Frankenstein summarizes the Romantic View of Science/Knowledge:

"'The ancient teachers of this science,' said he, 'promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted [alchemy] and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or the crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding places. They ascend into the heavens'; they have discovered how blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breath. They have acquired almost unlimited powers; the can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows'
    Such were the professor's words [M. Waldmen ] -- rather let me say such the words of the fate -- enounced to destroy me. As I went on I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; [...] more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation."  -- Victor Frankenstein (27 Norton, 805 Wilke)

The Romantic view of Knowledge/Science:

"A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion to a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simply pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed to any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed."  -- Victor (33 Norton)

Romanticism:

Happiness thru tranquility

Tranquility thru nature/natural beauty

Nature equals beauty, good, "God"; Scientific exploration and knowledge destroys man's true, right or natural relationship to nature

Emotional (feminine) response privileged over rational, logical: feel more, think less

Major Scientific/Technological Advances revolutionize man's relationship to Natural World:

1770 - Galvani: sending electric shocks through dead frogs, resulting in twitching movements of the frogs legs

1796 - Edward Jenner: smallpox vaccine (understanding of nature of disease; concept of immunity; self contamination)
(Voltaire on innoculation: http://www.bartleby.com/34/2/11.html )

1799 - Rossetta stone (deciphire hieroglyphics: ability to understand lost civilizations thru scientific study)

1814 - George Stephenson: first steam locomotive (no longer dependent on nature)

1816 - First stethoscope (ability to "look into" human body when it's still alive!)

1818 - First steam ship crosses Atlantic (no longer dependent on nature, can cross when one chooses regardless of trade winds)

 (N. Pole not reached until 1909; Inland Passage found non-existent; death never conquered: nature proves itself more complex than thought)

Agricultural Revolution:  Man’s Control of Cows and Bushes:

Crop rotation: grass and grains

N. European farmers able to keep cattle alive thru winter for first time.

Jethro Tull cuts “Aqua Lung”  when not busy inventing the seed drill (c.1791) horse-drawn hoe (c. 1730)

Scientific cattle breeding: Avg. oxen weight:      1710: 370 lbs.   vs.    1745: 800 lbs.

Population Explosion: Massive child mortality rate and spread of contagious diseases during colonialism balanced with beginnings of the technological and scientific revolutions. Shelley context: growing up seeing many people die (see Biography section) but at a time when defeating death itself seems increasingly possible, even probable.

World Population:

    1750:    791,000,000 (64% in Asia)

    1900: 1,650,000,000

    1950: 2,520,000,000

    2000: 6,055,000,000

European Population Explosion:    

     1750: 163,000,000

     1800:  203,000,000

     1850:  276,000,000

Life Expectancy:

Hunter-Gatherer; late Roman/Medieval:     20-30

      1870:   40 yrs.

      1915:    50

      1930:    60

      1955:    70

Population Migration To N. America

      1750:     2,000,000

      1800:     7,000,000

      1850:    26,000,000

Economic/Industrial Revolution 1760 – 1820:

Technology and industry are the commercial applications of Enlightenment rationality and science: the harnessing of nature via math and science.  And this application immediately and directly changed our relationship to labor, land, and the means of production.

The Industrial Revolution begins in England, fueled in part by its Lockean/Newtonian/rational culture and by its massive coal reserves (and moves next to Germany, for similar reasons).  Thus, it's no coincidence that, despite its French seeds, Romanticism takes root in England and Germany first, as in a few short generations the nation is transformed from rural to urban.

Effects On The Family: Before the industrial revolution the majority of Europe and N. America's populations lived in rural areas, in villages and on farms.  Commercial good were produced thru a mercantile system, via cottage industries, where, for example, each farm or family produced commercial products at home:  a miller lived and worked with his family at his mill, milling grain; a cooper lived and worked with his family at home making barrels etc.  Education consisted of families teaching their children the trades that family had conducted for generations.  Children, husbands and wives all worked alongside one another toward the common goal of survival.  The vast majority of these people never ventured more than 20 miles from home in their entire lives; among other things, this guaranteed that one's extended family, with the addition of the local parish ministry, was one's universe.

Industry disrupted for good those patterns of living, and those families moved to urban centers to work in factories or coal mines etc.

Women also became displaced from their traditional role as co-worker and economic equal.  In a cottage industry, a woman's ability to weave, for instance, or spin wool etc, was every bit as valuable as a man's ability to walk behind a plough.  Further, in a cottage industry, a woman could work -- weaving, spinning, preparing food etc -- while raising the smaller children.  Industrialism destroyed that economic equality.

Children continued to work but as unskilled labor, apart from their mothers and fathers and extended families.  Of course this is also a good 100 years before the advent of public education, and 200 years before birth control, so women were essentially removed from the economic sphere and left home to raise a steady stream of small children.

In many ways, then, Romantics like Mary Shelley see, quite accurately, that the Enlightenment laid a foundation for the dissolution of the family.

Gallery Of Images

Effects On Perception Of Nature: It's also easy to see how this shift from rural to urban living separated people from the "natural" world.  Even within our own classroom we can easily see how differently students who grew up in rural areas or on farms see "nature" in comparison to those who grew up in cities.  Simply put, there is a vast difference in experience between those who grew up shooting deer and those who grew up only seeing them in Disney movies or at a national park.

In addition to the destruction of the family, consider the environmental effects of industrialism, especially of early, coal-fueled England and Europe, where the effects of industry were immediate, visible and destructive.  Imagine the radical shift in perspective in that very, very first generation to move from always taking for granted clean air and water to waking each day to air so clogged with coal dust that you could no longer see to the end of the block.

Enlightenment Justice:  Due Process and the Necessity of Proof

Justice: becomes a scientific topic instead of religious (end of witch trials, The Inquisition)

Psychology: What is the nature of the criminal mind? What causes crime? Who judges whom?

Rousseau: noble savage: society/materialism (property) destroys man's inherent goodness/innocence; Confessions (442-443, 451-452): Rousseau is turned into a criminal thru physical abuse, poor treatment, and inequality.

William Godwin (Mary's pappy) An Enquiry into Political Justice (rationalist-ethical view of evil/crime (cause/effect instead of theological) See: William Godwin notes

Justine is guilty until proven innocent, a critique of Pre-Enlightenment conceptions of justice and legal systems.

The DeLaceys cannot achieve equal treatment under the law and suffer the same fate as Justine.

Victor unjustly accused of Clerval's murder.

The Creature is unjustly judged by Viktor; the Creature's argument for just treatment is rooted in classical Enlightenment values and Rousseau's and Godwin's conception of the roots of crime and criminality.

Political Revolution, Exploitation of the Brown Man:

Imperialism: British Empire's (and European) colonial domination of heathens, savages, others, primitives

(Europe shifts from white colonies to brown colonies)

Revolutionary: SHIFT FROM MONARCHIES TO DEMOCRACIES THRU VIOLENT REVOLUTION; Prometheus: man challenges historical Divine Imperative of Monarchies/Rulers)

1776: American Revolution

1790: French Revolution

1796 - 1815 Napoleonic Wars (dangers of democracy and unchecked freedom) (Mary and Percy travel thru war-torn France in 1814; Mary begins writing Frankenstein roughly about this time)

1811: Wars of Independence in S. and Central America

Colonialism: European colonial domination of heathens, savages, “Others”, primitives etc.  (Europe shifts from white colonies to brown colonies)

Feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary's mother) Vindication of the Rights of Women

-- Note Mary Shelley's criticism of "masculine" ambition in Frankenstein; evasion of man's responsibility to women and his children (his creations); need to balance knowledge and ambition with love and responsibility; argument rooted in the need for women to be educated with the same skills as men and how women's weakness was a result of society training women to be so: we are what we are trained to become.