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ChrisVonae t1_iu0henc wrote

Reply to comment by Publius82 in TIL Thomas Edison produced the first Frankenstein movie - a 1910 silent film adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 book. by 1900grs

She was present with Lord Byron and several others during a reading of a recently translated (German Gothic novel) Fantasmagoriana.

Byron then challenged the attendees to write a better ghost novel. Resulting in Frankenstein and Vampyr.

Both lean heavily into pre-existing concepts, local legends and fairy tales. Neither were 'original' concepts.

In fact, Shelley just took a pre-existing local legend from a castle in Germany. The castles name? You guessed it, Frankenstein (Burg).

The local legend (around 100s of years prior to Shelley's work) was of a local alchemist, Johann Dippel, trying to create an elixir of life. He experimented on human corpses to create a monster. Sounding familiar?

Shelley was known to have visited the area on a trip up the Rhine.

Ok, so Shelley ripped the idea off a local legend. Does this matter? Not really. While it's untrue to say it was an 'original' concept.. that doesn't detract from the rest of the skill and effort involved. And most stories are born out of pre-existing legends/myths.. so it's nothing new.

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Publius82 t1_iu0rtj5 wrote

I mean it always was kind of suspicious she wrote it so quickly

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ChrisVonae t1_iu10vlf wrote

True; but most stories are taken from somewhere else. Original thought is incredibly rare.

For example, much of Tolkien's LOTR was from old anglo-Saxon legends and myths. In fact the 'cursed ring' idea came from a very real 'cursed ring' (called the Silvianus Ring) a ring belonging to a british-Roman, and subsequently stolen. The owner, Silvianus, crrated a curse (written on a stone tablet, which still exists) to bring poor health and madness to whoever wears it, until it is returned.

Lots of parts of Tolkien's works can be traced to old myths and legends (primarily anglo-saxon as mentioned) he reshaped them and stitched them all together.

Shelley was ultimately 'set homework' by Byron via his challenge, and she wanted to win.. she needed a story quickly.

Another guest at the party with Byron was JW Polidori.. who wrote the 'Vampyre'. This was once again a pre-existing story re-hashed (as was dracula etc etc).

Shelley comes into a lot of criticism (perhaps because she's a female?) - the only thing that she is incorrectly credited with, is the first horror/gothic novel. Gothic/horror stories had existed for 100s of years prior to Shelley's book - there are countless examples, including the book that Byron read to them all that evening.

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PVDeviant- t1_iu218dw wrote

>Other rumours about Dippel appear to be modern inventions, too. For example, that which said he performed experiments with cadavers, in which he attempted to transfer the soul of one cadaver into another. Soul-transference with cadavers was a common experiment among alchemists at the time and was a theory that Dippel supported in his writings, thus making it possible that Dippel pursued similar objectives,[4] but there is no direct evidence to link him to these specific acts. There is also no evidence to the rumour that he was driven out of town when word of his activities reached the ears of the townspeople — though he was often banned from countries, notably Sweden and Russia, for his controversial theological positions. He also eventually had to flee to Giessen after killing a man in a duel

Sez Wikipedia.

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ChrisVonae t1_iu228lf wrote

Swedenborg made reference to Dippel's 'heinous' experiments, and strange practices in addition to their fued over religious ideology - although he never explicitly mentioned what those were.. using cadavers was common place at the time, so it must have been something more substantial to warrant the reaction.

But equally legends and myths all evolve over time, often from a foundation of truth. The Bible/Jesus is an example of this.. people add (and alter) the stories over time and add new bits. So modern additions based more on rumour than fact are to be expected.

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