Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Weeks 7-9


1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...

3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).

4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
Posted by at

7 comments:

  1. ChrisMay 29, 2013 at 3:11 AM

    Question 1:
    After reading the Holly Thursday i got a vibe that the author of this story was kind of taking the piss out of a holly day because it was set in a time period when people were distancing themselves from religion due to science. In the first verse it states
    “Is this a holy thing to see,
    In a rich and fruitful land,
    Babe’s reduced to misery,
    Fed with cold and usurous hand?”
    I noticed that in this first verse “Is this a holly thing to see” could pose as a question to Blake which he is then questioning the power and faith in god that they had in that time period. In the second verse it leads us to believe what the author may be seeing, which is a rich and fruitful land. The last line is says “fed with cold and usurious hand?” This caught my attention as it might be talking about how those faithful people might be fakes and the charities that they strive on are all a scam just to earn money. Overall this poem was a very interesting poem to look at and analyse as it still had some aspects of romance with the way it was worded.

    Reference
    Blake, W. (1972; 1794). Songs of Innocence and Experience with an introduction and commentary by Sir Geoffrey Keynes, London: Oxford

    ReplyDelete
  2. HollyJune 12, 2013 at 3:00 AM

    Question 2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...

    1816 held the fateful summer for which many would now know as "as the house where Mary Shelley conceived of Frankenstein.". Villa Diodati was built in 1710. It is famous for Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Polidori and Claire Claremont gathering together to share tales, mostly that of ghost or horror stories. They spent many hours together as the rain is said to keep them trapped in the villa. After the summer Mary Shelly had two notebooks worth of writings, famously including Frankenstein.

    -"Villa Diodati". http://frankensteinia.blogspot.co.nz/2007/08/villa-diodati.html. Retrieved June 12 2013

    - Finden. E. "Villa Diodati, where Mary Shelley conceived of Frankenstein". http://shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/diodati-the-residence-of-lord-byron#Description. Retrieved on June 12 2013

    ReplyDelete
  3. HollyJune 12, 2013 at 3:17 AM

    Question 4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).

    The "Brat-Pack" truly was the birth of not only Gothic but all the modern genres of thriller/horror such as shows like "true blood" and the very famous movie series Twilight.
    Both of these you could link back to John Polidori's work of "The Vampyre" which was also written in the summer of 1816 in the Villa Diodati. Also of course with the birth of Frankenstein which is widley known as the text that brought this specific genre into the modern age, and allowed it to transform to what it is today.

    On of the main reasons why this started a new age of horror of thriller is because of those who read the stories. If these stories never happened, those new creators may not have had the inspiration from which they got from these stories.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marie monaJune 17, 2013 at 4:31 AM

    just as you have done Holly i will also expand on my intake of Question 4.
    I think that the word “brat-pack” means the sure method to see how many they have impacted on the current literature period until now. From what they have created, many Frankenstein movies, novels, and other genres of it came out. It is no lie as well the impact that frankenstein has had on modern TV, films as novels inspired by this. Such as Twilight, Vampire diaries to name a few with the motif of the original version.(Umich.edu, n.d).
    William Polidori who had introduced the vampire genre by making the literature “The Vampire”, Mary Shelley is known for the author who made the work “Frankenstein”.These creations of such a unique genre (gothic) being brought into place and lived out to this date wouldn'e have been as it is to date . The gothic genre in modern society could have been different with the present. That is, that all authors in the villa Diodati have influenced on the modern gothic genre and contributed to make the gothic genre (The cabinet, 2007).



    References
    The cabinet. (2007). The dark destinations: The Villa Diodati. Retrieved from http://www.thecabinet.com/darkdestinations/location.php?sub_id=dark_destinations&letter=v&location_id=the_villa_diodati

    Umich.edu. (n.d). The Vampire in popular culture. Retrieved from http://www.umich.edu/~vampires/vampireinpopculture.swf

    ReplyDelete
  5. Marie monaJune 17, 2013 at 4:46 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Marie monaJune 17, 2013 at 4:49 AM

    I had similar findings to you holly with what had supoosedly happened that night. So i am going to attempt to answer Question 2:
    Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816.
    The Villa Diodati is the famous manor in Cologny, Switzerland. it is well known for its beauty however,its fame comes from being the summer residence of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Polidori in 1816 where the birth of the horror stories Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) and The Vamypre (John William Polidori). It is believed that one fateful night during a storm, the entourage gathered to retell ghost tales that would later inspire literary ingenuity in the likes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre.Members of the gathering include: Lord Byron and his mistress (rumoured to be Claire Clairmont), Percy Shelley and partner Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who later changed her surname to Shelley) and Byron's personal doctor John Polidori.

    Reference.

    Smedley, R. (2011). The writing spaces: Villa Diodati & Mary Shelley
    Bargain Travel Europe.(n.d).

    Lord Byron & Villa Diodati. Retrieved from
    http://www.bargaintraveleurope.com/08/Switzerland_Villa_Diodoti_Geneva.htm

    Villa Diodati (n.d.) Retrieved May 22, 2013 from
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Diodat

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)