Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Golden, John

Abstract

After 1815's eruption of Mount Tambora, the following period was named the "Year without a Summer" and experienced irregularly cold weather, failed crops, rampant disease, and riots. In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley met in the Alps and wrote "Darkness," "Mont Blanc," and Frankenstein respectively. This thesis focuses on these works' depictions of nature in light of how these features may have been impacted by the climate. It argues in Chapter One that the volcanic eruption caused global climate changes that affected these writers. In Chapter Two, it illustrates differences in nature's representation between first generation and second generation Romantic works. The conclusion synthesizes the arguments made in Chapters One and Two, suggesting that 1816's climate affected these writers in such a way as to produce an environment from which science fiction could emerge in Frankenstein.

Extent

95 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00004504

Format

pdf

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