These discoveries, Shelley discussed with Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and in her 1831 introduction recalls how they had “many and long conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener”. During these discussions, various topics were discussed including the nature of the principle of life, and whether it will ever be discovered. This then led to the idea that a corpse may be reanimated and that components of a creature might be manufactured. These discussions were of major influence to Shelley, enough so to be mentioned in her introduction. Percy Shelley was known to have electrocuted himself until his hair stood on end, he also possessed electro-magnetic kites similar to that of Benjamin Franklin’s. Percy’s interest in science stemmed from earlier school days, he was fascinated by major scientific topics of the day, the solar system, microscopy, magnetism and electricity and claimed that after Oxford he began a professional training as a surgeon and attended the London anatomy lectures of a senior surgeon. The parallels between the basis of Frankenstein and the scientific topics and discussions Shelley took part in are uncanny.
Frankenstein contains two types of exploration, Victor’s scientific exploration of the human body and life and Robert Walton’s exploration for the North West Passage in the North Pole. In 1817 and 1818 the Quarterly Review a British political and cultural magazine founded in 1809, devoted two long articles to exploration. One by Captain James Burney
“Who could imagine that the power of the
Magnet ... would lead to the discovery of a new
World? And who can tell what further advantages
Mankind may derive from the magnetical
Influence, so very remarkable, so very little
understood? Or pretend to limit the discoveries to
which electricity and galvanism may yet open the
way? ... Both expeditions [about to set out for the
North Pole] may fail in the main object of the
arduous enterprise; but they can scarcely fail in
being the means of extending the sphere of human
knowledge ... ‘Knowledge is power’; and we may
safely commit to the stream of time the beneficial
results of its irresistible influence”
it is clear that science had established a central place in western cultures.
Humphry Davy made many important contributions to electro-chemistry, in 1816 Shelley read his Elements of Chemical Philosophy and A Discourse, Introductory to a course of Lectures on Chemistry. He wrote that “science has bestowed upon man powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to change and modify the beings surrounding him” that science has allowed man to “interrogate nature with power” and that “who would not be ambitious of becoming acquainted with the most profound secrets of nature”. The fictional character of M. Waldman, whom first introduces Victor to natural philosophy, draws upon the words of Davy, saying scientists “penetrate into the recesses of nature, and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows”. These references by a fiction character created by Shelley to that of a scientist at the time, which introduce Victor to his impending doom, are a direct warning to those who “penetration of the recesses of nature”.
The “ambition” that Davy describes is exactly what takes hold of Frankenstein, “A light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius, who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret”.