Frankenstein's monster and his evolution over two centuries into a cultural icon
Review of Susan Tyler Hitchcock's 'Frankenstein: A Cultural History'
"Hear my tale," Frankenstein's monster begs his creator. "It is long and strange." In her cultural history of our favorite monster, Susan Tyler Hitchcock shows that the story is longer and stranger than the creature or Victor Frankenstein or even Mary Shelley could ever have imagined. The unloved horror has now been flourishing for almost 200 years. The response to it has ranged from early 19th century stage adaptations to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," from John Tenniel's cartoons to our own era's cautionary sermons about genetic engineering.
Hitchcock's journey down the murky back alleys of this saga began one Halloween at the University of Virginia, when she was scheduled to teach Shelley's novel in her literature class and wore a "lurid green face mask" to school. A surprisingly lively discussion resulted, with the students finding themselves both more familiar with and more ignorant about "Frankenstein" than they knew. The teacher too realized how fascinating she found the topic and how much more she had to learn. She has fulfilled her ambition: Her text grows out of such a fertile ground of scholarly research that any chapter might blossom into another volume....
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"Hear my tale," Frankenstein's monster begs his creator. "It is long and strange." In her cultural history of our favorite monster, Susan Tyler Hitchcock shows that the story is longer and stranger than the creature or Victor Frankenstein or even Mary Shelley could ever have imagined. The unloved horror has now been flourishing for almost 200 years. The response to it has ranged from early 19th century stage adaptations to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," from John Tenniel's cartoons to our own era's cautionary sermons about genetic engineering.
Hitchcock's journey down the murky back alleys of this saga began one Halloween at the University of Virginia, when she was scheduled to teach Shelley's novel in her literature class and wore a "lurid green face mask" to school. A surprisingly lively discussion resulted, with the students finding themselves both more familiar with and more ignorant about "Frankenstein" than they knew. The teacher too realized how fascinating she found the topic and how much more she had to learn. She has fulfilled her ambition: Her text grows out of such a fertile ground of scholarly research that any chapter might blossom into another volume....