Excellent links on the Gothic genre and its links to Frankenstein

http://englishtutorhome2.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Frankenstein

Frankenstein: A Feminist Critique of Science (1987)

It's Anne K Mellor again! Pretty interesting reading....

http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/mellor1.html

Dr Faustus: links to your texts?

What connections can you see with Marlowe's Faustus and the characters in your A-Level text?

Sin, Redemption, and Damnation

Insofar as Doctor Faustus is a Christian play, it deals with the themes at the heart of Christianity’s understanding of the world. First, there is the idea of sin, which Christianity defines as acts contrary to the will of God. In making a pact with Lucifer, Faustus commits what is in a sense the ultimate sin: not only does he disobey God, but he consciously and even eagerly renounces obedience to him, choosing instead to swear allegiance to the devil. In a Christian framework, however, even the worst deed can be forgiven through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, God’s son, who, according to Christian belief, died on the cross for humankind’s sins. Thus, however terrible Faustus’s pact with Lucifer may be, the possibility of redemption is always open to him. All that he needs to do, theoretically, is ask God for forgiveness. The play offers countless moments in which Faustus considers doing just that, urged on by the good angel on his shoulder or by the old man in scene 12—both of whom can be seen either as emissaries of God, personifications of Faustus’s conscience, or both.

Each time, Faustus decides to remain loyal to hell rather than seek heaven. In the Christian framework, this turning away from God condemns him to spend an eternity in hell. Only at the end of his life does Faustus desire to repent, and, in the final scene, he cries out to Christ to redeem him. But it is too late for him to repent. In creating this moment in which Faustus is still alive but incapable of being redeemed, Marlowe steps outside the Christian worldview in order to maximize the dramatic power of the final scene. Having inhabited a Christian world for the entire play, Faustus spends his final moments in a slightly different universe, where redemption is no longer possible and where certain sins cannot be forgiven.

The Conflict Between Medieval and Renaissance Values

Scholar R.M. Dawkins famously remarked that Doctor Faustus tells “the story of a Renaissance man who had to pay the medieval price for being one.” While slightly simplistic, this quotation does get at the heart of one of the play’s central themes: the clash between the medieval world and the world of the emerging Renaissance. The medieval world placed God at the center of existence and shunted aside man and the natural world. The Renaissance was a movement that began in Italy in the fifteenth century and soon spread throughout Europe, carrying with it a new emphasis on the individual, on classical learning, and on scientific inquiry into the nature of the world. In the medieval academy, theology was the queen of the sciences. In the Renaissance, though, secular matters took center stage.
Faustus, despite being a magician rather than a scientist (a blurred distinction in the sixteenth century), explicitly rejects the medieval model. In his opening speech in scene 1, he goes through every field of scholarship, beginning with logic and proceeding through medicine, law, and theology, quoting an ancient authority for each: Aristotle on logic, Galen on medicine, the Byzantine emperor Justinian on law, and the Bible on religion. In the medieval model, tradition and authority, not individual inquiry, were key. But in this soliloquy, Faustus considers and rejects this medieval way of thinking. He resolves, in full Renaissance spirit, to accept no limits, traditions, or authorities in his quest for knowledge, wealth, and power.


The play’s attitude toward the clash between medieval and Renaissance values is ambiguous. Marlowe seems hostile toward the ambitions of Faustus, and, as Dawkins notes, he keeps his tragic hero squarely in the medieval world, where eternal damnation is the price of human pride. Yet Marlowe himself was no pious traditionalist, and it is tempting to see in Faustus—as many readers have—a hero of the new modern world, a world free of God, religion, and the limits that these imposed on humanity. Faustus may pay a medieval price, this reading suggests, but his successors will go further than he and suffer less, as we have in modern times. On the other hand, the disappointment and mediocrity that follow Faustus’s pact with the devil, as he descends from grand ambitions to petty conjuring tricks, might suggest a contrasting interpretation. Marlowe may be suggesting that the new, modern spirit, though ambitious and glittering, will lead only to a Faustian dead end.

Power as a Corrupting Influence

Early in the play, before he agrees to the pact with Lucifer, Faustus is full of ideas for how to use the power that he seeks. He imagines piling up great wealth, but he also aspires to plumb the mysteries of the universe and to remake the map of Europe. Though they may not be entirely admirable, these plans are ambitious and inspire awe, if not sympathy. They lend a grandeur to Faustus’s schemes and make his quest for personal power seem almost heroic, a sense that is reinforced by the eloquence of his early soliloquies.

Once Faustus actually gains the practically limitless power that he so desires, however, his horizons seem to narrow. Everything is possible to him, but his ambition is somehow sapped. Instead of the grand designs that he contemplates early on, he contents himself with performing conjuring tricks for kings and noblemen and takes a strange delight in using his magic to play practical jokes on simple folks. It is not that power has corrupted Faustus by making him evil: indeed, Faustus’s behavior after he sells his soul hardly rises to the level of true wickedness. Rather, gaining absolute power corrupts Faustus by making him mediocre and by transforming his boundless ambition into a meaningless delight in petty celebrity.


In the Christian framework of the play, one can argue that true greatness can be achieved only with God’s blessing. By cutting himself off from the creator of the universe, Faustus is condemned to mediocrity. He has gained the whole world, but he does not know what to do with it.

The Divided Nature of Man

Faustus is constantly undecided about whether he should repent and return to God or continue to follow his pact with Lucifer. His internal struggle goes on throughout the play, as part of him of wants to do good and serve God, but part of him (the dominant part, it seems) lusts after the power that Mephastophilis promises. The good angel and the evil angel, both of whom appear at Faustus’s shoulder in order to urge him in different directions, symbolize this struggle. While these angels may be intended as an actual pair of supernatural beings, they clearly represent Faustus’s divided will, which compels Faustus to commit to Mephastophilis but also to question this commitment continually.

Holiday homework: checklist

Please get loads of rest. Then, when you're awake, get this done so you are ready for the intense last push when you come back.

1) Read the A04 material on this blog (different types of love) and in your folders (handouts on Faust, Blood, the Heart)

2) Make sure that material makes it into your essay response. The essay is about sin and is on the post below. Complete the essay in timed conditions (but you can take an extra half hour to plan it).

3) Update your genius posts, then explore other people's. Remember to choose 2 of each 'type' of poem: nature, soul, love, politics.

Essay question for holiday homework

“Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end.” In light of this quote, explore the theme of sin and temptation in your texts.

Holiday homework

Here's the checklist. You need to have done all this by the time you get back.

1) Either the arthouse montage of Volume II, or the Satan thing. Both are explained in more detail in the post below.


2) This essay question:


"Shelley's concern is overwhelmingly the relationship between parent and child." How far and in what ways do you agree with this quote?


- Use your A03 collections to find relevant A03 quotes. Ellen Moers especially useful.
- Plan in 30 minutes. Write in 1 hour. If you take longer than one hour to write it, just rule off where you ran out of time, and keep writing.


3) Complete your annotations of Vol II. Re-read Volume III - finish the book again.


4)  Start learning quotes.... The sooner you start, the better you'll remember them. That's how memory works.

If you’re doing the Satan thing, see the link below.

Sympathy for the Devil vs arthouse montage

If you choose the Satan homework, here's what you need to do:


Create a 4 minute video/presentation, in which you:


- summarise a movie or book about Satan which you have come across

- explain how he or she is portrayed - both stereotypical and idiosyncratic attributes


- discuss the similarities and differences between this Satan and the Satanic elements of Frankenstein.


Some links:


An article about Satan in Paradise Lost - change the names and it becomes an article about the monster! And about Victor! Weird...




This is a fun book written from Satan's perspective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Lucifer_(Duncan_novel)




And this is an absolutely brilliant book, and also a literary masterpiece, about Satan coming to Moscow. With a very naughty cat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Lucifer_(Duncan_novel)




The Rolling Stones song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBecM3CQVD8




The top 20 Satanic movies:
http://horrornews.net/38095/top-20-satanic-movies/


A good movie about God, the Devil, and others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrfN_9ucSKo

If you’re doing the arthouse montage:

• Make sure it captures the monster’s evolution
• One 6-second vine won’t be enough –you’ll need several
• It can be abstract; it can use quotes; it can be whatever you want it to be. But it can’t be lazy or shallow, and I’ll KNOW.