Frankenstein

sublimity reconsidered, Foucault and Kristeva

pp. 38-58

in: Andrew R. Smith, Gothic radicalism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

Frankenstein provides us with some unique insights into the sublime, insights which also have ramifications for an understanding of con- temporary critical theory. Shelley's complex critique of sublimity bears a direct correlation with Foucault's work on the arrival of modernity and its struggle to throw off the Classical episteme. Foucault's The Order of Things is especially useful in this context as, although he does not explicitly refer to the sublime, he does identify an emerging mode of experience which helps us to account for Shelley's representation of subjectivity. Additionally, the novel parallels Kristeva's construction of the subject as constituted through a series of drives. Kristeva may seem to be an odd choice of theorist given the premise of my book, but what I want to explore is how the novel prefigures her version of the subject. Ultimately Frankenstein replaces the sublime with a nascent form of the unconscious, one which looks forward to psychoanalysis but which is used by Shelley in order to provide an antidote to sublime excess. To get to this unconscious we need to start by looking at how the sublime is played out as a complex series of exchanges between a variety of characters in the novel, exchanges which imply the existence of a variety of perceptions on the sublime, and which in turn invite an investigation into its social provenance.