The most famous story of a reanimated corpse has yet to be the story of
Frankenstein. Dr. Victor Frankenstein attempted
to play God and pieced the body parts of the dead together to create a living
monster. But many claimed that there was
an inspiration behind the character of Dr. Frankenstein. Dr. Polidori who also wrote the story of The
Vampyre was believed to be the inspiration behind Bram Stroker’s Dracula and
Frankenstein.
Chris Goulding, a student of New Castel University was searching for the
influence of science on the poetry of Percy Shelley when he stumbled upon a
document that could’ve been the mold for Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Dr. James Lind was the mentor of Shelley in
1809-1810 in Eton. On the documents, the
idea of using electrical impulse was mentioned; they claimed that it was able
to start a muscle movement on an experiment that was conducted on the dead
frog. It stated that upon running
electricity to the frog, the leg of the frog started to twitch.
He was also the first doctor noted in the history of England to use
galvanic experiments similar to what Dr. Frankenstein did in the novel. Percy Shelley was so interested in the
science of Dr. James Lind, Goulding also mentioned the unfinished biography of
Mary Shelley (author behind Frankenstein)
‘... became intimate also with a man whom he never mentioned except in terms of the tenderest respect. This was Dr Lind, a name well known among the professors of medical science... he has often said... “I owe that man far—oh! Far more than I owe my father.” ’
No comments:
Post a Comment