entation of the Prometheuslegend. This is acknowledged in the subtitle: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. The creation of the monster is similiar to this passage from Ovid:Whether with particles of heav'nly fire,The God of Nature did his soul inspire;Or earth, but new divied from the sky,And, pliant, still retain'd th'ethereal energy;Which wise Prometheus temer'd into paste,And, mix't with living streams, the godlike image cast...From such rude principles our form began;And earth was metamorphos'd into man.Lines from Frankenstein that reflect the above passage are, "I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at myfeet," and, "...that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed. The second important literary influence was Paradise Lost by Milton. The influence ofMilton can be seen directly from the epigraph of the 1818 edition of Frankenstein. Did I request thee, Make from my clayto mould me man?Did I solicit thee,from darkness to promote me?The spirit of Paradise Lost permeates Frankenstein throughout the novel. The monsterstates, "The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and manhad friends and associate in his desolation; I am alone." Three parallel themes from thetwo works arise from these quotes: the molding of a living being from clay, the growth ofmalice and the desire for revenge, and the isolation of a hostile being and the consequentincrease of his hostility. It is easy to establish Mary Shelley's knowledge of Paradise Lost. The work wasadmired in the Godwin household. Mary and Percy read it in 1815 and again in November1816. Her journal states that Shelley read it aloud while she was writing Frankenstein. She even incorporated Paradise Lost into the novel by having it be one of the three worksthat the moster studied. The monster found a correlation between his condition and anaspect of the n...
