1,087 research outputs found
Mary Shelley, Life of William Godwin
No full textMary Shelley's Life of William Godwin is an incomplete biography of a major author of the Enlightenment by his daughter, a major Romantic author. The working title 'Life of William Godwin' was affixed some time ago by the Bodleian to a sheaf of papers dated 1835 to 1839, the majority in the handwriting of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, forming an 'unfinished' and 'abortive' biographical memoir of her late father. In July 1836, Godwin's widow Mary Jane signed a contract with publisher Henry Colburn [Bodleian, MS. Eng. lett. c. 461, fol. 153] for a two-volume 'Memoirs and Correspondence of the late William Godwin', to be written by Mary Shelley, who referred to it while it was in preparation as 'my Father's Life'. At this period, she was 'Mrs Shelley', widow of the poet Shelley, mother of the heir to a baronetcy and daughter of a famous but questionable marriage - that of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, to William Godwin, author of An Enquiry concerning Political Justice. "Mary Shelley, Life of William Godwin" was originally published as a part of Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS), Faculty Projects collection (https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/pages/setis
Adaptation, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers
No full textA lively discussion of costume dramas to women's films, Shelley Cobb investigates the practice of adaptation in contemporary films made by women. The figure of the woman author comes to the fore as a key site for the representation of women's agency and the authority of the woman filmmaker
Shelley Stokes-Hammond interview, 15 September 2017
No full textShelley Stokes-Hammond is the oldest daughter of Louis Stokes. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University and Goucher College. She is a historic preservationist, author and public relations manager at Howard University. This 2017 interview was collected as part of a yearlong, community-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes\u27 election as mayor of Cleveland
Shelley Stokes-Hammond interview, 15 September 2017
No full textShelley Stokes-Hammond is the oldest daughter of Louis Stokes. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University and Goucher College. She is a historic preservationist, author and public relations manager at Howard University. This 2017 interview was collected as part of a yearlong, community-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes\u27 election as mayor of Cleveland
A more comprehensive and commanding delineation: Mary Shelley's narrative strategy in Frankenstein
No full textThis thesis argues that the first edition of Frankenstein challenges conventional reading by employing what Simpson in Irony and Authority in Romantic Poetry calls Romantic irony, where the absence of a stable 'metacomment' precludes an authoritative reading. The novel hints at such readings but prevents them. The insights offered by Tropp's Mary Shelley's Monster, Baldick's In Frankenstein's Shadow, Poovey's The Proper Lady and the woman writer and Swingle's, 'Frankenstein's Monster and its Relatives: Problems of Knowledge in English Romanticism' are considered, but none recognises the full implications of the instability deriving from multiple first- person narratives. Clemit's The Godwinian Navel acknowledges the novel's indeterminacy, but reads a specific ideological purpose in it. Paradise Last provides a language to describe the relationship between the monster and Frankenstein, but proves too unstable to fix identity or establish moral value. Similarly, Necessity ultimately fails to provide a stable explanation in terms of cause and effect. The status of nature shifts between foreground and background, never allowing final definition. These uncertainties destabilise knowledge which is compromised by its provisional nature: no authoritative reading is possible, yet the novel has narrative coherence. The reader is encouraged to try to develop a reading the structure prevents. The radical nature of the first edition is highlighted by comparison with the 1831 edition, which removes much of the ambivalence and gives the novel a clearer morality. The novel challenges conventional methods of deriving authority by disturbing the reader's orthodox orientation in the world around him' (Simpson) in order to afford 'a point of view to the imagination for the delineation of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield' (Mary Shelley)
Shelley's influence on the Chartist poets, with particular emphasis on Ernest Charles Jones and Thomas Cooper
No full textThis study examines the Chartists' interest in Shelley's poetry and
accounts for it, but it takes the second point first:. Three factors
are discerned to be of prime importance in giving rise to Shelley's
reputation amongst radical Chartists. First, the Chartists' estimation
of Shelley's political philosophy as more intrinsically radical than
the mainstream of British radicalism, as exemplified by Godwin.
Second, Shelley's stands on the questions of religion, inheritance
and political reform proved to be appealing to the Chartists. Third,
and most important of all, to the Chartists Shelley was a political
poet - and poetry they saw as a principal means of moving the people.
The political arguments that permeated Shelley's poetry and the
mingling he managed between poetry and politics corresponded to the
Chartists' political thought and their advocacy of poetry as the most
apposite literary medium to serve and enhance political change.
Accordingly, Shelley was awarded a unique position in the Owenites'
and thartists' publications. He was chiefly acknowledged as a political
poet whose compositions foster the peoples' radical inclinations and
lend force to their efforts to initiate political reform. The Chartist
poet and leader, Ernest Charles Jones, read, published and quoted
Shelley on many occasions. His published and unpublished works testify
that Shelley made a strong impact on his political arguments and exerted
direct influence on much of his poetry. The other thartist poet whom
Shelley seems to have influenced is Thomas Cooper. As a great admirer
of Shelley, Cooper also read Shelley's works, published extracts from
them in his journals and delivered many lectures on Shelley's poetry
and thought. The affinities between Cooper's and Shelley's political
arguments suggest that Shelley might well have exercised a considerable
influence on Cooper's political reasoning. Moreover, the comparison
between Cooper's epic poem, The Purgatory of Suicides and Shelley's
Queen Mab leaves little room for doubt that Shelley has influenced
Cooper in this particular poem.
The main contribution to Shelley studies lies in the evidence
provided of Shelley's popularity amongst radical Chartists and the
charting of his political and literary influence on two Chartist poets:
Ernest Charles Jones and Thomas Cooper. This study should serve as an
important part of a thorough and comprehensive evaluation of Shelley's
influence on the Chrtist Movement as a whole
"Her cradle, and his sepulchre": The Shelleys' Anxiety of Creation and Identity
No full textBoth Percy Shelley and Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley asserted their belief in the nature of literature to transcend conscious thoughts and to operate as a dream state, manifesting unconscious fears and desires. By analyzing two primary works by the Shelleys as dreams, and applying Freud's theories of dream interpretation and the unconscious, this thesis reveals how these works demonstrate a shared unconscious anxiety about the transformative nature of creation and its power to establish or destroy identity. In Alastor, Percy Shelley manifests his anxiety about his relationship with artistic creation through his treatment of gender, most especially in his description of and interaction with the veiled maid. Alastor demonstrates Shelley's conflicting desire both to unite with the powerful creative force and to reject it in order to maintain his own socially constructed role as male Romantic Poet. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley both responds to and expands upon the thematic focus established by Percy Shelley in Alastor. Focusing on the power of physical creation to redefine a woman's identity, Mary Shelley manifests her anxiety about the possibility of integrating the dueling aspects of her own identity, mother and author, into one cohesive identity. Percy examines how his desire for pure poetic expression affects his role within a masculine construct, while Mary interrogates her own beliefs about integrating the role of mother and author into one cohesive identity in a world that privileges and requires motherhood. Their creation of marginalized, exiled characters in the figures of the wandering poet, who chooses to shun society, and the monster, who is shunned by a society he deeply desires to be a part of, indicates their own fear of the consequences of societal rejection
Frankenstein and Shelley: the author and her work
No full textWhen writing Frankenstein as a young, impressionable woman, Mary Shelley was heavily influenced by the works and legacies created by both her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Godwin and Wollstonecraft made their names in the world with their revolutionary ideas written out in books spread in Europe; with large shoes to fill as their daughter, Mary Shelley knew that she needed her own revolutionary work to move the world like they did. Because of this connection of legacy with her parents, many themes and lessons concerning her parents are featured in her novel, Frankenstein. The absence of her mother, who died ten days after giving birth to Mary Shelley, created the absence of a father in Victor Frankenstein for his creature. Mary as a child was tutored by her father in many subjects that would not normally be taught to females in this time period. That learning allowed her to include the subjects of science, humanities, and literature in her novel. In this paper, I will explain how knowing about Mary Shelley’s connection with her parents shaped her life and learning, by extension shaping her novel, Frankenstein. I will be looking at primary source materials by William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley to note the connections between the texts, as well as secondary sources concerning Mary Shelley and her influences when it came to writing Frankenstein. I also will be looking at biographies of Mary Shelley’s life in order to relate her story to Frankenstein’s and the creature’s stories. The parallel between the author and the characters is essential in understanding the importance of Shelley’s parents in shaping her not only as an author, but as a woman in the Romantic Era. (Author abstract)Gambon, C. (2014). Frankenstein and Shelley: the author and her work. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.ed
Eurasian images of Singapore in the fiction of Rex Shelley
No full textIn a series of four novels, amounting to a substantial personal literary output, the author Rex Shelley has fashioned a portrait of Singapore that differs significantly from the conventional ones, both official and literary. Shelley comes from the numerically small Eurasian community, and it is the distinctive historical experience of this minority, also known colloquially as mesticos, serani, or geragok, that richly frames his fiction. Yet Shelley’s achievement is often curiously overlooked in Singaporean literary criticism.
The Singapore of Rex Shelley’s fiction is not primarily the success story of the overseas Chinese who so quickly became a large and dominant majority of the Singaporean population, though their economic achievements do form a necessary context for Shelley’s works. Nor is it a nostalgic vision of Bangsa Melayu as dreamed by generations of once rural Malays. Nor is it the ravaged evocation of Indian diaspora so eloquently chronicled by K S Maniam. Rather, Shelley’s attention is upon the very human consequences of Western colonialism in Southeast Asia, namely the products of unions, legitimate or otherwise, between European males and local females. As Shelley told Ronald Klein in a recent interview “, I wanted to put down some record of the social history of this Eurasian minority community.” (1) The result is an impressive, if structurally flawed, portrait of vivid integrity amongst Singapore’s Eurasian community over time. As personified by the characters in the four novels, Shelley’s Eurasians are not marginal, post-colonial oddities, but an engaging, multi-dimensional community who laugh, cry, work, play, dream, struggle, gossip, and intrigue, just like any other. They may not be Malay, Chinese, Indian, European, or Arab, but they are involved, patriotic participants in the shaping of Singapore nonetheles
The complete poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 3
No full text"His name is Percy Bysshe Shelley, and he is the author of a poetical work entitled Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude." With these words, the radical journalist and poet Leigh Hunt announced his discovery in 1816 of an extraordinary talent within "a new school of poetry rising of late."
The third volume of the acclaimed edition of The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley includes Alastor, one of Shelley’s first major works, and all the poems that Shelley completed, for either private circulation or publication, during the turbulent years from 1814 to March 1818: Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Mont Blanc, Laon and Cythna, as well as shorter pieces, such as his most famous sonnet, Ozymandias. It was during these years that Shelley, already an accomplished and practiced poet with three volumes of published verse, authored two major volumes, earned international recognition, and became part of the circle that was later called the Younger Romantics.
As with previous volumes, extensive discussions of the poems’ composition, influences, publication, circulation, reception, and critical history accompany detailed records of textual variants for each work. Among the appendixes are Mary W. Shelley’s 1839 notes on the poems for these years, a table of the forty-two revisions made to Laon and Cythna for its reissue as The Revolt of Islam, and Shelley’s errata list for the same.
It is in the works included in this volume that the recognizable and characteristic voice of Shelley emerges—unmistakable, consistent, and vital
- …
