Search results for "Mary Shelley"
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Revising Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Dramatizing the Mythical in Mary Shelley’s Proserpine
2017
This contribution intends to assess the web of intertextual references in Mary Shelley’s drama Proserpine (1820), an early example of Romantic interest in revisionist mythology. The few critical efforts on the text focus on its transposition of the Ovidian narrative and its proto-feminist instances of mythical revisionism. Shelley’s adaptation primarily concerns characterization, structure and intended audience. In light of Ostriker’s (1984) suggestion that revisionist myth-making in women’s literary production constitutes a significant reshaping of shared culture and personal identity, Proserpine generally reads as a tale of defiance against patriarchal violence. The thoroughness of the ex…
Frankenstein or the modern theurgist, the reception of Hermetic magic in Mary Shelley’s work
2017
This work considers the relationship between the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and nineteenth-century esotericism with Hermeticism and its magical practices. We will focus on the influence of theurgy, a very popular magical-religious practice among the Neoplatonic movements of the first centuries of our era. In its Hermetic form, the art of animating statues through the attraction of their internal divine powers stands out. On the one hand, we will present an analysis of the path that this unique practice follows until it reaches Frankenstein. On the other hand, we will deal with the reception of the motive in this work.