(it’s two hundred years since publication of Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

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this looks sooo much better on my site)

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me? — Paradise Lost.”

R. WALTON:

inspirited by the wind of promise
more fervent and vivid
of beauty and delight
accompanied whale fishers
men on whom I can depend
dauntless (but I have no friend).

ice vast and irregular
a low carriage, dogs, a being
lost.

a sledge, a human
wild
“to seek one who fled from me’

I begin to love him so
my heart.

V. FRANKENSTEIN:

the ancient teachers
the instruments of life.

the eye of the creature opened
to catastrophe

the peasants were dancing
a noble war in the sky

the murders and the author—
a dream has power to endure.

THE MONSTER:

‘wretched
yet I am thy creature.
I see bliss, the caves of ice, a fire
howling like a wild beast.

‘You must create a female for me.’

V. FRANKENSTEIN:

‘never,
to the remotest of the Orkneys
a filthy process
a daemon at the casement
never!

pistols and a dagger,
ever on the watch,
but her bloodless arms,
her head hanging down,
& his fiendish finger pointed
to the corpse of my wife.

the devil eluded my grasp
I pursued him northward
the wind arose; the sea roared.

R. WALTON:

(how his fine and lovely eyes.)

Many comrades have found
a grave amidst this desolation
Wasn’t it glorious? Full of dangers and terror?
Brave men, heroes?

The cabin where lay the remains
stands a form, one vast hand.
‘And do you dream?’ said the daemon.

He was soon away,
lost in darkness and distance.

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Image: Piero di Cosimo, The Myth of Prometheus, c. 1515 via Wikimedia Commons; here’s a terrific discussion on two hundred years of Frankenstein and, on a lighter note, here’s a wonderful scene from Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (RIP: Marty Feldman as Igor (1934-1982), Peter Boyle as the Monster (1935-2006) and Gene Wilder (1933-2016)).