What We’re Reading

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the first books I teach for a Literature course, and the work is rich for its moral implications, Romantic critique of Enlightenment power and scientism, exploration of the limitations of justice, and so much more. It is appropriate, in my mind, for a teacher to reread the works they regularly teach (I have taught Frankenstein for the past three years). And there is a unique critique of Romantism that opened up to me this year. While Shelley was, herself, a Romantic, the characters who best embody the traits and values of Romanticism are actually the ones most ignorant of the truth of what is going on in the text while it is the Enlightenment characters—though harshly critiqued—who do, in fact, know what is going on. Take Clerval as the perfect example of this problem, the very Romanticist Clerval is ultimately ignorant of the scope of Victor’s creation of the Monster, the Monster’s rampage, and what is happening to the Frankenstein family. Despite being a critique of Enlightenment pride and power, the work is not entirely an apologia for Romanticism.

~ Paul Krause

Margaret Ray, “The End of August.” Crickets, beetles, and cicadas alike gather around to enjoy the final moments of summer. They talk to the highest grass in the fields during the last few mornings of dew and fog. This time of year, they say, ‘everything will die and before I have to become…something better.’ “The End of August” explores the normalcy and routine of being content and simultaneously stuck. But there is a promise of death. Death to oneself; death to the ruminating mind; and death to the past. This image should reassure readers as they place themselves sitting on a windowsill, looking towards a life that is long-overdue. Here I am, the poet exclaims. I am ready.

~ Sarah Tillard

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