『프랑켄슈타인』에 나타난 ‘공포’와 ‘숭고’
Terror and the Sublime in Frankenstein
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This essay explores the relationship between terror in Gothic literature and the sublime as explained by Edmund Burke. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein presents a world of terror evoked by a grotesque story in Gothic novels and the sublime in Burke's Enquiry. According to Burke, terror is latently the ruling principle of the sublime. In Frankenstein, the objects that can induce Frankenstein to arouse the strongest emotion, the sublime with terror are a 'creature' and 'nature'. The creature of Frankenstein is exceedingly ugly and therefore invokes feelings of terror and operates in a manner analogous to the sublime. Nature likewise invokes feelings of awe, also a form of the sublime. However, objects of nature are not referred as the sublime because the sublime cannot be contained in any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason in the Kantian sense. I focus on the fact that the sublime does not derive from such an object but from the cognition of the subject who experiences it visually. Therefore, Frankenstein's cognitive faculty of the creature and nature in Frankenstein warrants the judgement of the sublime. The creature thus cannot but be an instance of 'unhallowed art' and the ugly monster compared to the beauty of Elizabeth. It is finally destroyed by Frankenstein because it has been created against the laws of nature. The power of the sublime qua nature forces Frankenstein —who created a being who does not belong to nature— to inevitably submit to nature as the objective world created by God and finally drives him to a tragic end. But this tragic ending is the force of the sublime as Frankenstein's inner perception and not as the object of nature. The most relevant aspect consists in the fact that the perception of objects derives from a cognizance limited by social and religious ideas of the 19th century. Even though the Gothic resists the establishment of civilized values and the sublime characterizes the 'limitlessness' that can reveal the power of resistance of a well-regulated society, both are confined to the Zeitgeist in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Abstract
This essay explores the relationship between terror in Gothic literature and the sublime as explained by Edmund Burke. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein presents a world of terror evoked by a grotesque story in Gothic novels and the sublime in Burke's Enquiry. According to Burke, terror is latently the ruling principle of the sublime. In Frankenstein, the objects that can induce Frankenstein to arouse the strongest emotion, the sublime with terror are a 'creature' and 'nature'. The creature of Frankenstein is exceedingly ugly and therefore invokes feelings of terror and operates in a manner analogous to the sublime. Nature likewise invokes feelings of awe, also a form of the sublime. However, objects of nature are not referred as the sublime because the sublime cannot be contained in any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason in the Kantian sense. I focus on the fact that the sublime does not derive from such an object but from the cognition of the subject who experiences it visually. Therefore, Frankenstein's cognitive faculty of the creature and nature in Frankenstein warrants the judgement of the sublime. The creature thus cannot but be an instance of 'unhallowed art' and the ugly monster compared to the beauty of Elizabeth. It is finally destroyed by Frankenstein because it has been created against the laws of nature. The power of the sublime qua nature forces Frankenstein —who created a being who does not belong to nature— to inevitably submit to nature as the objective world created by God and finally drives him to a tragic end. But this tragic ending is the force of the sublime as Frankenstein's inner perception and not as the object of nature. The most relevant aspect consists in the fact that the perception of objects derives from a cognizance limited by social and religious ideas of the 19th century. Even though the Gothic resists the establishment of civilized values and the sublime characterizes the 'limitlessness' that can reveal the power of resistance of a well-regulated society, both are confined to the Zeitgeist in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
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