Webcomic (13)
Oh yeah, this comic. Apologies for the bile, but one of the essays which went into my portfolio this year (submitted in lieu of an exam in paper 3; which covers the 'Enlightenment') was on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, and then this book by John Lauritsen came out. Talk about a massive step back in terms of gender equality. A pregnant girl couldn't possibly have been the original composer of Frankenstein, and must have been entirely in thrall to Percy Shelley. Despite being confident enough to elope from home at the age of sixteen. Despite the analogies between her own pregnancy and the novel's motif of birth. And despite the cliched rubbish that other more mature participents in the ghost story competition came out with (such as Byron's contribution The Vampyre, later turned into a Gothic novel by his doctor Polidori. Also, Laurinsten claims to find 'gay codes' within Frankenstein:
Lauritsen reads the text from the perspective of a gay historian pointing out instance after instance of homoerotic imagery and encoded social commentary.
If that's not reading with an agenda, I don't know what is. Kind of like those mental Americans who knew 9/11 was coming because they read every thirteenth letter of the bible. All of which builds up to dismissing Mary Shelley as "a badly educated teenager".
Seriously, this guy sounds exactly like your stereotypical Cambridge fellow; enamoured with the Romantics, a little bit frightened of women, and gay as a window in a really out-dated, Brideshead Revisited kind of way.
Also, who reckons that last panel would look awesome on a t-shirt?
Tune of the moment: The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
Jac
Labels: Webcomic