Literary Allusions: Tintern Abbey and Frankenstein

       There is no shortage of allusions to famous works in Mary Shelley's Gothic narrative Frankenstein. Specifically, I would like to hone in on one in particular. In the eighteenth chapter, Shelly includes an excerpt from romantic poet, William Wordsworth's piece "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798"  (quiet a mouthful!). The lines Shelley includes are:

 “The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

And appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrow’d from the eye.”

In the context of the poem,Wordsworth recounts the sensations he felt as a youth passing through Tintern Abbey. He says he is unable to contemplate his former perceptions. As this younger version of himself, nature satisfies a desire within himself for all that is available in the landscape. The totality of nature provides an overwhelming contentment and fulfillment to him in no need of improvement. Likewise, the idea of a past and present self are manifested in Victor and Henry's characters. Victor is portrayed as an abuser of the dynamism of nature. He seeks solitude in the mountains of La Valais and banks of the Rhine while Henry's feels even more alive in all of the intricacies of the earth. Henry is not a solitary individual. It is made evident that he is a social being and enjoys the company of colleagues and peers. Thus, in contrast to Victor, his relationship with nature is not one in which solitude is desired. His experience with nature is mutualistsic in that he sees the beauty in nature and feels the harmony in it. Henry is an image of an ideal Victor. He doesn't desire and seek to reach beyond the sensations he gets from viewing the beautiful landscapes unlike Victor who misconstrues the power he feels from nature as fuel to possess and control it as he did in creating the creature.Throughout the context of Frankenstein, Shelley plays with the theme of man v. nature; however, qualifying Henry's role as Victor's foil, Henry represents  the symbiosis of man and nature.Thus, just as Wordsworth reflects on his past and present feelings in Tintern Abbey, Victor and Henry are two facets of a single being, one being of a more ignorant yet pure view of the world and one clouded by ambitions and desire to not just absorb by understand.

 In Tintern Abbey, along with a majestic and fantastic view of nature, there is also ominous attitude towards nature and its power over the conscious. Wordsworth uses words like "haunted", "gloomy", and "deep" to incur the ambiguity of nature. Appreciated and absorbed for all that it is, nature affords to human beings a sense of unity and clarity of thought unparalleled. However, these same beauties when corrupted,  taken advantage of, or thought to be something more than just appreciated lend to insurmountable pain and grief. Victor objectifies nature and its power while Henry elevates it to a spiritual status. Henry states, "Oh, surely, the spirit that inhabits and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man than those of our own country" (Shelley 139). Shelley is distinguishing between man and nature. Nature is meant to be untaouchable and incomprehensible entirely to man. Victor is ignorant to this idea which provides for his demise.