The epigraph: John Milton's Paradise lost
Often overlooked, and in fact removed from the 1823 and 1831 editions of Frankenstein (as we shall explore), Mary Shelley begins the Third Volume of the 1818 publication with an epigraph:
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me? –
These lines reference John Milton’s Paradise Lost, an extensively dense text that retells the transgression of Satan from Heaven, and the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. As you may thus imagine, and if you have not encountered, Paradise Lost is a heavily religious text that retained his popularity to this day since its first publication in 1667, when Milton himself was sixty. Written in blank verse, this text is, in fact, a lengthy poem- an epic. This poem was Milton’s life long project, and evidence suggests he has begun to compose it in 1658 (though certainly the idea was present in his mind since youth). Becoming blind in 1652, Milton resorted to friends in aid of physically transcribing his words to paper. While the publication history and synopsis of Paradise Lost will not be discussed in this website, I will presume you, the reader, is familiar with the basics of the narrative, and we will allude to Paradise Lost in order to emphasize its relationship to Shelley’s text and the importance of Frankenstein’s epigraph. There are several notable features that should be regarded with attention through this epigraph: the establishment of (initially anonymous) author as an educated individual , religious connotations that arise from parallels between the characters of Frankenstein and Paradise Lost in several ways, and the political influences that encouraged the removal of the epigraph from several editions.
Epigraph foreshadowing the events of Frankenstein;
parallels between Milton and Shelley’s characters
“As Frankenstein makes quite clear, the monster's identity has been shaped by a cultural myth in which the fallen can be only Adam or Lucifer. He finds the answer to his agonizing question "What was I?" in the pages of Paradise Lost “ (Lamb 303)
While the vast majority of the population would most likely recognize Frankenstein as a ‘horror/Gothic’ story, and would be familiar with the briefest plotline of a mad scientist and an unholy creation, those who have not read the novel would mistakenly presume Frankenstein to be the monster himself. Those of you who have read the novel would know this ‘fact’ to be incorrect. Indeed the guilt of Frankenstein is made evident throughout the novel, at times being greater than the guilt of his nameless Creation itself, though he is the scientist and not the Creature. His creation is named precisely that: the Creature. The involvement and reminder of Paradise Lost proves crucial to the thematic features of the novel. Adam speaks to God, attempting to reason and explain his situation. Similarly, Shelley’s Creature attempts to reason with his Creator, reminding and reinforcing the same relationship of God and Servant present in Paradise Lost:
Fig. 1 Title page of 1818 edition of Frankenstein
I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of
furious detestation and contempt.
‘Devil,’ I exclaimed, ‘do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!’
‘I expected this reception,’ said the daemon. ‘All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.’
‘Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil! You reproach me with your creation, come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently be stowed.’ by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another.
He easily eluded me and said—
‘Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.’
‘Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall.’
‘How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was
benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe
me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands (Shelley 99-101)
This is a crucial passage to the novel, at last Master and Servant are reunited, and the Creature confronts the misdeeds of his Creator while acknowledging his own. By ““re-establishing the idea of the close bond between God and man, the monster points to the sacredness of the Edenic life, for love and kinship are the source of joy, and of life itself. Frankenstein's creation of the monster violates the Edenic code of love. It marks his rejection of man, his denial of his bond with natural humanity. His guilt doubles when he abandons the creature he creates” (Ping 257). Rather than despise, this passage encourages sympathy and pity towards the Creature. Naturally, the monster in “the state of utter solitude and exclusion from human affection constitutes a private hell that contradicts the Edenic image which so holds his thoughts. With Frankenstein's refusal to provide him with a companion of his own, Paradise seems well and truly lost” (Ping 258). In much the same manner that Adam confronts his Creator, questioning “did I solicit thee from darkness to exploit me?”, the Creature here acknowledges the barriers Frankenstein has bestowed upon him, not by his creation, but his forced isolation. Like Adam and Eve, the Creature too has tasted the forbidden fruit: knowledge and language. Knowledge, essentially, becomes his transgression. Once he becomes educated in the arts of language, he becomes able to confront his Maker and isolation. Accordingly “having mastered the "godlike science" of language, the monster is betrayed into the belief that he is the master of his history and of his world, that he can shape and control the self he would become” (Lamb 312). In no way is that the case in Frankenstein; the Creature, similarly to Milton’s Satan, is destined to fall, destined to remain Frankenstein’s subject, and thus fools himself through language that he may control his own destiny. Lamb suggests, “the monster must resign himself to the inevitable implications that the master narrative, as a hegemonic form that has come to comprise his only sense of reality, prescribes: he is not Adam but Satan, and, hence, he is forced to act out the role of Satan” (Lamb 316); while it seems more plausible that the Creature shares a misfortunate position of both Adam and Satan, both subjects of their Creator, Lamb’s point remains valid in acknowledging the nature of the Creature’s relationship to his Creator as the antagonist of the novel.
Though to truly sympathize with the Creature is also problematic, as he does viciously murder innocents throughout the novel, as ‘the monster’s vengeful declaration of war against humankind arises from a bitter feeling of excluding from human joys, a hopeless envy described in terms similar to Satan’s” (Bladick 40). There is a trade that Frankenstein must accept here in order to avoid cheating Death; as the Creature is granted life, he steals life from others. The balance must be always maintained. The Creature in this passage does not appear unreasonable and irrational, but rather, while pleading for his defense and unholy circumstances, he reminds Victor he is his creation, his Adam, and consequently, his guilt, his burden, and at his mercy. Shelley emphasizes the importance of the Creature’s situation through the epigraph, “the significance of Milton's poem lies in its stirring image of Adam's Edenic life. Man is seen to be "happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator" (396). The monster's attraction to the condition of simple joy and kinship also explains his attachment to the De Lacey family. His childlike wonder at and delight in the happy Edenic state not only convey his earnest yearning for a better life for himself” (Ping 356); and thus importantly, evil is not born it is made.
Similarly, in the epigraph Man does not choose to be born Man, it is again the Maker who possesses the power in creating Man to be what he is. Through this parallel, the Creature is not portrayed as a monster, but as a fallen Man. This is crucial! As he insists, the Creature becomes a monster through the rejection of Man, his own Maker. Man condemns the story, not an unholy monster; in fact, if a monster at all exists in this novel, it is Man. Rather than the Creature itself, Victor Frankenstein, resembling the addressed Maker in the epigraph, is judged more harshly. In his scientific research, Frankenstein is outstandingly successful. In playing the role of the Creator, his failure dooms the narrative:
Victor aims at first not to rival God but to be useful to humanity by eliminating disease, and all he creates is a single living creature. If this is a blasphemous crime, then all parents stand condemned for it too. From the monster’s point of view, though, Victor is a ‘god’ of sorts, and it is through this perspective that the novel’s impieties emerge, the most mischievous of them being the incident in which the monster swears to Victor a solemn oath ‘by you that made me’. The monster’s ‘god’ comes to be seen as an ineptly negligent creator whose conduct towards his creation is unjust. If Adam’s complaint in the epigraph is borne in mind as well, the novel begins to look like a nightmarish parody of patriarchal religion, in which the Son is made, nor begotten, the Fresh is made Wrod, and women cede the power of Conception to men while being legally framed as criminals (like Eve) or torn to pieces. (Bladick 43)
The Creature is born in darkness, and as it seems, Frankenstein becomes “an evil spirit” (90), and concludes his life “lost in darkness and distance” (Shelley 223). It seems “Victor, who ought to correspond to God in this new creation, comes also to feel like Satan; he too bears a hell within him” (Bladick 40). The Creature, his guilt in various ways (the abandonment of his Creature, the deaths of his family and friends), haunt him.From being obsessed with the creation of his scientific research, he becomes revolted by it, remarking “its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes” (Shelley 73). Evidently, Lamb suggests:
Victor creates not Adam but an unnamed horror, "a thin such as even Dante could not have conceived" (p. 58), but that Milton had. Satan first appears in Paradise Lost without a name and possessed of a questionable identity. In Book I, Milton, wondering what caused Adam and Eve's fall, questions "Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?" and answers, "Th' infernal Serpent; hee it was" (11. 33-34). Satan, though described by analogy to the serpent, is not actually called Satan by Milton until later in Paradise Lost, just as Victor withholds his direct naming of his creation until later in his narrative (Lamb 311)
It is not until he completes his task in giving life to the Creature, and becomes a “Great God” that at last “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Shelley 57). Victor Frankenstein understands what Shelley claims throughout the entire novel: Man cannot, will not, and shall not, ever be God or his equal. While “not in deed, but in effect”, Frankenstein is “the true murderer”, and not his nameless Creature (93). Shelley criticizes Frankenstein for his lust and desperation to be God, and condemns this arrogance through the misfortunes that conclude Frankenstein. Essentially, Shelley balances Man’s arrogance by condemning all the main characters of the novel as consequence of Frankenstein’s misdeeds: Frankenstein who finds solace in death, his loved ones who are unjustly killed as casualties of the Creature, and even the Creature himself who is “miserable beyond all living things” (Shelley 99). If we do regard Frankenstein as the alluded Creator, his “creation of the monster is an attempt to create man in his own image, and the monster's hideousness implies the distortion of self” (Lamb 310). Man is once again, established as the monster. In the end, Frankenstein holds very little power, particularly over death, and at last the balance between Life and Death is again restored.
Briefly Situating Paradise Lost in Romanticism and Nineteenth Century;
how might have this epigraph been received when first published? Milton and the Romantics
Fig. 2. A Representation of Milton's Satan
In order to understand the impact of using such a religious text as Milton’s as an epigraph, I would like to briefly situate Paradise Lost in Romanticism and the Nineteenth-Century literary circles. Paradise Lost was, and still is, a widely read text. While each held their different interpretations and opinions of it, it seems that the vast majority of the Romantic poets have read and discussed Paradise Lost. William Wordsworth, for instance, wrote the poem ‘London 1802’ alluding to Milton himself, and later composed his longest poem, ‘The Prelude’, in the same blank verse format of Paradise Lost. John Keats, who seems less in favour of Milton, had began writing an epic of his own, Hyperion, which he never completed with the claim it was “too Miltonic”. Nicholas Marsh wonderfully summarizes some Romantic literary figures’ approach to Milton:
When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, the romantic movement was re-interpreting Paradise Lost in a subversive way. William Blake
expressed the new opinion most succinctly when he wrote that Milton was ‘a true Poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it’, and in his prophetic poem Milton has Milton descending from Heaven and entering Blake’s foot, bringing a new level of vision and prophecy. Percy Bysshe Shelley, in A Defense of Poetry (1819), also treats Satan as Milton’s hero: ‘Milton’s Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres i some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy’. In her novel, Mary Shelley adds to the interpretation of the fallen angel as a hero. Her daemon’s vengeful actions are determined by external powers he is unable to resist. This argument is supported by the daemon’s powerful description of his own remorse. Where Milton’s God suggests that man was created ‘sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall’, Mary Shelley’s daemon tells us that there was no freedom. (Marsh 212-3)
Unlike before, Milton's Satan was not quite regarded as a monstrous villain but rather a strong protagonist, far more interesting than Milton's God. As you can see briefly, and as I would like for this section to highlight, Paradise Lost was a text still in conversation among literary figures in the Romantic period of Frankenstein. It also correlates and fuses coherently with Frankenstein itself. This situates the importance of Shelley using it, and thus purposely aligning her own work with Milton’s. All in all, it is important to embrace Mary Shelley did not choose a simple poem with little recognition to serve as an epigraph to her first novel. Paradise Lost established the initially anonymous author as a higher class individual (the only class who would have been: one, educated enough to understand and read Milton, and two, the only one who had the finances to afford the pricey poem), and certainly created an initial lens that readers (particularly Mary Shelley’s contemporaries) would have read Frankenstein through. This makes Percy Shelley’s, and as we will see, William Godwin’s, choice in removing the epigraph from the second and third editions of the novel quite noteworthy.
In case you are interested in more information about the Romantic literary reception of Paradise Lost in the Nineteenth Century, check out Jonathan Shears' text 'the Romantic Legacy of Paradise Lost', or if you cannot, you can check out the lovely review of Shear's text by Joan Blythe.