Shelley's shocks

摘要

Electricity seemed new and magical, its limits not yet known: could it really arouse the dead? The Frankenstein story expressed an era's trepidation at the prospect of discovering the secret of life. The popular image of the magus-scientist who discovers the ultimate key to the creation of life has a long history, from the era of the alchemists to the more alarmist accounts of the recent cloning of Dolly. Never was there a greater sense that the secret of life was in the process of being disclosed than in the late eighteenth century, in the wake of revelations about the life-giving properties of 'oxygenated air' and sensational experiments with electricity.