Intertextuality in Shelley’s Frankenstein

At first glance, Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel entitled Frankenstein looks like any other novel. Upon opening the front cover, however, readers will begin to notice that the novel is not just the story of a man terrorized by his creation of a human-like being. To the curious and observant reader, the novel can serve as a portal through which they can reach many other texts. This quality, intertextuality, allows the novel to say more than the words written upon its pages. One example of intertextuality in this novel is Shelley’s use of William Wordsworth’s 1798 poem entitled “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.” (The poem will be referred to as “Tintern Abbey” throughout this essay for the sake of the audience.) In fact, Shelley’s novel mirrors Wordsworth’s poem in many ways, demonstrating that intertextuality is more important than just the instance when the second text is quoted within the first.

Shelley quotes “Tintern Abbey” at the point in the story when Victor Frankenstein is traveling home with his father after recovering from the illness that overcame him upon learning upon Henry Clerval’s death. At face value, a sentence fragment precedes the quote, which completes Victor’s thoughts about his deceased friend. Looking beneath the surface, however, we see that there are distinct similarities between Frankenstein and “Tintern Abbey.” One such similarity is that both contain explicit and detailed descriptions of nature. Both Shelley and Wordsworth use these descriptions to invite the reader in, allowing the reader to enter into the worlds that they have created. While in Frankenstein these details mostly provide a background to the story, thus making it believable, Wordsworth uses these descriptions to enhance the impression that the narrator makes upon the reader, as they are one of the few means that the reader has to see into the soul of the narrator. As nature is important to the narrator of the poem, it is likewise very important to the creature Frankenstein creates.

If the reader should read “Tintern Abbey” after reading Frankenstein, they may notice a certain similarity between the narrator of the poem and Victor. The poem reads “And so I dare to hope / Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first / I came among these hills; … / … more like a man /Flying from something that he dreads, than one / who sought the thing he loved” (lines 66-73). Like Victor, the narrator is chased by the fear of something that he has done. In the case of the narrator, however, the thing that is chasing him is his wasting his “hour of thoughtless youth” (line 91) upon the aspects of nature that could be observed visually, and not upon those that required mental examination.

Wordsworth’s poem ends as follows: “Nor wilt thou then forget, / That after many wanderings, many years / Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me / More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.” The narrator further professes the impact that his youth spent in nature has had upon his life. While this section of the poem is not actually included in Frankenstein, we can see how it relates to Victor’s story. Even at the end of his life, Victor carries the memories of the people whose lives his creation has impacted or ended. Even through their absence, he has not forgotten them, and he carries them very close to his heart.

Unfortunately, intertextuality is only an effective tool if the reader is familiar with both texts. The average present-day reader may not actually be familiar with “Tintern Abbey,” but if they should search it out and read it, they will see that the similarities between the two texts serve to enhance the story of Frankenstein through the incorporation of themes and ideas from “Tintern Abbey” into the novel.