How Frankenstein drew on Paradise Lost
A documented line of influence: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley demonstrably engaged John Milton’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Paradise Lost
John Milton · 1667
RenaissanceThe influenced
Frankenstein
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley · 1818
RomanticismRelevance
9/10
On Frankenstein’s page
- Frankenstein opens on a line from Paradise Lost — Adam's accusation of his Maker — and never stops arguing with Milton after that
- The Creature reads Paradise Lost as true history, identifying first with Adam, then with Satan, asking who is the real victim of creation
- Read Milton first and Shelley's whole question comes into focus: what does the maker owe the made?
On Paradise Lost’s page
- Milton's epic is the moral skeleton inside Mary Shelley's monster
- Frankenstein's epigraph is Adam's lament from Paradise Lost Book X — "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me Man..."
- The Creature literally finds and reads a copy of Paradise Lost, casting himself first as Adam, then — abandoned and enraged — as Satan