Monstrous Philosophy the Modern Prometheus, Paradise Lost, and Victorian Protestant Culture
Monstrous Philosophy
The Modern Prometheus, Paradise Lost, and Victorian Protestant Culture
Though separated by over a century, Mary Shelley and John Milton were philosophical companions, their challenging views considered controversial and heretical in their respective periods. Together they are the most prominent literary voices of the Enlightenment philosophical movement, emphasizing the romantic ideals of human goodness, compassion and free will in stark contrast to the harsh cynicism of a Calvinist society. John Calvin was an influential theologian and philosopher contemporary with Milton, who argued that humanity is depraved and salvation can only be attained through predestination, and free will and good acts cannot change whether one goes to heaven or hell because God has already decided their place. Though Milton was a Presbyterian Protestant and a supporter of the reformation, he was also an outspoken and advocate for human rights and religious tolerance. Mary Shelley was the daughter of vilified feminist and atheist academics, and a scandalous free spirit who criticized and threw off the rigid moral confines of Victorian society.
Human life was a cheap commodity in these times, the wretched were discarded into asylums or workhouses. Executions were humiliating public displays, and men like Galvani were permitted to experiment on the corpses in grotesque spectacles. Life was nasty, brutish and short in the words of Thomas Hobbes, a Calvinist philosopher who argued that all people are inherently evil from birth and therefore must have goodness beaten into them. For much of antiquity child rearing was an exercise in brutality and neglect. The modern notion that “it shouldn’t hurt to be a child” would have been a totally foreign concept in these times, and childhood was seen as an unfortunate condition best to be purged as quickly as possible. “Nature versus Nurture”, the concept that one’s upbringing influenced an individual’s mental wellbeing
The Modern Prometheus, Paradise Lost, and Victorian Protestant Culture
Though separated by over a century, Mary Shelley and John Milton were philosophical companions, their challenging views considered controversial and heretical in their respective periods. Together they are the most prominent literary voices of the Enlightenment philosophical movement, emphasizing the romantic ideals of human goodness, compassion and free will in stark contrast to the harsh cynicism of a Calvinist society. John Calvin was an influential theologian and philosopher contemporary with Milton, who argued that humanity is depraved and salvation can only be attained through predestination, and free will and good acts cannot change whether one goes to heaven or hell because God has already decided their place. Though Milton was a Presbyterian Protestant and a supporter of the reformation, he was also an outspoken and advocate for human rights and religious tolerance. Mary Shelley was the daughter of vilified feminist and atheist academics, and a scandalous free spirit who criticized and threw off the rigid moral confines of Victorian society.
Human life was a cheap commodity in these times, the wretched were discarded into asylums or workhouses. Executions were humiliating public displays, and men like Galvani were permitted to experiment on the corpses in grotesque spectacles. Life was nasty, brutish and short in the words of Thomas Hobbes, a Calvinist philosopher who argued that all people are inherently evil from birth and therefore must have goodness beaten into them. For much of antiquity child rearing was an exercise in brutality and neglect. The modern notion that “it shouldn’t hurt to be a child” would have been a totally foreign concept in these times, and childhood was seen as an unfortunate condition best to be purged as quickly as possible. “Nature versus Nurture”, the concept that one’s upbringing influenced an individual’s mental wellbeing