Bromance Part I

After a vocab quiz (2) and a vocab review (4), we spent the hour discussing Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein, or the bromance that has formed from their like obsessions, ambitions, and insecurities. As noted, Walton wants notoriety from his singular exploration northward. As the letters progress, we see another side of Walton: a closet literary loving poet, a man with beliefs of fate, a vulnerable lone figure searching for a buddy, Fortunately, by the time letter four arrives, Walton has found a similar figure of madness: hello, Victor! As their interlocutions expand beyond formalities, we find Victor, brotherless and friendless, attempting to counsel Walton on his obsessions and, on a side note, find absolution for his own god-like ambitions. So, why do we have this opening part with Walton and Victor? To add to the mystery? To dangle a carrot that Victor's story, while nearing its end, has still not reached a conclusion? To make this a moral for the reader and not just for Walton? In both classes, we discussed Victor as a Byronic hero, and Noah mentioned that Walton sure seems a lot like Shelley. Inspiration from the Swiss travels and the infamous storytelling competition?

For homework, read chapters 1-4. Each of you has a minor character and you will create a chart - akin to the Walton/Victor assignment - highlighting quotes reflecting the character and analysis of characterization. Abigail S., you are to create a character chart for Henry Clerval; Maddi, you are to create a character chart for Victor's father.

And, today is the anniversary of one of the greatest losses our literary world has had to suffer: the death of my beloved Keats. As you are quite aware, Keatsy suffered from tuberculosis and spent the last years of his life suffering through blood, pain, heartbreak, and Shelley's fondness for his poetry. (O.k. I admit "suffering" does not fit the adulation Shelley had for this Adonais, but you know I am not a Shelley fan - even if he had a copy of Keats poetry on his person when his body was found after that ill-advised pleasure cruise.) Here is an article celebrating the beauty of my Keats: https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2016/08/18/picturing-john-keats/. Oftentimes, he is presented as a frail weakling awaiting the return of Fanny. However, this blog gives another perspective, one of Keats as a young man of dynamic power, beauty, and truth (yep, that was an allusion for all of you Romantic poet fans).