Monday 9 March 2015

Will Frankenstein's monster ride again?

I was pointed toward a blog recently, via a facebook conversation where I wondered whether there was a difference between the meaning of the words 'Disability' and 'Handicap' (I appreciate one is favoured over the other, yet to me they say exactly the same thing). Said blog did not provide an answer, though I confess not to looking terribly hard beyond reading the description and the most recent post. It is a modern fashion to be offended by and sensitive to labels, usually on behalf of others, though not in this situation, and one that I rather think we should reject.

But anyway.

The first article was discussing various artists that had suffered a late onset disability including Goya, and while scanning through I came across the following:

"Nor should we ignore the wider context of Romanticism that saw artists and writers turning away from the rationality of the age in favour of raw nature and emotion.   Goya called a 1799 print “the sleep of reason produces monsters”.  It was in this context that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816."

Was Goya an Emo? I wonder if this has anything to say about our present age of rationality?

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