Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a frame narrative told through the letters of Robert Walton, an English explorer whose ship is trapped in Arctic ice. Walton rescues a dying stranger, Victor Frankenstein, who has been pursuing a gigantic figure across the frozen sea, and who tells his story as a warning to a man whose ambition resembles his own.
Medical tag
Reanimation Galvanism
Reanimation, galvanism, electricity and vital force, resuscitation.
Works
The Metamorphoses is a Latin poem in fifteen books of dactylic hexameter, about 12,000 lines, that strings together some 250 myths of transformation from the creation of the world to the deification of Julius Caesar and the reign of Augustus. Its unifying thread is change of form: gods, humans and nymphs become animals, plants, stones, stars and springs, usually at moments of extreme passion, violence or divine punishment.
The Bible is the sacred scripture of Judaism and Christianity, and the reference edition presents the King James Version of 1611, the most influential translation in English. It is a library rather than a single book.
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories is a selection of Lovecraft's tales, edited with notes by the Lovecraft scholar S. T.
The Lais of Marie de France are twelve short narrative poems in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, preserved together in one manuscript (British Library, Harley 978) with a general prologue in which Marie dedicates them to a 'noble king', probably Henry II. She says she has heard Breton lais, songs commemorating adventures, and has put them into verse so they will not be forgotten.
Passages
- Frankenstein, Vol. I, Ch. IV (1818) / Ch. 5 (1831)
Animation of the creature, Victor's nightmare of Elizabeth turning into his mother's corpse, flight, and months-long nervous fever nursed by Clerval.
- Metamorphoses, Book VII
Medea drains Aeson's blood and refills his veins with a magic brew, restoring his youth; the daughters of Pelias are tricked into killing their father.
- The Bible, 2 Kings 4:18–37
Elisha restores the Shunammite woman's dead son by lying upon him, mouth to mouth.
- The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, 'Herbert West—Reanimator', Parts I–II
Medical students steal fresh corpses for reanimation trials; a typhoid epidemic in Arkham supplies bodies and kills the medical dean.
- The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, 'Cool Air'
Dr Muñoz keeps his dead body functioning through artificial refrigeration until the machinery fails.
- The Lais of Marie de France, 'Eliduc'
Guilliadun falls into a deathlike swoon and is revived with a red flower used by a weasel to restore its mate.
Quotes
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world”
“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils”
“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.”
Frequently cited
“Jesus wept”