolutionary, intricate, and involved that it is still pertinent to be written about in college essays almost 200 years after it was written. As the author, Shelley is often attributed with vast creative intellect, and rightly so, as is evidenced while reading through her novel. It is imperative to recognize, however, just how much influence her colleagues—the Romantic poets—had on the ideas that became manifested in her writing. Frankenstein should bear the title of Romantic literature because the novel embodies trademark Romantic ideas, situations, and characteristics throughout the text.

In an attempt to categorize any novel as Romantic, however, one must first attempt to identify what, exactly, makes a work Romantic. A group of poets, including the likes of William
Blake, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron and—Mary’s husband—Percy Shelley, who are commonly credited as being the ground-breaking authors of the Romantic movement (Ferguson). A prime example of this method of poetry was introduced in the 1798 collection, Lyrical Ballads. This work, written by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is a compilation that was aimed primarily at the common man, and written in such a language that it could be easily comprehended. Lyrical Ballads moved poetry away from the times of the mythical and fantastical, which contained references to topics only the highly educated would be able to comprehend, and written in an extremely stylized, tough to read language. Wordsworth and Coleridge desired to